by Peter Bernath and David Halprin, Co-editors in Chief, Aikido Online

This interview was conducted at the 2004 USAF Eastern Region Summer Camp by Peter Bernath and David Halprin, Aikido Online's Co-editors in Chief. Thanks to Robert Zimmermann for translating the interview in real time.

Part Four

In books about Aikido, I’ve read that O-Sensei said you should just practice Aikido. But we probably all would say even though we’re 6th dan we don’t understand it that well. Also, we see that there are other people that understand it even less than we do. So, did O-Sensei say you should just practice, or is there something else we should be doing to be able to understand more?

If you have coffee in your cup and you want to drink the coffee, would you bring the cup to you lips and bite into the cup or would you just drink the coffee?

I’m going to say just drink the coffee.

If you want a woman, would you bite her or would you kiss her?

I’m thinking …. I’m going to say kissing. [Laughter]

I would do the same.

So do you mean we have to practice Aikido but use more commonsense?

Yes. Of course, it’s commonsense that you would not bite into a cup to drink coffee. But when you were a baby you didn’t know any better, so you would get something in your mouth and bite into it, and you were told “don’t bite, just drink it.” Therefore, as a baby grows and evolves, he learns not to bite the cup but to just drink the coffee. If your baby were to bite into the cup you would say, “Ah, that’s a healthy baby.” It is appropriate at that time, but as the baby is educated he learns not to bite into the cup. So we, as instructors, do we bite into Aikido or drink of Aikido? As we evolve we go from biting to drinking. We evolve.

So are you saying we can just practice, but as we practice we evolve naturally.

Exactly. You would start by biting the cup, but eventually, as you evolve, you start to drink.

So we don’t have to do anything differently, we just have to live longer?

I don’t know. Each one of us can now drink coffee. We grab the cup, we drink and taste the coffee, we say, “It’s tasty.” But if we bite the cup now, would we be happy? No, we would not. Same thing with Aikido. Do you want to fight, do you want to bite the cup, or would you rather drink?

We’d rather drink. But what if the cup is really annoying? [Laughter]

If you had a cup and you wanted to do shihonage, and shihonage consisted of making the cup turn this way, would that change the taste of the coffee? After you take ukemi and you roll, are you happy?

A long time ago, when you first started, Kanai Sensei told you to do ukemi like this and this, and if you still do it the same way are you still happy with it?

No.

Why?

As time has passed my body has changed a little bit.

The earth is rotating on its axis and its also rotating around the sun in its orbit. That is a technique. But who lives on the earth? We live on the earth. Are we rotating as well? No. Do we then need to turn, to rotate? Do you understand? Today Tamura Sensei did ikkyo. Tamura Sensei’s technique, he can make it work for himself, but if you try the same thing you’ll have a hard time. What does that mean?

You do 10 rolls; Tamura Sensei does just one. Why is that the case? For example, you would teach your students, “OK, you guys do the ukemi 10 times,” but do you, the instructor, do the ukemi 10 times also? [Laughter]

That’s a rhetorical question. That’s why we became instructors.

There are students and instructors; therefore, there is a hierarchy. I am a sensei, you are a student. Can you not interchange that?

Don’t tell the students that. [Laughter]

That’s why we have secrets! But remember that for the longest time, Peter for example, Yamada Sensei had you take the rolls many times. He did that for a long time. He was in the same position as the uke. Those very same things work on the brain. But on which brain do they work? On which side of the brain do they work? It’s very easy. When you write, you write from left to right. Can you write backwards from right to left? You can recite the alphabet, but can you recite it backwards?

Yes, you can, but it’s more difficult.

Right, but it’s hard. Why is it harder? Because you never study, you never practice that.

In Aikido, you roll backwards and forwards, you practice both ways. Why don’t we use that in daily life? Forwards and backwards. From left to right and from right to left, why don’t we use that in daily life?

Our left-brain takes a long, long time to understand things. I see David. His head is up there; his feet are down there. But if I turn David upside down is it still David? Is David upside down still David? Of course! That’s the right brain that can recognize that. So should we still study, for example, only front ukemi and not back ukemi?

What’s the difference between tenkan and irimi? Irimi is going forwards, tenkan is turning and going back. Are they different? Yes, they are different but they are also the same. If I look at David from the front or from the back, it’s still David. Irimi and tenkan are the same, so they are the same, too. But they are also different. If you say, “No, those things are different,” that means only your left brain is working. If you can tell that they are the same, then it’s the right brain. If you can tell they are different, that’s the left brain.

In Aikido, you do ikkyo at 5th kyu, at shodan, at 5th dan, and at 6th dan. It’s still ikkyo. It’s all the same isn’t it? At 5th kyu, normally they do it very poorly, but it’s still ikkyo. It’s not nikyo. Peter’s ikkyo is much better than a 5th kyu’s ikkyo. Yamada Sensei being an 8th dan, his ikkyo is much better than a 6th dan. But what do you expect?

Anne Marie was translating from Spanish to English today. I needed to say some things in Japanese and she couldn’t do a translation from Japanese to English. I asked someone else to do the translation from Japanese to English. So the Spanish was missing. One person from Argentina came to me and said, “Why didn’t you explain in Spanish? I can’t understand a thing.” That was my mistake. Anne Marie couldn’t translate so I changed translators. That’s why David and Barbara get along so well. You don’t have to explain anything but she understands you. She understands you so well that if you grab the key, she would say, “Oh, we’re going somewhere in the car,” as opposed to, “Where are you going?”

Actually she might say, “Where are you going?” [Laughter]

Likely she would say the key is there to just open the door. Any other questions?

Now it’s very important because Kanai Sensei is no longer here. While Kanai Sensei was here there were two heads, but now your group and your group, there is only one overall head. If one side says the other side is mistaken, then everything will fall apart. Therefore, you can never say that one side or the other side is mistaken. Before, as there were two heads, you could say that Kanai Sensei was very good friends with Yamada Sensei, and vice versa, and you had two sides. But now one is missing, so who is whose friend now? This is now a bit of a mystery. So before, Peter and David, you were friends, and now one of the heads is missing, will you still remain as friends? So now you have to be very, very careful. I’m sorry to bring this up, but if, for example, if you were to become sick or worse, who would be in charge of Ft. Lauderdale, or that area? Same story. I’m fine with this … let that be a lesson to the readers ….

So, the question is now, we don’t want any more fights, so what do we do to improve things now in this situation that we are living in now? Kanai Sensei has passed away, so who is the head now? Don’t make a mistake there. Always try to keep a friendship. Don’t fight with each other. That is something that I am concerned about. My advice is not just to take care of things, but do good things and don’t do bad things. That’s all I want to say for now.

On another day we can talk about other things.

The End