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Separation
from the Aikikai
A.J: Around
what year was that?
Tohei Sensei: About three years after Ueshiba Sensei passed away, in
1971 or 1972. Before then nearly every American dojo had displayed
photographs of both me and the founder, but Kisshomaru started having mine
taken down and replaced with his own.
A.J:It seems that you enjoyed a
good relationship during the time immediately following O-Sensei’s death.
Why did that relationship deteriorate later on?
Tohei
Sensei:In
1971, I proposed that we specifically teach the concept of ki within the
Aikikai. I felt that simply going through the motions of practicing
techniques back and forth on a surface level wouldn’t result in aikido,
because aikido involves ki. I suggested to Mr. Osawa that we create a class
on ki and have people learn that as a basis for their aikido. He rejected the
idea on behalf of the Aikikai, saying that the aikido of the Aikikai is the
aikido of Kisshomaru, and Kisshomaru’s teachings should therefore form the
nucleus of the training. I realized there was no room for me to teach in
that environment and asked if it would be okay for me to pursue my
suggestion outside of the dojo. That would be fine, they said, so I went
out and created a class that focused not on aikido techniques but on
teaching about ki.
I think that my
teaching of ki has contributed much to the growth of aikido. Simple back
and forth practice of aikido techniques is okay for students and other
young people, but older people with less stamina tend to drop out after a
while. My talks on ki were well received by various types of people,
including groups of higher level business executives—managers and
presidents and people like that. However, both Mr. Osawa and Kisshomaru
viewed what I was doing as something removed from aikido.
In the United States
they understood aikido in terms of expressions like "a matter of
mind." In Japan,
however, aikido was just called aikido, so I thought it necessary to
establish the concept of ki in Japan as well. Mr. Osawa was a
very good man and he listened to what I had to say. At that time, however,
he was making efforts to support Kisshomaru and tried to prevent people
from participating in my training.
They refused to let me
teach about ki within the Aikikai, but said I was free to do whatever I
liked on the outside. With that understanding I started my class at the
Olympic Center. It proved very popular and within three months a hundred
students had enrolled. Mr. Osawa was surprised when he heard about that and
came to me to ask if I would be interested in doing such a class within the
Aikikai! I was pretty irritated and said I thought it was a little late for
that.
None of the people coming to my class on ki knew anything about aikido and
they weren’t really interested in pursuing it, since that’s not what they
had come to learn. That wouldn’t have happened if I had been able to create
a class on ki within the Aikikai to begin with. Given the position he was
in, I know Mr. Osawa had to refuse me, but I think he always felt bad about
it. When the General Headquarters of the Ki no Kenkyukai (Ki Society) was
constructed in Tochigi
Prefecture in 1990,
Mr. Osawa contacted me privately and also made a small contribution.
Stories
from Postwar Aikido Scene
A.J: What
kind of people entered the Aikikai following the war?
Tohei Sensei: I taught many of the people who are teachers now... Tada,
Arikawa, Yamaguchi, Okumura, Yamada, Chiba.
Yamada still drops by occasionally.
A.J: Do you have any memorable
training stories from that time?
Tohei Sensei: Well, nothing that’s all that interesting.
Once when I had a hangover I was training with Tamura, who is in France now.
I said, "Look, sometimes I’m going to throw you hard, so be
careful." He must have underestimated my meaning, because when I threw
him he went hurtling across the dojo and put his arm through the window
glass. He should have just tried to stop himself there, but instead he
tried to pull his arm out immediately and ended up injuring himself on the
jagged edges. When I saw what he had done I got angry and without thinking
yelled at him for not waiting until he could extract himself safely. I
immediately regretted it and realized it was cruel to yell at him like that
on top of his injury. I made a point of taking him out for a night on the
town that evening.
Another time I took Tamura and Chiba to a
demonstration in Hiratsuka.
Because it was during the Occupation, martial arts demonstrations of most
kinds were still prohibited. Permission for an aikido demonstration was
granted, however, and we demonstrated before the commander of the garrison
in that area. Our explanation of the principle of non-competition in aikido
was well received and seemed to find sympathy in the audience.
During the
demonstration I did a technique in which I swept Chiba off his feet with a jo. He adjusted
himself on his own to match the movement. But I hate it when people
purposely take unnecessary falls like that, so I told him to stop doing
unnecessary things and threw him with all my might. He flipped completely
upside-down and almost came down right on his head. For a moment I feared
that I had done something terrible to him, and I was relieved to see that
somehow he had landed safely.
There was a student of mine who enrolled at the Aikikai and was praised for
his good ukemi and often accompanied Ueshiba Sensei. I used him as my uke
once during a demonstration at the Hibiya Kokaido [site of the All-Japan
Aikido Demonstration in the early years before the Budokan came to be
used], but he started to roll away even before I had done the throw. I
said, "What the hell are you doing falling over before I’ve even begun
throwing you!? Get out of here!" There were a lot of spectators
present, and I think they were all pretty surprised, but it was also an
unexpected opportunity for them to realize that aikido techniques are not
fake or prearranged.
When I was forty-nine
years old I made an instructional film on aikido in which people like
Masando Sasaki and Seishiro Endo appear as my ukes. Endo also appeared in a
book called Shinshin Toitsu Aikido that is mostly pictures. People like
Saotome and Ichihashi, too, I taught them all at one time or another.
A.J: Do you have any interesting
anecdotes from the time after you left the Aikikai?
Tohei Sensei: About ten years ago in France a bunch of Tamura’s
students came to see me. Apparently Tamura had thought that because of my
age I probably couldn’t do aikido any longer and would only be working with
ki. It seems they came to see with their own eyes whether or not that was
really true, and I think also to get a glimpse of an aikido tenth dan. I
chose eight or so of them and had them come at me in randori. They went
home saying, "Well, Tamura Sensei seems to have been wrong!"
A.J: Do you have any interesting
anecdotes from the time after you left the Aikikai?
Tohei Sensei: About ten years ago in France a bunch of Tamura’s
students came to see me. Apparently Tamura had thought that because of my
age I probably couldn’t do aikido any longer and would only be working with
ki. It seems they came to see with their own eyes whether or not that was
really true, and I think also to get a glimpse of an aikido tenth dan. I
chose eight or so of them and had them come at me in randori. They went
home saying, "Well, Tamura Sensei seems to have been wrong!"
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