Remembering Morihiro Saito Part 2, by Stanley Pranin

Stanley Pranin continues his tribute to Morihiro Saito in this second part. In it, Pranin recalls Saito Sensei’s trip to North America, seminars in Italy and France, and some humorous episodes while traveling with his teacher. You can read the first part of the tribute here and the third part here.

1979 trip to USA and Canada

Interpreting for Sensei in Calgary, Canada, August 1979

I was very honored when Saito Sensei first asked me to travel abroad with him on his trip to the USA and Canada in August 1979. We participated in the United States Aikido Federation summer camp sponsored by Mitsunari Kanai Sensei and Yoshimitsu Yamada Sensei, based in Boston, Massachusetts and New York City, respectively. Saito Sensei was well received on the east coast on this his first appearance and most aikidoka attending the seminar were seeing his weapons training for the first time.

I clearly remember too our meeting and chatting with Nobuyoshi Tamura Sensei and Tiki Shewan Sensei of France at the New York Aikikai just prior to the summer camp. Another standout memory was a delicious seafood dinner in Boston harbor following which Saito Sensei, Yamada Sensei, Kanai Sensei, Bruce Klickstein and I talked until late at night on every imaginable aikido subject.

Sensei also conducted a seminar in Calgary, Alberta, Canada on that trip. Takeji Tomita Sensei joined us from Sweden and assisted as Saito Sensei’s uke. We also enjoyed a trip to Banff, a famous scenic resort nearby. I really enjoyed traveling with Sensei and having all the time in the world to talk with him about O-Sensei and his early experiences in aikido. He was a veritable encyclopedia of knowledge about the postwar years in Iwama and the early period of the Aikikai. Sensei, for his part, never seemed to tire of these conversations and he was one of my most important sources of information on many aspects of O-Sensei’s life.

A remarkable discovery

Sensei referring to Budo while giving seminar, Tokyo 1992

One day in July 1981, I was conducting an interview with Zenzaburo Akazawa, a prewar uchideshi of Morihei Ueshiba from the Kobukan Dojo period. Mr. Akazawa proceeded to show me a technical manual published in 1938 titled Budo which I had never seen before. It contained photos of some fifty techniques demonstrated by the founder himself. As I slowly turned the pages of the manual, I was amazed to see in the photos that the execution of several basics techniques such as ikkyo, iriminage, and shihonage were virtually identical to what I had learned in Iwama under Saito Sensei. Here was the founder himself demonstrating what I had up until then regarded as “Iwama-style” techniques. Mr. Akazawa, who lives only a few blocks away from the Iwama Dojo, kindly lent me the book and I hurried to show it to Saito Sensei.

I’ll always remember the scene as I called at Sensei’s door to share with him my new discovery. To my surprise, he had never seen or heard mention of the book before. He put on his reading glasses and leafed through the manual, his eyes scanning the technical sequences intently. I felt compelled then and there to apologize to him for having ever doubted his assertion that he was making every effort to faithfully preserve the founder’s techniques. Saito Sensei laughed and, obviously with great pleasure, bellowed, “See, Pranin, I told you so!” From that time on up through the end of his life, Saito Sensei always had along his copy of Budo in the Iwama Dojo and on his travels to use as proof to show that a particular technique originated in the founder’s teachings.

The discovery of Budo was, to be sure, a watershed event in my personal aikido research, but I was even more delighted to see how important it was to Sensei to have this amazing document to wave in the face of his critics who doubted the authenticity of his aikido.

Travels abroad with Sensei

In late 1984, an Italian aikidoka named Paolo Corallini arrived at the Iwama Dojo to train. He became captivated by Saito Sensei’s aikido but could not speak Japanese or English. Though I was living in Tokyo by this time I sometimes visited the Iwama Dojo to practice and I met Paolo on one occasion. He asked me to interpret for him and this led to Sensei being invited to instruct in Italy in February 1985. I was invited along as interpreter.

This new connection with Europe proved to be of great significance to the future development of Iwama Aikido. Paolo Corallini was and is extremely devoted to Saito Sensei and this visit would be the start of annual and sometimes biannual visits to Europe.

