Diana Frese

I know I mentioned this in another thread, but "The Professor" Chen Man-Ching's student Lou Kleinsmith was an assistant instructor at NY Aikikai.

His original background was judo, I believe, so he knew three martial arts. His picture was in a judo book as one of the participants , he taught class regularly at NY Aikikai and he also taught class as an assistant to "The Professor." The Tai Chi students simply called the place where Chen Man-Ching taught "downtown" .

Yamada Sensei was the chief instructor at NY Aikikai and he had several "senpais" (thought we didn't know the word.) help teach us. And Sensei knew Lou studied Tai Chi. One time he teased us while assisting as Tohei Koichi Sensei was teaching a technique based on the famous "relax completely" principle.

"What are you doing, Tai Chi?" he said mischievously watching us as we tried to copy what had been shown.

Although this was many years ago, it shows that at one time several students went to both places. The Tai Chi people even put a notice on the Aikikai bulletin board inviting us to watch a class, because they knew some of us were curious.

About Lou, I especially remember how he did ikkyo ura. He had the arm and he just walked behind uke holding uke's arm loosely with his own arms relaxed and just put the arm on the ground.
That's what he told us, just put the arm on the ground. His posture was perfectly well balanced, there was no strain and it was effective.

Through our minds went the thought, "How did he do that, it looked so easy." I'm sure most of you know what was going on, but back then we just thought it was a good way to learn to do ikkyo ura. Those tai chi people were always telling us to relax. But they were also aikido people.

Push hands was another thing to our minds, however and it was quite an experience to be on the receiving end of that, when someone dropped their center and with non stiff arms splatted us against the wall with our shoulders aiming towards imaginary clothespins on an imaginary clothesline.it seems to me now. They had fun doing that to us outside of Aikido class, I'm not sure they ever tried it in the dojo after class. I don't remember being splatted against the dojo walls by them...( That was one way to be reminded by friends to keep one point, but theirs were lower at least lower than mine, and my best friend took tai chi and decided to share that part with me....)

Yes there was some sharing and some cross training going on. Some of us actually tried the forms for a few months but it was hard keeping two training schedules.

One funny thing I remember from seeing the film of the Professor, Sudden recognition. Although he had gray hair and a little gray beard he was almost skipping through some of the movements. He seemed to be almost laughing, like a kid, "lookit what I'm doing, it's fun."

(Lou had a kind of mysterious smile, too, a bit similar, but totally American.)

You may not believe this next, but I have to tell it. One day quite some time before the visit "downtown" to see what our friends were practicing, I was riding on the West Side IRT or IND or something, I forget which one. I saw a gray haired Chinese gentleman laughing at me.

This was disconcerting, because at the time Bob Newhart had already come out with the record about looking in the mirror and finding out he had been walking around in public with a bit of spinach in his front teeth. I checked, I had no spinach. And my clothes seemed to be average.

This was in the back of my mind and bothered me until the invitation by my Tai Chi friends. What a relief to know he might have just been quietly laughing to himself and not at me.

Funny stories aside, I just wanted to contribute something about sharing from the Chinese arts way back in the sixties.