Larry Feldman first started with Hakko-ryu Jujutsu by the end of his high school career. He later moved to Texas and looked for aikido at the suggestion of his former high school gym teacher. Feldman began training with Greg Swarens and later learned from Mark Leidig. Under Leidig, Feldman experienced Shizuo Imaizumi’s approach to aikido. In 1994, Feldman established his Atlanta School of Aikido where he teaches what he has learned from Leidig and internal power from Dan Harden.
Martial Arts of Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow: Hello Feldman Sensei! Thank you for joining us to talk about your time with Shizuo Imaizumi Sensei and Internal Power!
Larry Feldman: Thank you for having me.
MAYTT: You began studying aikido in 1978, however you first started with Hakko-ryu Jujutsu five years earlier. How did you find Aikido and what made you switch from Hakko-ryu?
LF: I began Hakko-ryu at the end of my senior year in high school. My father thought it would be a good idea to learn how to “handle myself” before I went away to school. I was a skinny kid. Tall, but skinny. My younger brother and one of his friends started with me. In 1973, there were not a lot of martial arts choices in Northern New Jersey. There was a judo gym in the next town, but my father had contacted the local Ju Jitsu school for a martial arts demonstration when I was in the Cub Scouts. My father was a real people person, and he never lost the name of the jujutsu school owner, Michael DePasquale Sr. (Mr. D) had been asked by the Japanese Embassy in NY to run the 1964 Martial Arts exhibition at the World Fair, so he was well known in the martial arts world.
I studied four to five times a week for the last few months of my senior year and all during the summer. I did the same every summer when I returned to NJ. There was no jujutsu at the University of Florida, so I did what I could on my own, took a judo class for PE credit, and found the aikido club at the end of my time there. When I graduated, the economy was terrible, but booming in Houston, Texas, so I moved there. Of course, I looked for a jujutsu school, but the only one I found was focused on training local police and more about containment and arrest techniques. My old gym teacher from high school used to train at the DePasquale’s and he took a sabbatical and went to Japan. There was a mix up at Hakko-ryu and he ended up studying various other arts, including aikido, which he spoke very highly of, so I looked for an aikido dojo.
MAYTT: How would you describe the training you experienced when you first started Aikido? Since then, what changes and evolutions have you noticed in aikido training?
LF: I started training with Gene Swarens, who was a big man, 6’5” and 325 lbs., former SEAL, nidan in Shotokan Karate, who was employed as a sheriff. His aikido was from the early 1960s West Coast Ki Society. I liked the fact that he talked about ki and could demonstrate some of its usage. His classes were very small, and we bounced around Houston until he rented an old church on the north side of town near his house. I only really saw Gene’s aikido and another shodan from Hawaii, Dick Grant, who showed up later in my training with Gene. At the time, aikido was my number two hobby as I spent a lot of time (and money) skydiving and was happy just training locally. Class consisted of Tohei’s Ki Exercises, aikido, and some weapons training – two bokken kata and two jo kata. Shodan requirements were pretty typical: fifty techniques, those four weapons katas, and later ki tests were added to make sure you were relaxed and extended ki.
Imaizumi’s shodan requirements included many more techniques, well over 200 for shodan, and quite a bit more weapons work. On my nidan test, it was an hour’s weapons demonstration. A much more robust curriculum, but that was what Imaizumi and Mark Leidig, his senior student outside of New York, were teaching. Imaizumi also put a lot more emphasis on movement in the art, and explicitly taught the footwork it took to do movement-based aikido. The footwork was a big adjustment for me.
Mark added fundamental movement exercises that make up the core of aikido – three engines, a clutch, and transmission – that form the basis of aikido movement. When he came into town and gave my wife a Tai Chi lesson, he used the same movements as the basis of all tai chi. So, I eventually replaced the Ki Exercises with his movement exercises. I have since added Internal Power training to those exercises.
MAYTT: I see. Could you tell us a little bit more about Dick Grant and how he fits into the Texas Aikido picture?
