About Aikido of Champlain Valley
Some Notes on Terry Dobson's Teachingby Ed PincusTerry Dobson had been an uchi deshi and student of O Sensei in Japan for ten years before returning to the US. After teaching on the West Coast, and having been diagnosed with a serious illness, he returned to Grand Isle, Vermont, where his family had a summer residence, to die. He lived a lot longer than expected and during this time he would do occasional teaching in Burlington at Vermont Aikido. Two pieces follow (with a few updates). I wrote them in the fall of 1992, soon after Terry Dobson died. I plan to write more about Terry in future issues. — Ed Pincus I thought it would be a piece of cake to write about Terry. It hasn't been. I lost a friend. The Tuesday night before he left for the West Coast [he died in San Francisco after teaching a class], Hugh [Hugh Young, formerly an instructor at Vermont Aikido] couldn't teach and Terry filled in. It was a great class and I was riding high. Terry was exuberant. He talked about doing a regular class again. I thought, I'm not interested in waza (technique) any more -- I just want to learn what Terry has to teach. Years before I asked a student why she wasn't going to Terry's Tuesday night class anymore. She said: he always teaches the same thing. I said: I know, but I haven't gotten it yet. Well, for the first time there was a glimmer. Maybe I was getting it. What was it Terry had to teach? Takemusu aiki. What is that? Every teacher seems to give a different answer -- ranging from love, to the budo of protection, to something like "knot in an oak tree." People often train in aikido to learn power, grace and harmony. This was something Terry loved to see but never quite taught. He admired Hugh's strength and grace. So much so that many years ago when he resumed doing West Coast seminars after stopping practicing aikido for several years, he asked Hugh to come with him. Now it was staring me in the face. About a year before, he had been worried about kicking and how rarely we practiced defense against kicks. He stood up in front of class and said that the night before O Sensei talked to him in a dream. He pointed to O Sensei's photograph on the kamiza. He said he thought it was litera |