On this first trip Sensei conducted seminars in Turin and Osimo, the latter located along the Adriatic Sea. The Italians and aikidoka from other countries in attendance reacted exactly like everyone else who came into contact with Sensei’s instruction. As I mentioned above, Sensei was a masterful teacher. Not only were his techniques superb, but he would vary the mood greatly while teaching. He would sometimes explain in an analytical way. At other moments, he would chide a student for a mistake and issue one of his famous “dame” admonitions, and then in the next moment make a hilarious comment that would break up the serious mood. Sensei was very conscientious about teaching these seminars and always succeeded in endearing himself to those who attended.

On this trip, we had an unexpected surprise in the form of a visit by Nobuyoshi Tamura Sensei, his wife, and Pierre Chassang, an aikido pioneer in France, who drove from the southern part of France to greet Sensei.

Although not much of a tourist as I will mention later, Sensei did find the Italian countryside and antiquities pretty interesting and made numerous comments about the beauty of the country and ancient castles and structures as we traveled about.

The seminars Saito Sensei taught were also professionally videotaped by one of Paolo’s friends. They capture the magic of his teaching skills and technique at this stage of his life.

Getting a new set of teeth

Saito Sensei with his new teeth

Paolo’s enthusiasm was contagious and he succeeded in convincing Sensei to visit again in May of that same year, not something that Saito Sensei would do normally. There was another reason for Sensei’s accepting a return invitation so soon after our initial visit. Paolo is a dentist by profession and Sensei’s teeth were in pretty bad condition. Paolo offered to completely repair his teeth prior to the seminar.

This trip proved quite an adventure because the dental work involved would normally have taken several weeks to complete. Paolo somehow compressed the entire treatment down to four days! He was a nervous wreck during this time as he was deathly afraid that something might go wrong. Fortunately, for all concerned, the treatment went flawlessly and Sensei emerged with a big smile and new teeth as you can see in the accompany photo!

I’ll always remember the scene as I called at Sensei’s door to share with him my new discovery. To my surprise, he had never seen or heard mention of the book before. He put on his reading glasses and leafed through the manual, his eyes scanning the technical sequences intently. I felt compelled then and there to apologize to him for having ever doubted his assertion that he was making every effort to faithfully preserve the founder’s techniques. Saito Sensei laughed and, obviously with great pleasure, bellowed, “See, Pranin, I told you so!” From that time on up through the end of his life, Saito Sensei always had along his copy of Budo in the Iwama Dojo and on his travels to use as proof to show that a particular technique originated in the founder’s teachings.

Although I have remained silent all these years, I must confess that I hatched a sinister plot on this trip. As those who spent time with him know, Sensei was fond of drinking as are most Japanese men. Foreign visitors are sometimes shocked at this phenomenon when they first visit Japan, but it is a fact of life that social drinking is commonplace at all levels of society and is regarded as a safety-valve for the stresses of daily life. In any event, out of concern for Sensei’s health and perhaps due to a bit of prudishness of my part, I was always trying to get him to cut down on his drinking.

Well, this was my big chance! I conspired with Paolo and Tomita-san to have Paolo give Sensei a lecture in his capacity as a medical doctor on the reasons why it would not be a good idea for him to continue regular drinking if he wished to maintain his teeth in good condition. At the appointed time after the treatment was over, Paolo stood in his office wearing his white dental frock with Sensei seated unsuspectingly in the patient’s chair and delivered his lecture. Everyone knew what was going on except Sensei. Tomita-san almost could not contain himself and I feared he would burst out laughing and spoil everything! I was having a hard time keeping a straight face myself as the interpreter.

The upshot was that Sensei apparently took the lecture quite seriously and stopped drinking all together for several days. He would report to me everyday how he had not had a single drop! Finally, shortly after we boarded the plane to leave Italy, he could contain himself no more and poured himself a long drink. Seated at his side and normally very talkative, I remained stone silent pretending not to notice. Sensei looked very sheepish and said to me, “You’re angry at me, aren’t you?” I don’t recall what I mumbled in reply. But that was the last time I tried anything like that and it was a good lesson to me to mind my own business!

Importance of Italian connection

Morihiro Saito’s visit to Osimo, c. 1985. Left to right: Paolo Corallini, Takeji Tomita, Roberta and Francesco, Morihiro Saito, Stanley Pranin.

