Читать книгу Complete Aikido. Aikido Kyohan: The Definitive Guide to the Way of Harmony онлайн

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As Warren Suenaka saw to the martial education of his son, so too did he attend to his own continuing education. Already a black belt practitioner of judo, jujutsu, and kempo (and, later, aikido) and an experienced, respected local street fighter (“He was a bit of a brawler,” says Suenaka), the elder Suenaka made certain he was well-familiar with all martial styles and systems taught in the area. With a trained eye discriminating and demanding, he visited every area school, carefully observing both style and instructor before ultimately choosing three systems that were to constitute his son’s first formal martial arts training. It is because of this, combined with his personal tutelage, that Warren Suenakas influence on his son’s martial education cannot be underestimated.

In 1948, when Suenaka was eight years old, his father deemed him ready to begin training in Kodenkan jujutsu under founder Henry Seishiro Okazaki. For young Suenaka, there was no choice: “(My father) said, ‘You ought to study this. . . you will study this, too!’ And of course, I really enjoyed it.” Suenaka recalls Okazaki Sensei as “an intimidating man, burly. His voice was real gruff, but yet you could see that he was a very kind person. He wasn’t very mean; he just looked mean.” While his personality might have been forgiving, Suenaka found Okazaki Sensei physically intimidating: “He was a fairly big man, I would say around five feet six inches or five feet seven inches. To us, he was very tall. He weighed around two-hundred pounds, with big, solid muscles and huge arms. A very, very powerful man.”