LF: Dick showed up in Gene Swarens’ class since it was the only Ki Society dojo in town and Dick had a shodan from the Ki Society. He had practiced in Hawaii and practiced with Tohei Sensei when he was in Hawaii.
After my shodan test and initial trips to Austin, Dick came with me for a few trips and saw the difference in instruction, and he and I pretty much decided to follow that path and started a class. Within a year or two, I moved to Dallas for a job, and Dick didn’t continue to train in Austin or with Imaizumi. He met some other aikido people from a different organization. They promoted him to nidan when he affiliated with them, and he continued to teach. Some years later, I believe he retired from teaching.
MAYTT: One of your influential instructors has been Mark Leidig since 1985. Could you tell us more about him and how he approaches instruction?
LF: After my horrible shodan test in 1985 at a national seminar in Boulder, Colorado, I realized that we were out of touch with the current teaching requirements of the Ki Society. We lived on an island in Houston. I had to find a way to learn the new things being taught, something Tohei had implemented called taigi – a set of six attack/defense combinations performed as a group. One of Mark’s students, Wade Ishimoto, who ran the Albuquerque dojo, pulled me aside and told me to go to Austin and Mark would teach me what I needed to know. My teacher wasn’t interested in learning anything new, even when I made the effort to travel and get the information – his cup was full. It was a three and a half hour ride each way, but it was the start of me driving three and a half hours to get a lesson once a month for the next eleven years either in Austin from Mark, or in New York City, or at a seminar with Imaizumi. I would slip out of work early and make the Friday night class, I stayed at Mark’s place and did the Saturday morning class. When Mark resigned from Shin Budo Kai, I brought him to Atlanta twice a year, up until Covid hit.
The intensity of training was much higher. There was footwork and many other drills that helped support the aikido movements, and the quantity of techniques was enormous.
Mark is a very intelligent guy and a great teacher. He has won multiple Teacher of the Year awards at Austin Community College North Campus where he teaches, and it’s not just for teaching a great nikyo. His educational background is that he is a scientist – botany and chemistry – but is well educated in a number of other subjects. Mark likes to say that there must be a lecture and a lab; that a lab without the lecture just makes an explosion. His delivery of the lecture shows you the depth of aikido, how the same concept or movement is expressed in Tai Chi, or how aikido relates to the oneness of nature. When he comes in and delivers a seminar, it is not just a series of techniques, but concepts and principles to work on for the next six months or year.
MAYTT: The next year you began training under Shizuo Imaizumi. How did he and Mark Leidig compare as instructors?
LF: Two sentences was a lecture for Sensei Imaizumi. He was all about showing it/doing it. He would come around to let you feel it. He was powerful and soft at the same time, but it was all very experiential. Do enough reps to burn it in. I never worked so hard at being soft.
Occasionally, he would lecture at a seminar, about a general topic like ki. But it was rare for us and very unusual for his New York students that were there.
I once told Mark that I couldn’t learn Imaizumi’s style without his interpretation and explanation. But my only exposure to Imaizumi at the time was at a seminar. Once, I went to his dojo in New York and it was a beginners’ class. I did see how he broke things down for beginners, so I understood how beginners could actually learn from him.
I have been to a lot of aikido training that I refer to as jelly bean jar training. The instructor randomly picks techniques out of a large jar like you would out of one of those big jelly bean jars with all the crazy flavors. There is no real connection or rhyme or reason to it. Imaizumi produced a huge list of requirements, so we lived with the list, which he updated every seven years or so. But when he taught, he had sections of the list that were related – either by attack with multiple defenses, or singular defenses to multiple different attacks. He was trying to show the principles and connections between techniques. I found that the enormity of the list made you rely on “what was called” and responding to it, rather than spontaneous aikido. Mark made a huge change to the course of study when he went independent from Imaizumi Sensei, but he couldn’t have done it without the extensive background Imaizumi gave us. Mark went back to the basics, eight basic techniques, which were derived from the four basic techniques Tohei literally gave to him. From the matrix of these eight basic techniques, he built out a larger list of techniques through combinations and permutations of the basic eight. It forced you to think of at least two techniques for every attack, and more likely eight basic responses to every attack. It revealed relationships between techniques and principles much sooner. My students got at least twenty percent smarter with this approach and it is one we follow to this day.
