Steve Fasen found aikido in Central Florida almost by accident. After training in karate for a decade prior to moving to the Orlando area, he wandered into an aikido class when his kids’ gymnastics class ran over. A few weeks later, Fasen met Dennis Hooker and proceeded to follow his teachings. Today, Fasen met up with us to talk about his time under Hooker and his contributions to the larger aikido community. All Images provided by Steve Fasen. This is the first part of a two part interview. View the second part here.
Martial Arts of Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow: Thank you Fasen Sensei for taking the time today to discuss your time under Dennis Hooker!
Steve Fasen: I’m more than happy to be here!
MAYTT: How did you first come to train under Dennis Hooker? What was it about the art and him that made you want to continue aikido?
SF: I had moved to the Orlando area for business in the late 1980s. I was training JKA Shotokan Karate at that time under Robert Fusaro sensei in Minnesota. He was the top student of JKA founder Hidetaka Nishiyama. Fusaro Sensei passed recently as the highest ranked non-Japanese American (eighth dan) in the Japanese Karate Association (JKA). When I moved, I asked Bob Sensei for training recommendations and he directed me to a former student in the Orlando area. I was able to continue my training, which was excellent, but not approaching what I had done with Fusaro Sensei. It was energetic physical training, great people, great comradery, good budo, but I wasn’t going to progress at a pace I was accustomed to. It was serendipitous then that I had pick up duty where my children were taking gymnastics. My view waiting in the parking lot was a building sign announcing a list of martial arts: Tung Soo Do, Jiujitsu, Judo, Aikido, and few other things. I was dismissive seeing it as a McDonald’s of “Martial Art disciplines sharing gym space.” That day, I was told the kids were going to be really late, so I went in. I sat waiting next to a doorway, listening to the aikido instructor talking to his students in an adjoining area. Intrigued, I edged my way into the room, was not rebuffed, so I sat down. I listened to the rest of class while my children now waited for me. Something was calling, resonating, making a great deal of sense. I have a background in non-martial Japanese arts and culture. What this gentleman was saying regarding budo, how he was treating his students, well I was, all of a sudden, aware of why I was unfulfilled by some of what my traditional JKA karate had offered me up to that point. He expressed a balance that illuminated for me a stabilizing “third” leg of the martial arts stool. After class the instructor greeted me by asking me what I trained in. I responded with, “What makes you think I train anything?” Then he said, “Normal people don’t sit that way.” Apparently I didn’t use the back of a chair much in those days.
So, I went back with a white belt and joined in. Probably three weeks later, I met Dennis Hooker Sensei. We tested each other for a month or two, maybe a little bit more, which resulted in him separating four of my ribs and me breaking two of his. I think he had asked my name by then. We just went from there. I found my perspectives adjusting, training in both karate and aikido for a few years, but I slowly made the transition to full time aikido. It was Hooker Sensei’s influence. He was Fusaro Sensei’s equivalent. As I tested the parameters of aikido, it’s significance grew. I had seen aikido it in Japan in the late 1970s, but there was only karate where I was from. I remained a skeptic for a long time, but because of Hooker Sensei, I settled into regular aikido training. My karate friends, and students, are still friends to this day. Over the years, I would still train with them around the country from time to time. Over A decade later, on a trip to California for business, I stopped at JKA Central Dojo to pay my respects to Nishiyama Sensei. He was not traveling that day and invited me to train. After class we caught up. I told him I was now training aikido full time. His responding comment was on how well my karate had matured since he had seen me last. “Oh, your karate good.” I told him about Hooker Sensei.
