Henry Ellis Interview

In the areas where there was no Aikido at all, we would take a job for a few days to feed ourselves. We had many jobs and in one area we worked as assistants to a funeral director. We had to collect the bodies from the mortuary and take them back to the chapel of rest.

The boss caught me in the chapel of rest with a young maiden who had no right being there....she being very much alive and well. He was very angry with me, and after many escapades he assured me I was on borrowed time.

but without doubt the worst of all was repairing an old railway line. We called it the "railway of death", the hard work and the foreman were like in the films we had seen on the subject - needless to say, we didn't stay there for very long. I must add, as I look back on my life in Aikido, that this was a really great time. As with all the memories, we tend to forget the bad times and remember the good ones. We contributed greatly to the promotion of Aikido and I do not regret one day of it.

I believe that you trained under Nakazono Sensei in those early days.

Yes, that's right. As I said, Abbe Sensei's Aikido was all we knew, and when he told us that he had invited a new teacher from Japan to visit us, we were quite excited as we had not seen another Japanese Aikido master. The new teacher was Masahiro Nakazono Sensei and he taught us for 2 weeks. It was 2 weeks of Hell! He had us practicing on the mat for three hours in the afternoon, and the Dan grades had to practice an additional three hours in the evening. During the seminar there were many broken bones and other injuries.

Our etiquette and discipline could not be questioned, and Abbe Sensei had always taught us to use very strong technique in our Aikido and not to be thrown, unless the technique was effective. He also taught us that to be strong showed respect for your teacher. It is important to understand that in these early days that we knew no different, we only knew the strong fighting Art of Aikido. Nakazono Sensei was very angry and perplexed with us. He did not understand us and thought we were being disrespectful to him. It was not until near the end of the seminar that Abbe Sensei explained to him the reason for our approach to Aikido, and then Nakazono Sensei realized we were genuine students with great respect for him and a strong desire to learn.

In England it is traditional, after a hard practice, to finish the evening with a pint of beer at the local pub. But Nakazono was keeping us on the mat until 10.00pm., and the pubs closed at 10:30. We were not able change and reach the nearest pub before closing time, so Sensei Williams said to me:" Ellis, as my assistant, it's your duty to ask Sensei if we can leave the mat at 9.00p.m. so we all have time to get to the pub". What a fool I was! I did ask Nakazono Sensei and he was very angry with me and said he traveled across the world to teach us Aikido, and all we wanted to do was go to the pub! Well, when he put it like that , it did make us feel bad. However, he didn't seem to understand that this was our vacation from work... I reminded Nakazono Sensei of this incident when we met in Santa-Fe recently, and we were able to laugh about it.