Remembering Henry Kono

I was really saddened to hear of the passing of Henry Kono Sensei earlier this year. I didn't really know him but felt like I did because when my mom talked about her memories of training in Japan she would inevitably talk about how much fun she had with Henry.

Henry Kono Sensei (1927 - 2016)

Henry grew up in Canada but his parents were from Shikoku, Japan. Because of his Japanese ancestry, he and his family had their property seized and spent World War II in an interment camp in Slocam, British Columbia. In 1964 he traveled to Japan to visit family. While in Japan he had heard about Aikido and O'Sensei and went to Tokyo to check it out. Like most nationals and foreigners who saw O'Sensei in action Henry knew that what he was seeing was something special. His short family trip turned into four years of training with O'Sensei at the Hombu dojo. My mother met Henry when she traveled to Japan to train at the Hombu dojo in 1964 and they instantly hit it off. Henry was one of the few foreigners during this time that spoke Japanese, and he often translated what O'Sensei was saying to the other foreign students.

Virginia Mayhew and Henry Kono working on their Japanese.

My mother said that O'Sensei "..didn't teach like other teachers. Sometimes he would walk around and do a few things or show a few things. Sometimes he would stand there with his little iron fan and go on and on in poetic Japanese. I would ask my friends who spoke Japanese for a translation, but what was translated didn't seem to have any bearing on the teaching of the physical art. It was far above that. You never expected O-Sensei to teach kotegaeshi or some other technique. You learned on a different level" (Perry and Rubin 2001: 5). Many of the students who studied with O'Sensei at that time pointed out that he was far more interested in discussing the philosophy behind the movements rather than describing how to do the movements.

Both my mom and Henry were in their mid to late thirties then and they were not as interested in the physical side of Aikido like many of the younger students but rather wanted to focus on the principles behind the movements. According to Kono, "It was during my second day at the Hombu dojo that I saw O'Sensei for the first time. He did a twenty minute demonstration and I was blown away, I immediately thought 'this old man does not do the same thing that we are doing.' What also struck me was that he had to be basing all of this on something simple and obvious although I could not put my finger on it at the time. From that day on each time I saw him I'd asked myself, 'what is he thinking about?' rather than 'what is he doing?' like the others did" (Guillaume Erard Interview with Henry Kono)

My mother told me that when O'Sensei threw her for the first time she couldn't figure out exactly how it happened. From all those years in Judo, she was used to falling but always knew how and why she ended up on the mat. She said O'Sensei seemed to have a strength of spirit that went beyond his physical movements. Robert Frager explained this phenomenon too. "When O'Sensei threw students who didn't often take ukemi for him, they would get up with a stupefied expression on their face as if they were saying to themselves 'what happened? I never saw him move, I never felt him move. It felt like he just stood there and I moved" (Perry 2002: 16). Motomichi Anno who trained with O'Sensei during the last fifteen years of the founder's life put it this way, "When O-Sensei began to call me up to take ukemi, I was ecstatic. Being thrown by O-Sensei was an incomprehensible experience. I wasn't told what to do. I simply tried my best to keep up. Just to stay connected with O'Sensei took all I had. When O-Sensei threw me, I couldn't tell how I had been thrown. When other people threw me they would use techniques that would follow a certain sequence leading up to the fall. but with O-Sensei it was a different feeling, I would be thrown smoothly before I knew it" (Holiday 2013: 115).

The group of foreigners at the Hombu dojo celebrating O'Sensei's birthday. Henry is holding the cake.

One day, when the foreigners at Hombu dojo got together with O'Sensei to celebrate his birthday, Henry asked O'Sensei, "How come we can't do what you are doing?" "Because you guys don't read the Kojiki!" was his reply. According to Anno Sensei, O'Sensei frequently referred to Izanagi and Izanami, male and female deities of creation, found in the Kojiki, an 8th century Shinto "Record of Ancient Matters," when demonstrating Aikido techniques (Holiday 2013: 112). The idea of harmony among opposites is what Henry took away from that conversation and this principle became a very important part of his Aikido. As Henry explained, "But I would read the Kojiki, and I still wouldn't get it. So, I had to go to another source. I began with a book called the Art of Chinese Painting. In the first section, the author had written pages and pages about Yin and Yang" (Perry and Rubin 2001: 48).

