Aikido is Love text

Damn, I'm not very advanced yet, I can only enjoy 1 out of 3. Sigh.
<Note to self: Must train harder!!>

On a more level note: first visiting Japanese shihan, private visit early 90's in Cape Town. Skinny, old, his fawning students accompanying him were good at showing what to do, though I did not understand what it was at the time. The shihan smoked like a chimney and showed what I thought was a demeaning manner towards his students after class and at the hotel, etc. I remember my first dissonant thoughts of "wait a minute...."

Good point, Mike.
Basically, everyone still puts on their hakama one leg at a time ( exept for one sempai at the old Iwama dojo, who after a rather wet lunch with Saito Sensei, managed to put both legs into one side of his hakama, and didn't realize it before entering the dojo!).

I am happy to see in my part of the Aikido world, that many of the older sensei have moved past the pure physically focused part of their training, and have developed very much in terms of their spiritual awareness - and also the way they impliment this in their daily lives.

I think this awareness is best when it develops out of a long life of good, hard training - which as I mentioned before, in my opinion is the traditional way of developing in any discipline. It's sort of like listening to a 12-year old waxing philosophic about the deeper meaning of life - you need some hands-on experience of things before you can reach the higher levels of awareness.

In Aiki,

Ethan