MAYTT: What factors influenced Leidig’s decision to become independent? How did that ultimately affect your aikido training?
LF: Mark had studied with Imaizumi for about thirty-six years. He often said that most aikido teachers had three to five years’ worth of material to teach and Imaizumi had twelve, which he had done three times. So, I think some of the reason was that he was looking for more in the art. What was left for Mark was being named Imaizumi’s successor – if he would name someone outside of New York – and that didn’t matter to Mark. Lastly, there was a personal incident between them that precipitated the split. I got a call when I was in my second year of law school from Mark letting me know what was coming. It was not something that I really wanted to deal with, but Mark was my teacher. We were good friends, and I understood and agreed with his position completely. Imaizumi understood my position when I remained Mark’s student, and Imaizumi explained it to his students. I remained on good terms with Imaizumi’s students. Some of my students trained in the New York dojo. It was a shame, but these things happen. I understand that Imaizumi has since retired.
Mark’s implementation of a matrix-based approach to learning the art was a big help to my students and exposed the principals of the art and the relationship between the techniques much sooner in their study. His innovation could not have happened without the depth of techniques Imaizumi provided which Mark acknowledged. Aikido is a wonderful art, but it’s pretty crazy that you really have to study it for fifty years. Proficiency should come sooner, and then refinement. My students are still very interested in aikido. But you can also understand where lifetime learners; “dojo bums,” would need more to study – to continue learning. Mark has Tai Chi. Some dojos teach iaido. Some do other sword work. Imaizumi branched off into multiple sword schools of study. For me, it just represented more memorization, more kata. I was not interested in more quantity of techniques, I wanted quality – the depth of the art. I was more interested in the idea of Ki – the magic. Hence, when given the opportunity, I pursued Internal Power, it is the last lesson, but it’s a long one.
MAYTT: Within Imaizumi’s Shin Budo Kai, how much communication and interaction did schools have with each other?
LF: The “Kai” in Shin Budo Kai was a federation or association. Not an organization. We all ran pretty autonomous dojos. Issues might be raised to Imaizumi, but for the most part, we were running our own schools with his instruction at the core of it. Imaizumi was not interested in running a large organization with all the people, management, and political parts of it. He just wanted dedicated students who practiced.
Imaizumi sent out newsletters, but there wasn’t a lot of inter-dojo communication. I talked to Mark whenever I had questions or issues because I saw him so often. If something else came up I would just call him.
Most of the other dojos that were not taught by Mark were all in the New York area and I suspect they all communicated pretty well because the tradition was the Friday night advanced class where you would see all the other senior students.
MAYTT: Interesting. How would you characterize the training you experienced under Imaizumi and Shin Budo Kai compared to that of your earlier training?
LF: Minimalist aikido training – nothing extra nothing missing – with an intensity of practice I had not experienced. There was a depth of training methods to help that was terrific. The footwork training I had not been exposed to – it was going from high school to the pros.
MAYTT: What was it like when you started teaching? How did teaching change your perspective on aikido, if at all?
LF: When I told Mr. D what happened on my black belt test and how I felt like I didn’t know what I should do, his single piece of advice to me was to go teach.
Many years later after training with Dan Harden for about three years – weekend training every six months – he told me to go teach. I told him I wasn’t ready and wanted to train more before teaching. He told me that I needed to teach. I enjoy it now. It’s what I do, but I was drugged into it more than I ran to it.
We all taught as we learned when I started aikido. With Mark, there were some funny reactions if I gave feedback to my partner. They were much more hardcore – just throw.