Unknown student, Henry, and my mom at the Hombu dojo.

During a brief stay in Hawaii, Henry reflected on the symbol of Yin/Yang particularly on the center line that keeps both sides in balance. He realized that there were two approaches to the "center" when practicing Aikido. One was ego-centric in that it consisted of using one's center or hara (that place a few centimeters below the belly button) to take away your opponent's center. In the other approach to the center within Aikido, the one that he felt O'Sensei emphasized, was finding the mutual center between nage and uke which brought the interaction into harmony. He felt O'Sensei wasn't thinking about his center when practicing Aikido with a partner but rather about their common center. As Kono explained, "The other approach relies on the will to preserve harmony, whether we are alone or in contact with someone. Its all about making one with the opponent. If it is so, we therefore share the same center because we are one. The center is no more mine than his, it is ours and it will remain as such for as long as our interaction occurs" (Yin and Yang in Motion by Henry Kono).

Virginia and Henry in Hong Kong

My mother used to say that Henry understood that Aikido was all about love and that he practiced it the way O'Sensei did - as a budo with no opponent. Anno Sensei explains this best,"For O-Sensei, there was no opponent, no 'other.' He told us 'to make enemies, to defeat opponents, and think that this is Aikido, is a serious error. Aikido is love.' When we practice Aikido, we learn specific techniques, such as shiho nage (four-directions throw). We attempt to do each technique skillfully. But that's not what O-Sensei was doing. His heart was already in a state of unity with the other person. He was absorbing and drawing the whole person to him, and wrapping that person up in love, and that process would result in a technique like shiho nage" (Holiday 2013: 107).

Henry and Virginia with their students in Hong Kong.

In 1966 my mother received permission from O-Sensei to start a dojo in Hong Kong. At first, her classes started out small at the Chinese YMCA but by the following year she had located a space and established the Hong Kong Aikikai. She also instructed 40 to 50 young teenage boys at the St. Francis School for Boys and was teaching from sun up to sun down. She had close to 300 students in total at the height of her stay in Hong Kong.  She taught a 6:00 am class for the men who worked at Hong Kong Airport, a class at noon for the dance hall girls and then taught her classes at the boys school in the afternoons and then finished out her evenings teaching at the dojo. After class she and her students would all go out and eat (Perry and Rubin 2001:7). She knew she needed help with the amount of classes and students that she was teaching and was thrilled that both Henry Kono and Alan Ruddock traveled to Hong Kong on several occasions to her help out.

Virginia, Henry and their students grabbing a bite to eat after Aikido class.

Henry said, "I loved Hong Kong. I couldn't believe the amount of food that one eats there, I gained 20 pounds" (Perry and Rubin 2001: 45).

Alan Ruddock with his students in Hong Kong

In an interview in 2007, Alan Ruddock related, "I did travel to Hong Kong to help Virginia. briefly while I was living in Tokyo and then for a few months on my journey home. She had a great group of people and a vibrant dojo where the Chinese were very eager to learn. She died last year in the States. She was a great character and a wonderful teacher" (Guillaume Erard Interview with Alan Ruddock). My mom left Hong Kong in 1969 and returned to States via Hawaii. A year later Kenneth Cottier, who had also studied with O'Sensei, took over teaching and building up the Aikido programs in Hong Kong founding the Hong Kong Aikido Association, which just celebrated its 45th anniversary on August 2.

In 1993 Henry traveled to Los Angeles with his young son and met up with my mom while I was studying abroad on Semester at Sea. I remember how thrilled she was to be back in touch with him. She said they talked for hours about Aikido and O'Sensei and what spiritual insights they had gained into his teachings over the years.

Henry Kono and Alan Ruddock

Later, Alan Ruddock who was teaching Aikido in Ireland got in touch with Henry. According to Henry, Alan "contacted me one day because he had heard somewhere that I was still alive and he asked me if I wanted to come see him in Ireland. Before I knew it I was teaching over 2 to 3 times a year, in particular for a summer course that we teach, Alan and me, in Galway. For some reason people got hooked up on what I was showing whereas people in Toronto think I'm loony" (Guillaume Erard Interview with Henry Kono).

My mom said Henry had a wicked sense of humor. Henry sent her the following picture and wrote on the back of it "I think you'll recognize all the fugitives before the police line up."

