More 40th anniversary celebration

This photo is from I believe Spring of 1974. I was back from my first stay in Japan and was doing an aikido club at Cabrillo Junior College along with Steve Gray. Steve was part of the first group of shodans produced by the UC Santa Cruz Aikido led by Robert Frager sensei. I left for my second Japan stay in August of that year. I'm not sure what if anything happened to that club. Those of us still alive from back then were obviously much younger. I don't have any real memories of that club other than it was fun.

We have a tentative date for the celebration of my 40th year in Aikido. That date is Sunday November 15th. It will be at the dojo, include a day of training, a meal(light), some music, and , hopefully, some memorable people from the past 40 years. The event is also a fundraiser. We get our portion of the power bill around then. Last year it went up by almost a thousand or so, and I'm expecting more of the same this year in a down economy.

Again, tentatively, some people have indicated that they are interested in attending. I started with Robert Frager at the UC Santa Cruz Aikido Club in October of 1969. At that time he and Robert Nadeau worked very closely together. So, between teaching exchanges(Santa Cruz and Mt View) and co-taught workshops, they were both my original influences in aikido. They combined to pass on a deep reverence for and appreciation of Aikido's founder, Ueshiba Morihei Osensei. And their more humanistic transpersonal approach to aikido was very important in shaping this area's uniqueness.

Linda Holiday sensei has indicated that she probably can make it and do some teaching as well. Hopefully the tides of fate will flow so that this is possible. More on the rest of the people teaching soon as this event develops. I plan on doing some teaching. But I would like to acknowledge people from my past and also people from the history of Aikido of San Jose. So there will be several people teaching. As this firms up, I will let you know.

I have been doing the music for the past 2 years. Recently I have begun playing with Dennis Kyne from the dojo. Dennis is a very talented musician. We've done the background for the 2 most recent videos on youtube. We'll probably play a few numbers, which require audience attention, then just jam. Then people can talk or listen as they wish. This went very well at the most recent weekend workshop in Sebastopol. I received some very kind words from Artt Frank, who was an incredibly close friend of Chet Baker, recently. So hopefully the playing is coming along. I just feel that you can only play for yourself so long and that at sometime you have to try and communicate what is going on with you at an inner level.

So, stay tuned.........

I was referred to this video on youtube and I think it is incredibly clever. Iron Man vs Bruce Lee. With a surprising conclusion. In 1970 there was a comic book event on the UC Santa Cruz campus. A number of us attending were given a chance to speak into a tape recorder, with the assurance that Stan Lee himself would hear the tape. I mentioned I thought martial arts would be important in both comics and media in the future. I saw an interview with Stan recently where he said Bruce Lee was the prime reason for such Marvel titles as Iron Fist and Master of Kung Fu. Probably no correlation but an interesting aside. And, as this video shows, it is possible for someone with training and no super powers to be a super hero.