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O’Sensei at Iwama during the Aiki-Matsuri (Aiki Festival); April, 1964.

For more than the obvious reasons, Suenaka found his first aikido instruction at the Hombu, and his study there in the ensuing years, a singular experience. When one studies an art or style of art, no matter what it may be, under one instructor or group of instructors for a long period of time and then visits another dojo teaching the same art or style, quite often the student notices differences in technique—sometimes subtle, sometimes significant—that can make it seem as if he or she has studied an entirely different art. There is always a degree of pride at stake, of wanting to acquit oneself and one’s teachers well in a familiar, yet foreign environment. It was no different for Suenaka; indeed, if anything, the responsibility he felt was even greater. He had spent eight years studying aikido in Hawaii, thousands of miles away from where he now stood, under the watchful eyes of the Founder. He was one of the first fruits of the seed Koichi Tohei planted in Hawaii in 1953, and very much represented the outcome of that maiden effort. And there was another source of pressure as well. Though Japanese by blood, Suenaka was American by birth. While completely Japanese in appearance, English was his native tongue; as Suenaka has noted several times earlier, though he could make himself understood, he was at the time by no means fluent in Japanese. He was, in many ways, a foreigner, as much as any American serviceman stationed in Japan, though in his case his native hosts’ expectations of his behavior were immeasurably higher.