To the best of my recollection, we visited Italy five times all together, sometimes going to other countries on the same trip. The connection with Paolo Corallini would later give birth to the formation of a large, Pan-European organization centered on Iwama Aikido. The two main figures of this organization which remains active to this day are Paolo Corallini and Ulf Evenas of Sweden, the latter one Sensei’s first foreign uchideshi.

On a side note, these visits and the collaboration of Paolo enabled us to undertake some important historical work that could not have been attempted under normal circumstances. First of all, in 1987 I succeeded in talking Sensei into doing a very unusual project. This involved him reading aloud into the camera the text of the 1938 training manual Budo and then demonstrating the techniques from the book in front of the video camera. This is the same book I mentioned above that I had discovered in Iwama a few years earlier. I thought Sensei would be the perfect person to carry out this project because of his familiarity with the earlier techniques of O-Sensei. Also, since the content of Budo was very convincing as a validation of Saito Sensei’s approach to aikido, I believed he would welcome the opportunity since we had the cameraman and facility available. As it turned out, Sensei was tired from the long travel and I had to convince him to agree to the videotaping. By then, he must have known instinctively that if I were involved it would be a tough project!

At video shoot for the Aiki Ken and Jo tapes, Osimo 1987

One of the biggest problems to be overcome was the naming of the techniques covered in Budo. The techniques are merely numbered in the original manual and there are only single word section names. It took some cajoling on my part but Sensei succeeded in coming up with names for all 50 of the techniques. The finished video is an excellent technical document and also captures Saito Sensei in his prime.

The following year in 1988 we did yet another videotape, also of great significance. We recorded most of Saito Sensei’s aiki ken and jo suburi and kata as they stood at this point in time. The shoot took place in Paolo’s private dojo in Osimo and Ken’ichi Shibata partnered Sensei on this occasion. In looking back, I really appreciate how fortunate we are to have these documents preserved for future generations!

Sensei conquers France

Morihiro Saito with Nobuyoshi Tamura, Lyons, November 1985

In November 1985, Sensei and I embarked on what was in many ways the most ambitious of our trips together. Sensei conducted seminars in France, Belgium and Italy on that occasion. My accompanying Sensei on this particular trip was for a somewhat different reason than past travels. I was along with his encouragement mostly to promote Aiki News with our emphasis on the importance of remembering O-Sensei and his historical connection with Iwama. By that time we also had a couple of videotapes of Saito Sensei to offer as well. My Japanese editor Ikuko Kimura joined us on this trip along with a French staff member Gabriel Valibouze.

This time, I was even more loaded down than usual with gear and products because we were to give several film shows as well. In fact, I had along a heavy video projector that weighed at least forty pounds. It was physically impossible for me to carry everything in one go so Sensei dutifully helped me carry my luggage on and off the airplane. I was terribly embarrassed by this and reluctantly accepted his help all the while apologizing profusely. Sensei was visibly amused. I don’t know what you would say about the “kabanmochi” (bag carrier) who had his bags carried by the Sensei, but that’s what happened!

This visit was sponsored by the FFLAB organization of Nobuyoshi Tamura Sensei and the turnouts at the seminars in France were tremendous. There were 600 people on one huge mat area at the course in Lyons. This practice facility was about three times as large as a college gymnasium. Sensei, even though he had a strong voice, could not be heard by everyone so he came up with a quick solution. He got everyone to help stack up about 15-20 mats on top of each other so that the French interpreter, Daniel Boubault, could be better seen and heard. He also had everyone form a huge circle so that they could get in close to watch and listen.

Another memory I have of that experience was Nobuyoshi Tamura Sensei’s presence on the mat training in Saito Sensei’s class. I thought he set a wonderful example for others by being willing to display a “beginner’s mind” even though he was and is one of the most skilled aikidoka around. We also met Andre Nocquet Sensei, an early foreign student of O-Sensei, and Hiroo Mochizuki Sensei, son of the famous Minoru Mochizuki Sensei, on this trip.

