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Old 12-20-2012, 11:32 PM   #31
Ellis Amdur
 
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Location: Seattle
Join Date: May 2003
Posts: 934
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A Little Courtesy, Please

My column has a title: "It Had To Be Felt" - an obvious play on the phrase "it has to be felt." As a column title, it's mine as much as Peter Goldsbury is "Tradition, Inheritance and Emulation" - TIE for short. Like Peter's, the columns are numbered. As I've written before, I'm hoping each column can become an archive of people's experience with a particular teacher. Those, for example, who trained under Masuda Seijuro, can post a follow-up to Maurice Gauthier's warm piece. Unlike forum topics, which quickly disappear, the columns have the potential of being a significant resource - an archive - for quite some time.

Therefore, it is rather disconcerting that others feel free to appropriate my title. The problem is more difficult in that both those who have done so, have had "good reasons." But there are always good reasons.

Ross Robertson wished to make a point - as best as I can tell, believing that something essential was left out from all the writer's accounts, and hence he made "It Had to Be Felt" #0. Whether I agree with his point or not, that was kind of witty as well as nullish, so I let it go without comment.

Recently, a second piece was posted on the forum section, a beautiful eulogy, in fact, entitled "It had to Be Felt, #31. It would still make a great follow-up to column #22 on that teacher, and, in fact, I'd dearly love if the author placed it there, in addition to the forum thread it is now. (Jun moved it and retitled it at my request).

In fact, #31, upcoming, will be Tamura sensei. If I let this subject go, it becomes a trend, a term that anyone will feel free to appropriate. The title sets a certain frame, just as Sue Dalton's "The Mirror" or Peter's TIE. Aside from that, the numbers are an organizing device, so that people can keep track of what's new.

So please respect the title as mine. Please post your own rich experiences as follow-ups to columns about teacher's already up. If there's someone else you wish to write on, please contact me and we can discuss that further. I have five or six columns pending on other teachers, and continue to reach out to people for their memories about still more exemplary aikido instructors.

Ellis Amdur

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