I think that, in the early 1989, being open to articulation and change may have been just where I was on my martial path. I think most martial artists go through this process of assessment and reflection if they train seriously. There is a process for all martial arts that begins as teachers start with making sure the students know their left foot from the right foot. It progresses to introducing language and an understanding in the basic construct of waza. With confidence, it gets energetic, then they move them into a more sophisticated study of the underlying mechanics. In the case of my karate, it then focused in kata so the practitioner could start to see themselves in the mirror of their determination and exhaustion. I was at a point where aikido added – as I mentioned, an additional balancing leg of the stool – enhanced physical challenges, but more; it demanded a practiced unification of mind, body and spirit. I had the physical discipline – I did the research, an established facet of aikido study, but there was a challenging philosophical aspect to it that was uniquely attractive. At that point in my karate, the ranking, competition, and sparring, all seemed to be distilled down to who wins and who loses in a sport competition sense. It seemed incomplete to me. Aikido offered a fundamental relationship to the principles of yin and yang, the philosophy behind it and its fit into a more complete perspective of how life outside the dojo integrated. That integration had been missing, or not comprehended. I loved karate, plenty of bruises, broken bones all of that, but at that point I needed more. Being an artist by profession and a skeptic by nature, I really took to the universal nature of Aikido, then tested it – as I said, for some time. Hooker Sensei, although he was not a big man in terms of height, had an inherent warrior’s attitude. I will admit to being a little bit cocky at that point, thinking to myself, “Okay. What does this guy think he’s got?” There was a magnetic underlying realistic integrity that Hooker Sensei exuded. It attracted many, myself included. He was a warrior mythos, but not a big talker. He was gruff, but what he did was to give you a tangible sense of reality, perspective, and a crucible. He was very good at that, and as a martial artist, his integrity was painfully unquestionable.
MAYTT: What were your first impressions of Hooker when you first started under him? What was he like as an instructor and a person and how did those aspects help change or solidify your initial impressions of him?
SF: My first impression of Hooker Sensei, like I said, I didn’t see him for two to three weeks of training. He was off doing something, and I was working with one of his senior assistants at that point. Hooker Sensei came back in and already, I had a sense from the rumors of this larger-than-life persona. Now I have been training well over a decade with really remarkable people. I understood that when you’re sitting in seiza and you look up at an instructor that you greatly respect and admire and they seem to gain about six inches and maybe sixty pounds. But when Hooker Sensei walked in – and I am not being denigrating, but it goes along with the story and I have seen so many others make the same mistake – there was this little, short kind of rotund guy. I didn’t know at that time that Hooker Sensei had myasthenia gravis (MG), which is a degenerative neuromuscular disorder, and he was on a lot of steroids, prednisone, and whatnot. The impression was, here’s this rather strong looking, but short guy, fairly robust, and what’s this guy going to do that I can’t deal with? Big mistake.
He showed that humility can be imparted with lessons learned. I was never disrespectful, but I did ask questions. A first lesson came after he noted, “Well, obviously, you’ve trained in something,” and proceeded to ask about my discipline and rank, He then asked me to put a black stripe on the shoulder of my gi to let people know that I was not a neophyte. Then sat back to watch what I would do with it. Later during one of the classes, he called me up as uke and addressed the students, “Everybody (me) asks me why aikido doesn’t kick. The reason is that a lot of people that come to aikido don’t have any indoctrination into kicking. So, in order to teach, I got to have somebody that can kick. I finally have somebody that can kick.” He asked me to target his chest with maegeri chudan, which is a front snap kick. I was not particularly slow in those days, so I put one in, tapped his gi, and had it back on the floor before he could react. One of the things emphasized by Hidetaka Nishiyama and Bob Fusaro Sensei was control. Sensei pointed out the mechanics of doing that kind of a kick, then he asked me to do it again. He observed it and made some more comments, and then he asked me to do it again. In karate, we used to do something called hematoma training: first, you’d leave your punch/kick on the gi; then you leave your punch/lick a little bit on the skin to redden it; for the knuckle draggers or those with good control, once you got to that point, we would do hematoma training. Those attacks left an impression without permanent damage. Kind of a sick badge of honor, everyone would have these wonderful multicolored bruises.
So, with that in mind, I told myself that “this kick is something that he’s going to feel,” which he did; he backed up, coughed a little bit, got the wind knocked out of him. No damage. He seemed to be happy about the whole thing. So, when he asked me to do it again, I thought, “Well, this guy is a glutton for punishment,” and “This one is going to leave a mark.” I put it in, and I swear I never saw him move. I got the sense that this kick was timed, in and on target. Then, I saw the ceiling; then I saw the floor – on my way to it. When I hit the floor, he had my leg and foot in an ashi nikyo, which was quite painful as I recall. All I remember after I hit the ground was my first impression, wondering what’s broken, then what the hell did he do? I realized I could move, that I felt great, nothing was broken – everything was functional, still alive. I realized at that point I had to know, technically, what he did. When I was back on my feet, I also realized that he set me up for all of it. I was just totally enamored with what he had done. I don’t know if I really looked back from there. I trained with him full time up until his death in 2014. He inspired with challenge.
