more Japantown dojo musings

I am in the process of organizing for a move. So I am trying to get my storage space set so that it can take a lot of my current at large stuff. So I've been looking through old stuff. There is some interesting "stuff" so I'm thinking about doing a dojo garage sale some weekend and some old items can be made available. I have a complete vhs set of Kolchak the Night Stalker, the classic '70's Darren McGavin show.
I have a boxed set of Honor Blackman Avengers VHs also. I have many Kato sensei videos that were shot in the '90's. Even if you're not that into the aikido, it is a blast to see who was training in those days. There is quite a turnover in a dojo in 10 to 15 years. I have several "Leave it to Chance" books written by James Robinson, the writer of my favorite all-time comic book series, Starman. It is a cross between Kolchak and Buffy , with a memorable female protagonist. And with Robinson's excellent writing. He left comics to do movie scripts. He did "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" and is currently back in comics doing the Superman titles. I hope he revives the Jack Knight Starman. Please.....

I came across these photos while I was looking through stuff. From the group photo you can see the turnover from 20 plus years in the dojo. From my count there are only 3 active people from that group, and only one active in the dojo presently. Can you pick this person out?

Of course the most memorable part of the '80's Jtown dojo experience was the opportunity to be with my daughter Jennifer. She lived in the dojo well into 1987 along with her mom. After Sarah and I separated and later divorced, Jenny was often there after school and her mom would pick her up. And she continued to spend weekends and several weeknights there. But the time i will remember was the time she was pretty small and would be with me between classes. And would come with me to San Jose State when I was teaching there during the days. So if I had had a regular job, I would not have been so involved in her day to day as I was. There is a lot of time
between classes for an aikido instructor, and she and I got to spend a lot of time together.

I found an old vhs of her 6th birthday party which was held at the dojo. Robert Eyre, Peter Ralls, Tom Tabakin, and Lenny Pollak(who was at the recent 40th anniversary celebration in November) were all present. Lenny with his daughter Dawn and Tom with his daughter Jessica. I was going to try to put some of this online, but I won't without my daughter's permission. I had bought a used video camera from someone for $150. It was very large and needed to be hooked up to a vcr. This was used to shoot her party. I found a clip of myself doing the t'ai chi sabre form. This I am putting online: