Laurin Herr found himself training under Robert Nadeau after a company merger and spending time in Japan training under Michio Hikitsuchi in Shingu. Bob Noha, on the other hand, trained with Nadeau since he was a teenager. Herr, Noha, and four other students of Nadeau came together during the Covid Pandemic to co-author what is now the book Aikido: The Art of Transformation, which chronicles both Nadeau’s life and his teachings. Today, Herr and Noha took some time to talk about their respective times training under Nadeau and what they want readers to take away after reading this new biography and lessons of Nadeau. This is a second part of a two part interview. Read the first part here.
MAYTT: Thank you for clarifying. Bob Sensei, you mentioned universal intelligence, universal energy, and the original source. How do you explain that idea to newer Aikido students because that is a lot to take in?
BN: One of the practices we use, which is covered quite a bit in the book, is a practice that Nadeau Sensei learned from O-Sensei called the practice of circle and center. O-Sensei described the moment of creation as a moment when a pinhole opened up and the energies of spirit flowed into a space, and from that, creation evolved. If you take a smaller version of that – because, you’re quite right, it’s a lot to take in – everyone I’ve ever talked to who practiced with O-Sensei said that before he would start teaching a class, he would do a practice, usually with a jo. But if he didn’t have a jo, he’d use a fan, and if he didn’t have a fan, he’d just use his hands. He would do a practice of centering and circling, a little bit of that, and then try a technique on one of the students. If he wasn’t satisfied, he’d repeat centering and circling again until he was. People noticed that he got stronger and better when he did that. What set O-Sensei apart is that he noticed the same thing. At one point, Nadeau approached O-Sensei and asked, “What is it you’re doing when you do that?” It was a risky question, because sometimes O-Sensei could get explosively angry if he didn’t like what people asked. But in this case, O-Sensei smiled and said, “No one has ever asked me that before,” and then he went on to explain.
He described opening a circle – not the size of creation, but maybe a little bigger than your body – and feeling your own center spiraling up from your hara through your spine, spiraling up and down. As he described it, you begin to sense an alive space much smaller than the whole creation, much smaller than the original creation, but nevertheless a very vivid and real experience. You can then apply this in an Aikido class to whatever technique you’re working on, or in other situations, apply the same practice to whatever situation you happen to be in. Over time, the circle and center get bigger, deeper, and fuller. Again, we’re stumbling toward the larger goal that O-Sensei talked about. When Laurin led a practice of circle and center at a recent book event with folks who were just there to talk about the book, it was obvious that people got something valuable from even a brief experience.
LH: I think one important thing to realize when we talk about energy and the universe is that Aikido is based on the reality that it’s not just my energy, it’s universal energy. It’s the energy all around us. If we purify ourselves –Japanese terminology, misogi – or as Nadeau Sensei says, , we allow that energy to flow through us, we can feel and sense more acutely. We can allow that energy flow to help us resolve conflict, deal with an attack, or whatever you need to cope with in life. My teachers in Japan were also very clear and consistent about this, even though they used different vocabulary from what Nadeau Sensei uses. That’s one of the reasons why, even though I didn’t understand his vocabulary when I first met him, I could see what he was doing. I could feel it.
For example, Hikiztsuchi Sensei talked a lot about kamisama, and purification – misogi – and shugyo, or self-improvement. He emphasized that the purpose of Aikido is to purify yourself so you can approach the kami, the divine. Nadeau Sensei says to relax, allow, get out of the way, open and settle, so that energy can flow through you and through the form, in order to return to the origin and find your original self. It’s very hard to explain concepts like kami or universal intelligence to modern Western students; it can sound too “woo-woo.” But Nadeau Sensei does a pretty good job leading us in that direction.
MAYTT: Both of you are describing that it is the connection that we are trying to achieve with the universal intelligence which allows us to do what we do in Aikido. Would that be then a working definition of aiki – what we are trying to obtain within Aikido?
LH: I think so. The word aiki actually predates Morihei Ueshiba by quite a bit. It was already an existing term in Japanese budo, meaning energetically blending with the attacker to defeat them. What O-Sensei built upon, and why he called it Aikido, was not only the idea that you could live your life that way, but also the addition of a universal spirit of love, reconciliation, loving protection, and connection. He famously described his experience of coming to realize that the purpose of budo was loving protection of all living beings. That, I think, was the real breakthrough. Nadeau Sensei has stayed true to that vision. He talks about how he grew up as a tough kid, then served in the Marine Corps, became a police officer, and practiced Karate, Judo, and other martial arts. Like many of us, he was drawn to martial arts for various reasons. But what he found in Aikido was a way of life—a philosophy that not only made everything fit together, but also was consistent with his experience, embodied by O-Sensei, and gave him a model to aspire to and a path to follow.
BN: I think Laurin laid it out very nicely. O-Sensei had this huge vision of how the universe works, how to embody it, and how to make that embodiment reflect the spirit Laurin was just talking about. Nadeau Sensei has worked to maintain that focus for us and continues evolving and clarifying it over all these decades. He’s still doing that today.
MAYTT: Moving onto your book, Aikido: The Art of Transformation, what was it like working with six different authors, yourselves included?
LH: I believe the idea of a book about Nadeau Sensei – or that he should write one, or that someone else should write one – has been around for decades. There have been many books written by his students or influenced by him. For example, as Bob mentioned, Golf in the Kingdom incorporates some of Nadeau Sensei’s notes in his own handwriting.
Our project, however, started during the pandemic. Teja Bell, one of our co-authors, called the rest of us and shared the idea of putting together a collection of stories. Teja is a Zen Roshi, and in the Zen tradition, as a teacher gets older, students collect stories and bind them together to present as a testament to the teacher. That was our starting idea. We sent out emails to everyone we could think of and received eighty-two stories. The stories were heartfelt and sincere. Some people wrote just 200 words, others wrote 2,000. We asked people to describe their first encounters, their impressions, experiences, or the impact Nadeau Sensei had on their lives, whatever they wanted to share. People really poured their hearts and souls into their writing because he had such a strong influence. Many stories referenced specific historical moments, like Aikido of San Francisco in a certain year or an Aikido Summer Retreat in another year. So, we decided to add a chronology, starting with Nadeau Sensei’s birth up to the present. He generously opened his scrapbook to us, giving us great photos of himself growing up, at Hombu Dojo, and developing Aikido in California. In many of the stories we received people talked about how Nadeau Sensei taught them so much and how practicing with him had a strong influence. So, we felt compelled to include his teachings. That turned out to be the most difficult part of the project because we didn’t want to garble his teachings; we wanted to present them as clearly as possible, using his vocabulary and concepts.
We all bring our own backgrounds – Bob, Teja, Richard Moon, Susan Spence, Elaine Yoder – and most of us have also practiced other arts or studied with other teachers. But we agreed our goal was to lay out Nadeau Sensei’s approach to teaching, with the understanding that he was doing his best to transmit O-Sensei’s teachings. That became the inspiration and driving force behind the book. It’s a labor of love and respect for our teacher, Robert Nadeau, and for his dedication to O-Sensei’s path. We also agreed right away that the authors would not take any royalties; the royalties would go entirely to Nadeau Sensei, who is eighty-eight now.
When someone asked him recently what it was like to read the book, he said, “It’s actually quite wonderful because students don’t always tell you what they’re thinking.” It’s special to read things like, “I remember we sat and talked,” or, “I never knew that this person went on and changed their life as a result of that.” I believe the book has turned out to be something very substantial that will stand the test of time. It doesn’t focus on waza but on the inner teachings and processes – how you can develop yourself in an Aikido-like way. Nadeau Sensei describes himself as a mapmaker; he’s providing navigation, but everyone has to walk the path themselves.
MAYTT: In working with everyone on that unified vision, was it difficult to get to that agreed upon vision? What was the experience of working with six authors?