MAYTT: That sounds like an O-Sensei moment!
SF: Hooker Sensei expected a great deal from his students. Cause and effect, life and death, was always part of the narrative. He had a warrior’s heart. Probably around the early 2000s, Hooker Sensei no longer openly invited his students to try to kill him, if you will. [Laughs] I mean, his uke’s had broken various body parts on him over the years. His body was rather brittle towards the end, but even then, he wound up with a broken arm at one point and a broken wrist at another. He occasionally had to use canes during MG flare ups. But he never backed off from expecting his uke to give him everything. We feared what he called “phone booth waza,” because at times he was not capable of big movement. Those were polishing the mirror lessons. If your attack got in, he’d congratulate you. And that’s just the way he conducted himself. We’ll sit around now after class and talk about those good old days, with the current students at our knee, polishing the man/myth/legend, perhaps challenging them by suggesting we were something they will never be.
That was his way, now just as good even as training and the students change. Perhaps the current chief instructor’s students don’t claim to appreciate the lesson of the occasional split lip acting as uke. A lesson I think every one of his senior students learned through the cause/effect teaching, and our lack of focus. All of us experienced this controlled part of his lessons. And we could all agree that it was our fault because we had given our wellbeing to him as his responsibility – an abject lesson in the fact that our self-defense was our responsibility. So, he taught in a very direct way. Poetic at times, but there was no “magic in aikido,” but he made it magical. I have great respect for Mitsugi Saotome Sensei, because that came from him to Hooker Sensei. Sensei built on it. I think we are all grateful for that martial attitude. You’ll have a lot of people in aikido say that this nature no longer exists – I disagree. It’s just different in how it is communicated now than it was then.
MAYTT: What was Hooker’s teaching method and training routine like in comparison to his peers? How did you see him differentiating himself from his contemporaries and others within the Aikido Schools of Ueshiba (ASU)? What it something he intentionally sought out to do?
SF: He was Saotome Sensei’s student, the ASU was the organization. He was in that first tier of rank of Saotome Sensei’s student, and as long as he trained and taught, he expected recognition of his position by his peers. He sought to illuminate and reinforce Saotome Sensei’s teachings his way. The organization was something he was seen as a part of, but I don’t think he sought to intentionally insinuate himself into it beyond that. He disliked the politics. Martially, he had experience in karate, judo, and was an excellent swordsman. Many of his peers didn’t have that. He saw himself as a warrior. That was different as well. He held that up for his peers. His students could not be good enough, but to be better was their responsibility. He demanded you train with others outside the dojo, then to bring your experiences back into the dojo, explaining it to challenge all contentions. Life was the battlefield and to him and you stood upon it on your own. Some of his “peers” just had dojos.
I don’t think differentiating himself from his peers was ever a conscious endeavor. He was uniquely himself, saw it that way, but wanted to be appreciated for his efforts like everyone. His general training routine was not so different from his peers, since he was brought up with many of them. For years and years, his teaching routine was consistent. Hooker Sensei taught generally on Mondays and Fridays. He expected serious training, with you on the floor, waiting for him when he got there. The classes at that time were between eight to ten people on average, all adults. Sensei would walk in – he had his own changing area, oftentimes he would come from work, or he would already be at the dojo by the time we got there, resting. He would enter the training area just before class started to stand at the edge of the mat, quietly reinforcing the etiquette. When he stepped on the floor, it focused our world. His teaching was generally quite physical; we enjoyed flying. There was a lot of, at least to my memory, robust ukemi. If you were his uke for example, and you were not able to get your feet off the floor and levitate in time, your head would probably wind up in the corner. For context, that was for his advanced students. Everyone however, got the same message. He had a good sense of humor, and “Bullshit!” was a favorite declaration. He had expectations, but he was not generally dismissive as he walked around the floor and “dealt” with everybody. That was consistent until class was over. He would bow out and things beyond the floor would reappear. He was focused and could change out of his gi and hakama faster than any human being I have ever met. Oftentimes, before we thanked our partners and could get off the floor, he’d be going out the door. Then we would see him on his next teaching day. He taught like this for years and years, with occasional socializing just to keep us confused. Eventually, other classes started with his students teaching bringing classes to seven days a week, but his Monday and Friday were best attended.
