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Allen Beebe wrote:
DING, DING, DING!
Do I win a prize? Huh? Do I? Do I?
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Quote:
Allen Beebe wrote:
Maybe the same prize I got when I first met the present Doshu. It was 1986 at a Tohoku University Gashuku. (For some reason they put Doshu and I together . . . alone . . . in a large locker room.  |
It was obviously your aura, Allen.
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Allen Beebe wrote:
This meeting was memorable for a few different reasons. One of them was that I wore a new indigo dyed hakama for the first time ever. Not only did it turn my gi, and my hands, purple but when we sat for instruction (mudansha on one side, yudansha on another) I could see every mudansha I had trained with was purple/blue as well!  |
Ah, the blue cotton hakamas, especially loved by the more conservative university aikido clubs, perhaps because they are like well-tended denim. When the color fades, it is obvious to all how hard you have been training, especially round the knees. A few rips help as well.
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Allen Beebe wrote:
Anyway, at a certain point Doshu came over and asked me in a friendly way who I had learned from and I replied, "Tohei sensei." He smiled broadly and commented, "Oh, Tohei from Chicago!" To which I corrected, "Actually Tohei Koichi."
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This was in 1986, when he was still Dojo-cho. His hair was still black then, I believe. To give him credit, he has mellowed somewhat, but still follows the Aikikai View of History.
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Allen Beebe wrote:
There was a sudden temperature change in the room and I seemed to disappear . . . at least to Doshu.
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Actually his father was very good at sudden temperature changes. I remember an interview in Doshu's house, which was next to the Hombu Dojo, at 17-19 Wakamatsu-cho. I mentioned another veteran aikido teacher, whose name also starts with TO. There was certainly a temperature change, but invisibility was not an option on this occasion, since I was sitting opposite him drinking tea served by his wife. Mild apoplexy was substituted, as I heard the words almost spat out, "What that man was doing was not aikido..."
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Allen Beebe wrote:
Funny, I don't even recall seeing him as we changed afterward.
So . . . that must be the big prize . . . the gift of invisibility!!
Like the wind . . . 
Anon |
Ah. So he became invisible, not you.
PAG