Quote:
Szczepan Janczuk wrote:
I don't believe they were allowed to fight back. They had a chance to attack once, and if the attack was not successful, they had to bow and ask to be a student. Maybe after IIWW new students could attack few more times, but still couldn't fight back.
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'I remember that O Sensei always had a strong presence... There was a very special atmosphere when he was around. This came from his physical posture - the way he sat, the way he walked, the way he moved around was so beautiful. Never could I see any opening in O Sensei's posture . . . not ever.'
http://www.aikidofaq.com/chiba_interview.html
'O-Sensei used to tell us to strike at him with a bokken at any time. Whenever he stopped and turned to speak to his audience seemed like a good chance to do so, since he wasn't looking our way at all, but even then nobody tried to strike him. He simply had no openings. He wasn't looking at us with his eyes, but we could feel him holding us fast with his ki. It used to make me break out in an oily sweat, so that I could hardly keep a grip on my bokken.
Still, as his opponents we would keep at it, gradually trying to close the distance. Then, for an instant, an opening would appear. O-Sensei created small openings deliberately to help us train our powers of perception. He wouldn't use people who couldn't demonstrate an ability to perceive such openings.
The instant O-Sensei slightly relaxed the intensity of his kokyu power we would rush in with an attack, but he was already gone. For that reason it looked pre-arranged. Actually, O-Sensei was already moving by the time we began our attack. We were just too slow or lacked the ability to perceive it. I find that sort of thing extremely interesting.'
http://www.aikidojournal.com/article?articleID=251