Hooker Sensei would sometimes teach breathing meditation techniques, which he’d studied arduously. He also taught sword. We would have special sword classes on some Sunday mornings at eight. The doors would be locked. Participation was by invitation. We would be training ken – the sword – more often than not, we were using live blades. So, there was some of that that took place, but the general drum beat would be his articulation of ASU aikido curricula. He was unique and I think that attitude was something that inspired a lot of people. He never stopped to explain himself unless pressed. It was just the way the guy was.
MAYTT: Seemed like an intense man and intense training!
SF: He was and it was. You had this sense of breaking yourself against a rock, hindered by your own limitations. The years showed us, however, that water wears away rock. Time eventually wore him down and changed his shape. Some of us, and this is a very hard thing to do with an instructor, had become friends of sorts over the years. Like aging parents, it was our time to lead, something difficult for all. He was a private man and to let that happen, he had to let some of us in. That was a very hard thing for me to rationalize, being friends with somebody like Hooker Sensei, my teacher, but he claimed we were and I cherished that.
MAYTT: From your knowledge, how did Hooker come to find aikido? How did he, in your opinion, know that the Art of Harmonizing Energies was the one for him?
SF: Hooker Sensei had a background in judo and karate up in the Illinois area. I can only believe at that point he harmonized like a freight train. When he was in the Illinois area, he had started to train aikido. He was still searching. After a time, he went everywhere and anywhere there was an aikido seminar close by. He told me he drove two or three hours to see a Mitsugi Saotome Sensei at a seminar – and that was it. Given his background as a martial artist and uchi deci to the founder, Saotome Sensei, I think, rang a bell very loudly for Hooker Sensei. For many years, he went to any length to train with him. Saotome Sensei viewed aikido as a martial art, in which he was fully capable. Even now at in his eighties he still is, always demonstrating that part of it, if you can see. So, Dennis was in Florida, Saotome Sensei was affiliated with the Sarasota area down here, until he moved up to his Shobukan dojo in Washington D.C. Work brought Hooker Sensei to central Florida, and then Hooker Sensei went back and forth to D.C. to train. He was with Saotome Sensei forever after the first years. When I met Hooker Sensei, I believe he was sandan or yondan around 1990. Later, after Saotome Sensei moved back to the Sarasota area, we had him at our dojo as often as possible. In addition to Shindai, Hooker Sensei also traveled around a bit, supporting dojos, teaching seminars in Puerto Rico, Nashville, down in the Caribbean, throughout Florida, Nevada, California, Washington, that type of scene.
MAYTT: I see. When did Hooker first meet Mitsugi Saotome? Do you know what his initial thoughts of Saotome were and if so, how did he describe that experience?
SF: Some of that I have mentioned. Saotome Sensei had no peers as such in Hooker Sensei’s mind. I think it was the nature of his aikido and the depth of his journey, and I think it was the integrity of his aiki. Saotome Sensei’s aikido – that mechanical aspect is unquestionable, but the scope of his aiki under O-Sensei is almost unfathomable. All you have to do is touch him, watch old tapes of him – it’s amazing. It’s his aiki – it’s his connective prowess. There was something deeper within Saotome Sensei and Hooker Sensei could sense that. Anybody can teach – anybody can teach aikido waza. Saotome Sensei, for Hooker Sensei (and myself), there was something far beyond that and I believe that’s what Hooker Sensei really went after. He did not always agree with Sensei, but his loyalty was unwavering. He always said that Shindai was Saotome Sensei’s dojo. He kept it for him. As I said before, it is difficult to be friends with your teacher, and they were. But, he never stepped away from calling Saotome Sensei a genius, questioning his capabilities, or accepting his council. Next to O-Sensei, Saotome Sensei was it. As a matter of fact, in 1995 or 1996, we went to the Shrine Dojo where Saotome Sensei was at the time. He presented his three senior yudansha to him formally, although we had known Saotome Sensei for years. He said to Saotome Sensei, “I want to give you my students. They are now your students.” That was kind of weird for us, but he was very intense in that fashion. He was very serious about what that represented to him, in terms of his efforts of passing his students onto Saotome Sensei.
This is the first part of a two part interview. View the second part here.
To learn more about aikido and it’s history in America, click here.
Martial Arts of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow 