Terry Dobson birthname Walter Norton Dobson III (1937–1992) was an American aikido pioneer, aikido teacher, and writer, who studied intimately with the founder of aikido, Morihei Ueshiba.
Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts to a wealthy family on June 9, 1937 and moving to New York City in 1940, Dobson had a tumultuous childhood.
Raised by his alcoholic mother and stepfather, he did not meet his real father, who had been disgraced after it was discovered that he forged his degree to get into Harvard Business School, until his late teens.
Terry went to the Buckley School and then Deerfield Academy, both prestigious private schools, where he excelled at American football.
After receiving a scholarship to play at Franklin & Marshall, he quickly failed out and trained for a summer with the New York Football Giants under Vince Lombardi, the line coach at the time. He was a US Marine doing helicopter maintenance during the Lebanon crisis of 1958, and attended New York University for a brief period.
In 1959 he went to Japan to assist in rural development and teach English.
To be continued.
Source: Facebook/Aikido