I ended up teaching with Dick Grant, because I was going to Austin to learn all the new requirements. My practice was enhanced and my approach to the Ki Exercises and aikido changed from that instruction with Mark Leidig. As I tried to practice these changes in class, I was told to do things my instructor’s way. Point blank, I was told, “My way or the highway.” For me it was highway I-10 to 71 to Austin, so I had to leave my original instructor. It was a very tough decision for me, but to continue to train the way the art had evolved, that’s what was left. My friend, Dick Grant, and I started training people in Houston. He was very interested in training. I did not want to train anyone until I felt I had improved my own skills to where I wanted them, but coteaching the class with Dick helped because he and I could practice.
I did solo training, but ultimately aikido requires the nage/uke interaction. I later moved to Dallas and Dick continued to teach the class in Houston. I worked too much to teach or start a class in Dallas, so I trained at another dojo, taught my wife a little and we kept traveling to Austin for lessons. When we moved back to Houston. I started a class there that still exists today – even though they are probably unaware that I established the school.
I’m not consciously aware that it changed my perspective on aikido. I had to focus more to make sure I understood things because I now had to not just do it but explain it.
MAYTT: When did you establish Atlanta School of Aikido? What were the influences that led you to found your school?
LF: I moved my family to Atlanta in 1994, partly for a job, and because my brother lived there. I started training my brother, and my wife returned to training to help me start a class. After you do Imaizumi’s aikido, it’s hard to do practice or want to do another style of aikido. I knew what I wanted to practice, and the only way to do that was to teach.
MAYTT: How did you come to find Dan Harden and internal power?
LF: I had been doing aikido for over thirty years, and I was looking for “more” in my practice. Mark had been doing a lot of weapons work, which didn’t hold as much interest for me. I thought about Tai Chi, but I just wanted the “magic” part; I didn’t want to do forms for years, or learn another art. I never seemed to find the right Tai Chi teacher and regretted not learning from Mark who had been practicing Tai Chi about as long as he had been doing aikido. About a year after pondering the “what else I could be doing,” one of Imaizumi’s yudansha that I was friendly with and had practiced with many times told me I really needed to come see this guy, Dan Harden. I had read some of his postings on AikiWeb and was intrigued. Dan was teaching at this friend’s dojo about four times a year in New York State, where my sister lived nearby. My very understanding wife said to go give it a try. So, I went up to what was an advanced seminar. It was a case of that expression, “When you are ready, the teacher will appear.”
It was a whole new world, and a decision had to be made about whether I was ready to be a beginner again, which I dreaded, but ultimately has brought me renewed interest in the Martial Arts.
MAYTT: Final question; what aspects of internal power are complementary to aikido? Are there aspects where the two arts do not intersect?
LF: First of all, Dan Harden is a World Class Internals practitioner, with multiple shihan, sixth and fifth dan students studying with him around the world. My exposure and knowledge of Internal Power (IP) is really through him. But in that context, I can say that it relates to every aspect of aikido. The IP he teaches is to teach you to make aiki in your body. Dan will regularly quote O-Sensei in terms that never made any sense and show you what that means in your body. The multitude of O-Sensei quotes that Dan’s practice supports all validate the model Dan teaches. He is the only person that has proffered a theory and approach or model that explains O-Sensei’s legendary prowess – in English. If O-Sensei was human, why can’t we duplicate his power? The only other explanation I ever got for O-Sensei’s prowess was a quote from one of John Stevens’ books citing purple smoke and golden vapors. Dan will also show you how this model relates to Tai Chi, Traditional Japanese Sword, MMA, Wing Chun and any number of other arts. It is basically all the same applied across all these different arts.
His edict to me was to go make aikido great again. So, after some years of developing IP, we are trying to put it into our aikido. It is a great exercise. Internal Power development is the last lesson in the martial arts.
MAYTT: Thank you again for taking the time to talk with us, Feldman Sensei!
LF: It was a pleasure.
To learn more about aikido and its history in America, click here.
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