The following year in 1988 we did yet another videotape, also of great significance. We recorded most of Saito Sensei’s aiki ken and jo suburi and kata as they stood at this point in time. The shoot took place in Paolo’s private dojo in Osimo and Ken’ichi Shibata partnered Sensei on this occasion. In looking back, I really appreciate how fortunate we are to have these documents preserved for future generations!

Unforgettable episodes

We traveled together many times during the 1985-1989 period and I have had to set about constructing a chart of Sensei’s foreign trips to jog my memory. I recall visiting the following countries: Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, and the USA, several of them on two or more occasions. Sensei also traveled a couple of times to Australia during this time frame without me.

The episodes from this period are endless, but here are a few that stand out in my mind. On one occasion, Sensei was making critical remarks in front of a large group of students during a seminar in Italy. He was pointing out a common technical error that particularly annoyed him and then proceeded to name a famous teacher who taught the technique the “wrong way.” I was always uncomfortable when Sensei criticized people publicly this way and I told him so, but he was a very direct, uninhibited person and he usually said exactly what he was thinking.

So on this occasion Sensei would make a remark and I would dutifully translate it. Then the criticisms became stronger and stronger. My translations started getting shorter and shorter. Finally, Sensei really let out a piece of his mind and I stayed totally silent. He then gave me the strangest look and said, “Oh, I can see you’re mad at me for talking this way. Okay, I’ll stop.” Everyone could tell what was happening and had a good laugh. I’m sure my face was red as an apple!

Another memory I have of that experience was Nobuyoshi Tamura Sensei’s presence on the mat training in Saito Sensei’s class. I thought he set a wonderful example for others by being willing to display a “beginner’s mind” even though he was and is one of the most skilled aikidoka around. We also met Andre Nocquet Sensei, an early foreign student of O-Sensei, and Hiroo Mochizuki Sensei, son of the famous Minoru Mochizuki Sensei, on this trip.

Another time, someone showed us a painting of O-Sensei done by a local aikido student/artist. This person was very proud of the portrait and had it prominently displayed in his home. He anxiously awaited Sensei’s reaction. Actually, I thought the painting didn’t look anything like O-Sensei at all and so apparently did Saito Sensei. I think it is very hard for western artists to learn how to capture oriental features and vice versa. Anyway, Sensei was in a tough spot because he didn’t want to tell a lie, so he mumbled something about how the artist was very skilled and the person seemed satisfied.

Sensei would always rib me for being a slow eater. In fact, he called me “the slowest eater in the world.” He would joke repeatedly how by the time everyone had finished their meal and was ready for dessert I was still on the first course! He and the other diners would wait impatiently for me to finish while poking fun at me for being so slow thus causing me further embarrassment. Finally, one day I evened the score. I said, “Okay, everyone, I don’t want to keep you waiting for me to finish so I’ll stop interpreting and let you talk among yourselves.” Needless to say, with the interpreter on strike, the dinner conversation dwindled almost to nothing.

Finally, I found a solution to the problem. I started showing up for meals about a half an hour early and eating by myself. That way when Sensei came down to dine I could devote my full attention to interpreting for him.

There was a particularly amusing incident that occurred during this trip that I would like to relate. To say that Saito Sensei was not much of a tourist would be a gross understatement. He much preferred shopping! I remember clearly our visit to the Eiffel Tower in Paris. I had never actually stopped to take a good look at this famous structure and was very much looking forward to our visit. One of the hosts drove us to the tower and Sensei took a look around, remarked how big it was and snapped a couple of photos. Then he said, “Ok, now I’ve seen it! Let’s go.” The whole process took maybe five or six minutes. Although I was a bit disappointed, I had to laugh at his reaction. Maybe some day I’ll have another chance to visit the tower at my pace!

This is the second part of three of Stanley Pranin’s tribute to Morihiro Saito. You can read the first part of the tribute here and the third part here.

Antonio Aloia

Operations Manager, Aikido Journal, Aikido sandan, MA in History with a focus on martial arts and East Asian studies.

1 comment

  • Those videos of aiki ken and jo continue to be a treasure for the global aikido community. Now widely available on youtube, I refer to them often and share them with fellow students every chance I get. Back in the days of VHS, they were like gold. I am so grateful to everyone involved in that project!

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