My 50th Year part one

I started Aikido in fall of 1969. I was an undergraduate at UC Santa Cruz in my senior year. I had been doing Japanese karate for about a year, but in following martial arts magazines had become interested in the Japanese art of Aikido. I read an article in Black Belt Magazine called "The Old Man and the Ki".It profiled Aikido's founder Morihei Ueshiba Osensei. Initially what grabbed my attention were the photos. He was old, yet something shined through the photos that indicated he was not aged. Even the pictures radiated something I could feel. Sometime later I ran into an article in Psychology Today magazine entitled "The Psychology of the Samurai". It examined the mental components behind the physical training of Japan's legendary swordsmen. And much of the article was about Morihei Ueshiba and Aikido. I remember saying to myself, "I wish I could do Aikido!"

Well, I went back onto the Santa Cruz campus for Fall orientation and lo and behold, there were posters up announcing the formation of an Aikido club on campus. And during Orientation Week there was to be a demonstration on the Cowell College quad area. Of course I went to the demo. I found out Robert Frager, a Psychology professor at Merrill College would be teaching the club. Also at the demo was Robert Nadeau, who ran a full time dojo in Mt. View. The demonstration was a lot about how the mind and the body were one. Not just about technical matters. Anyway I joined the club, which met Mondays and Wednesdays at the original Field House. In the Winter quarter the club was displaced by intramural basketball and was forced to re-locate to Mission Hill Junior High through the Parks and Rec Department. After a couple of weeks I approached Frager sensei about the Psychology Today article that was so instrumental in my Aikido interest. He smiled at me and said,"Yes, I wrote it......." . Talk about synchronicity.

In those days Frager and Nadeau senseis collaborated quite a bit. They had both trained at Hombu dojo and were Osensei's personal students. They taught once a month workshops in Mt View at Nadeau sensei's dojo. At the time it was one of very few Aikido schools around. Santa Cruz was a club. The workshops were pretty much weekend affairs, with sleep overs Friday and Saturday nights, and ending Sunday afternoons. There was a lot of meditation and energy work. Sound/chanting was explored. They were exploring Osensei's teaching in a very vital way. I have always been grateful that I started Aikido with them. Even though Aikido is a Japanese art and Ueshiba Osensei himself born in Japan, Frager and Nadeau sensei's gave me a much more universal sense of both him and the art....They would show 8mm home movies of the founder as a part of the weekend. These were for me life changing. We are talking 1969-1970. NO CGI. Special effects were by today's standards primitive to non-existent. He seemed to be able to disappear and re-appear. He threw people effortlessly and magically. Even though advanced in years he moved in a way much younger teachers could not......In fact the closest way to describe what I saw him do was in comic books, where motion is left to the imagination. He looked like the archetypal sage as warrior/magician. I was hooked.

At the end of the Spring quarter the students who had started in the fall tested. I took and passed a 4th kyu test and was awarded a  blue belt. Just after the quarter ended I attended a week long training in Mt View. I was awarded a certificate signed by both Frager and Nadeau senseis. I graduated in June of 1970, but I will always see that academic year as my first year in Aikido.