The "fugitives before the police line up" Kenneth Cottier, Henry Kono, and Alan Ruddock on the Isle of Man.

Henry Kono passed away on February 13, 2016 at the age of 88. The last of the "police line up" to do so. He will be missed but his spirit will live on in his Aikido students and through his beloved son.

References:

Aikido Journal's Interview with Henry Kono by Norm Ibuki.

Guillaume Erard's Interview with Henry Kono

Guillaume Erard's Interview with Alan Ruddock

Holiday, Linda (2013) Journey to the Heart of Aikido: The Teachings of Motomichi Anno Sensei. Blue Snake Books, Berkeley, California.

Perry, Susan and Ronald Rubin. (2001) Aikido Talks: Conversations with American Aikidoists. Arete Press, Aikido Today Magazine, Claremont, California.

Perry, Susan (2002) Remembering O-Sensei: Living and Training with Morihei Ueshiba, Founder of Aikido.  Shambhala Publications, Boston, Massachusetts.

Yin and Yang In Motion by Henry Kono.

Homecoming

I went back to my Aikido classes after being off the mat for a really long time. I was pretty nervous about returning because unlike other aspects of my intellectual life when it comes to choreographed body movements my mind is a sieve. And as a nage I often feel like a deer caught in the headlights when the uke starts the attack. Freeze and rely on the universe not to hurt me tends to be my motto. However, that strategy doesn't really work for me underwater.

Once many years ago when I first began to scuba dive I went shark diving off the shipping lanes of southern California. I was in a cage and feeling fairly protected when a five foot blue shark swam right at me through the front two foot wide camera opening in our cage.  To the shark I was just part of the mackerel chum that bought him too our boat in the first place - but to me those teeth looked so sharp! I am sure the shark could see my frozen deer in the headlights stare. My breathing became more rapid and more shallow as I struggled to get enough air.  And just as I was about to pass out from hypoxia, my more experienced dive buddy calmly moved in front of me and gently tapped the shark's nose redirecting it out through the side camera opening of our cage. Disaster avoided in the beat of a second. And both shark and human were doing just fine! That's the day I learned that calm actions rather than frantic reactions can keep you, others and the surrounding sea life safe when things go wrong underwater. (Why Divers Panic - and How to Deal With It) However, I feel much more at home in water than I do on land where I often feel awkward and uncoordinated with the thought of social interactions sending me into prolonged periods of panic. It would be so much easier to stay off the mat. But alas Aikido, like diving, isn't something I can do alone.

Like many other employees in the world today what adjunct professors do is precarious work and I often let it consume my every waking moment.  Its an endless round of applying for jobs and prepping for classes that leaves little time for self development. I have all these long gaps in my training which always makes me nervous about returning to a weekly Aikido routine.  How long will it take for me to remember where to put my feet?  Why does irimi nage confound me? And seriously why is it so hard to move my hips?  Each time I return I always think that somebody at the dojo is going to yell at me about my long absences but instead I get hugs and genuine warm welcomes, which makes it even harder to quit.

On my first day back I went to a beginning class taught by Crystal whose ukemi is just simply spectacular. During warm ups, she asked everyone there to think about why they were practicing Aikido and what kept them coming back to the mat.  I had to really mull that question over because for me its complicated. There's so much about Aikido that reminds me of my mother - sometimes the emotions that come up during my practice can be overwhelming.  Part of me is there to fulfill her wishes that I have a "spiritual mind and body practice," and part me is there because she had to give up Aikido to be my mother. But what about the other parts of me?  I had to think about that question again today during Dennis' class when he asked us to think about what we hoped to achieve by practicing Aikido.

During class, Dennis demonstrated a really expansive standing forward and backward kokyu ho. The flow behind his movements is so inspiring.  When we paired off to practice them, Dennis came by and broke down the movements for us, using the analogy of the undertow you feel as a wave forms and then the spiral as it descends upon the beach. Blending with an ocean wave was something I could relate and aspire to. While I couldn't quite get the nuance of the technique, it did remind me that one of the goals I have for learning Aikido is to be as comfortable on land as I am in water. I want to be able to redirect the fear I have on land with a blend and a tap on the nose the way my dive buddy did in that shark cage all those years ago.