That’s why Kanai Sensei said he didn’t want to write a book!
Exactly.
He said if he wrote a book everyone would be mad.
That’s why many people have a funny attitude toward me over these things. If Yamada Sensei. Kanai Sensei and Chiba Sensei all do a similar thing and I do something different, is what I am doing a lie? Is it not correct?
Kanai Sensei said when we practice techniques we strike straight, but he said the correct way to strike from an Aikido point of view is different.
For forty-five years he’s been my friend so I know what you are saying. In the Kanai school it is done this way, in some other school that way, in my school, it is done another way.
So which is correct? (much laughter) Did O-Sensei ever write a book? Wasn’t the book “Budo” by O-Sensei?
O-Sensei never wrote a book, but people interviewed him and wrote down “what he said”. Is that the same as writing a book? That is the case with “Budo” and “Budo Kihon”.
Why didn’t O-Sensei write a book? Was it on purpose, did he think he shouldn’t or was it just not his style to write books?
He couldn’t. From day to day things would change, there would be something new. Whatever you wrote today would be wrong tomorrow. What was true today wouldn’t be true tomorrow. For example, those flowers on the table are really beautiful today but in a year’s time they will be wilted, so how can you say this is it.
For example, today Tamura Sensei did ikkyo a certain way with the arm in a certain position near your head rather than far from your head. So could you take a picture today and show it and say this is valid? Should this be shown as the right way to do Ikkyo? Would that be correct?
You can’t really stop a movement to take a picture and say this is Ikkyo, or that is Ikkyo. Many people try to do it like this, or like that. We use our left-brain and we use our right brain but in the case of Aikido which one is the correct one to use? Which one should dominate?
(Silence, then laughter.)
This is the way I would do it now for myself, but I cannot tell what was correct for O-Sensei. I can only say it is how I do it. If O-Sensei said do it his way that would be fine, but O-Sensei is not around I can’t ask him. Could you ask Kanai Sensei today? Could you go to his coffin or go to the pantheon and knock and say, “Please answer me!”?
It’s too bad because I had a lot of questions I never asked him.
Yes, I had the same feeling, when I was looking at his coffin I thought, “Why did you die! Why couldn’t you last a little bit longer? Damn! Why did you die!” That is why I can’t write about what is correct. I want to write all about my friend Kanai. That is what I can try to write about now.
To be continued…
