Gary David

Mr. McGrew
Some things:

1. You started this

2. What Fred Little said (both times)

3. I am no one's lap dog

4. I am not a student of Dan Harden's...his direct students work out in his barn.

5. I call Dan friend and he is one of my many teachers.

6. My granddaughter is one of my teachers.

7. Dan, along with several others, are filling the holes in my understanding of what powers Aikido and my abilities to apply this in my Aikido.

8. I have been at this 37 years, starting Aikido in 1974.

9. The Aikido folks on here that have had positive results in their Aikido from their contact with Dan likely have several hundred years of combined training with most of them cross training in other arts.

10. I have taken (well not much lately at my age) ukemi from most of the big names that came over from Japan, all of the shihan sent here early on, many of the other big names including Kisshomaru Ueshiba, Koichi Tohei, Shoji Nishio Sensei, Yasuo Kobayashi , Fumio Toyoda, Shoji Nishio, Mitsugi Saotome, Terry Dobson, Frank Doran, Robert Nadeau, my first instructor Harry Ishisaka, John Clodig (Aiki Jujitsu) Don Angier (Aiki Jujitsu) and on....... I have some sense of what is and what isn't...

11. When I knew Terry Dobson he never moved off the line.....somehow we angled off the line. It wasn't him bumping us with his belly.

12. Terry was a story teller and he told a few about O'Sensei, one of which revolves around Terry telling O'Sensei how impressed he (Terry) was with Wang Shu Jin and O'Sensei's physical response which is nothing anyone else has every talked about being able to do.

13. I gave another of the of the Americans a ride to the airport, one had who spent time with O'Sensei in Japan in the 60's talking spiritual/metaphysical with him. None of the other Japanese in the dojo at the time spent any of this kind of time with O'Sensei...they couldn't make sense of what he was talking about and had no problem with the American talking something that was not waza

14. I ask my wife to explain the role of the teacher to me and her response was that the teacher's role was to help the student to reach their full potential.....at that point it was the student responsibility to then use that potential to fill out their understanding by finding their own way.

15. A good friend of mind who is a long time martial artist told me that at some point you will reach the extent of what your current teacher can give you and you will need to move on. Moving on means a lot of self-work and self-discovery mixed with the inputs from others as checks. Cross training helps with the checks.

16. Enough already

My point being that I have enough time in grade and have touched enough teachers to understand what was passed along and what wasn't....and the way things are going even more will be lost if things can't be re-discovered. Dan and others are helping to fill in the gaps......maybe you should take a chance and see what is waiting......

Gary