Upsideinside
“How long is this going to take?”, I asked. We were in Eagle St where…
One evening some of the dojo members were invited to the Chiba household for dinner.…
The stress and pressure of training in San Diego Aikikai was a given, the norm.…
It was and still is astonishing to me that this environment was created in North…
I was still in England when I got interested in Zen Buddhism. I was impressed by Zen and Japanese culture written by Daisetz Suzuki Roshi. This was a very influential work in disseminating Buddhist culture to the western reader. It was so different from anything I had read before and gave a more “intellectual” grasp of the practice if such a thing were possible. I had experienced some meditation over the years
An observation of Chiba Sensei’s daily life reveals someone who walked a fine line between health and illness. He pushed hard burning the candle on both ends. His own acupuncturist couldn’t say it clearer when he said: “he is either very good or very bad, with nothing in between.
The sun was intense, the heat overwhelming. It was a very hot day even for Southern California. Some phenomena called the Santa Ana. I would soon enter the dojo and get dressed into uniform for the late afternoon Aikido class. Stretching and bending, doing my best to limber up as I prepared myself. It wasn’t easy. What with jet lag in the body, a nasty bug
