![]() He blended with my punch, flowing back in nagashi tai sabaki and taking my arm down and stepped past my forward foot, taking my arm past my body. The first time I met him, in Montreal in 1979 or ’80, he called me up to be uke for him and demonstrated an aikido version of o soto gari. Not that I understood at the shihan’s level, but I got a lot of experience working directly with them and I tried to maintain a beginner’s mind as much as I could, and sometimes Sensei would give me some specific instruction. I trained fourteen years in a group under Patrick Auge sensei’s frequent instruction before I reached the Shizuoka Yoseikan hombu and I was able to step in and train vigorously with those shihan and so many others because Patrick’s program was a direct reflection of what Mochizuki sensei was doing. Attacks could be karate, judo, jujutsu, tanbo, jo, bokken, or boxing or wrestling attacks. The technical training was austere and practical while randori was vigorous and fast, very advanced. I could feel Mochizuki sensei’s hand in all their technique. They also didn’t go past the point of submission but could stop every technique precisely. These were the shihan most often present in the aikido classes and though each had his own particular application, they were all smooth and mostly overpowering but not surpassing a person’s physical safety. Otherwise, he would have someone like Tezuka sensei, Washizu sensei, or Kenmotsu sensei to show the techniques at full speed-also often with me as uke. And he would sometimes use me as uke in these demonstrations. Mochizuki sensei was rather aged by then-eighty-three when I arrived and eighty-eight when I left-and though he supervised every aikido and judo class (not often the karate classes), he demonstrated techniques in step-by-step fashion, then supervised everyone on the mats in practicing his point. I lived in Shizuoka City, near the Yoseikan dojo, for five years, from 1990 to 1995, living as uchi deshi in the dojo for twenty-one months. You had the opportunity to train under Mochizuki sensei in Shizuoka for many years, could you share how he was and how his techniques felt like? As a visual artist, I’ve been working on a detailed series of technical drawings of the many unusual sutemi waza Mochizuki sensei developed to recreate gyokushin ryu, the art of the spherical spirit, which is a poetic story in itself. ![]() But I do use aikido in my acting, in projecting presence, the line of the eyes and the coordination of movement and time to allow the movement speak for itself. I haven’t portrayed a martial artist but have focused on portraying a wide range of characters, developing acting skills without aikido as a crutch or an excuse to be on screen. I’m an artist-a poet and novelist, with a few self-published small books, and a film actor. I’m David Orange, Jr., of Birmingham, Alabama, United States. Could you introduce yourself in a few words to our readers? Part 1 - Training at Minoru Mochizuki's dojo Hi David, thanks for accepting this interview.
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