BN: The chronology and the stories weren’t so difficult; that was the easier part. The teachings were the challenging part. No matter how much we know about Nadeau Sensei’s teachings, they are still expressed through each of us as individuals. The real challenge was to bring these six individual perspectives on his teachings together. That took by far the most time. Laurin did an unbelievably good job keeping some structure through the process by managing various files for each version of the teachings as they were written, revised, rewritten, and revised again. Laurin might be able to tell us how many versions and revisions we went through – I don’t remember exactly, but it was probably at least twenty, maybe more. This is because Nadeau Sensei doesn’t teach in a linear manner.
As you know yourself as a writer, when you put something down in print, it has a certain linear quality; otherwise, people can’t understand what you’re saying. That made it a real challenge. In the end, we remained friends, so that was good. We also ran the materials by Nadeau Sensei a few times to make sure he was happy with the outcome. He suggested a few changes, but not many. So overall, the main challenge was that, even though we were all very well-versed in Nadeau Sensei’s teachings, those teachings still came through us as individuals, and blending those individual perspectives together was difficult.
Laurin, how many versions do you think there were before we arrived at the final one?
LH: On the teachings alone, I think we went through about thirty drafts. It was a full-bodied collaboration, and we went back and forth a lot, discussing what the right way was to express things, which words to use, where punctuation should go, what should come first and second, what to call these teachings, and where to place the headers. For example, there was a section called “Squared Away.” We had it in one place in the manuscript, then thought it should move. Then we decided it should stay where it was. Then maybe it should move again. Eventually, you just have to pick one. Everyone had input and contributed ideas and phrasing. I would write something, Elaine Yoder would proof it and make comments, Susan Spence would call and say, “I think these words should change,” Moon would inject new ideas, Teja would add wonderful sentences here and there.
I don’t know if you’ve ever worked collaboratively with others, but it definitely has its challenges; everyone has their own viewpoints, opinions, and preferences. But if you’re really trying to do something together, you have to work through that. We’re all still friends, and we grew to know each other better than before. We were acquaintances, but now we’re quite close because we grappled with each other’s strengths and weaknesses and learned a lot about one another. The binding force throughout was the sincerity of our commitment to the project, our love and respect for Nadeau Sensei, and our shared desire to contribute broadly to Aikido.
BN: One additional challenge was that Nadeau Sensei, in his Friday night Zoom classes with his wife assisting, would use diagrams to explain some of the principles he was discussing. We felt those diagrams were effective, but since they were hand-drawn scribbles on a flip chart, we thought they needed to be refined to work better in book form. Even while working on the diagrams, there was a lot of back and forth, questions like, “Wait a minute, should it look like this or like that?” We weren’t simply copying the diagrams from the YouTube videos of those classes; we wanted to keep their spirit while making sure they clearly expressed the underlying principles. So, even with the diagrams, the process was just as detailed and collaborative as Laurin described.
LH: Teja Bell was the primary artist for the diagrams. He also did the Photoshop work on the photographs. To elaborate on some of the questions about the diagrams: we debated whether the line indicating the center should be thin or wide? What color should it be? The book ended up in black and white, but we originally worked in color. How do we depict energy? We came up with various approaches, as best as we could.
BN: The publisher helped us some, but the real work was done by the six of us.
MAYTT: It sounds like it was a positive experience for the six of you.
LH: I imagine that Bob would agree that if we knew then what we know now, we might have been more hesitant in taking it on.
BN: I think we probably would have still wanted to do it, Laurin, but maybe we would have taken a hard look at the process and not been surprised at how long and difficult it was.
MAYTT: Since we are talking about the process, was there anything that you found out about Nadeau that you did not know before?
LH: I never knew about his early life. I knew he went to Hombu Dojo in the early 1960s and was a mover and a motivating force behind the growth of Aikido in Northern California. But I didn’t know anything about his early life. So, I learned a lot about Robert Nadeau, the person who I had only known as a teacher.
BN: I didn’t really learn that much new, because as a teenager and high school student, I spent a lot of time at his house. I knew his first wife, Margie, very well. Margie’s mother lived with them, so I got to know her too. I was sort of like the best man at his second wedding, so I met his sisters and one of his brothers who was still alive at the time. There were a few details here and there that were new to me, like other people he studied bodybuilding with, that I hadn’t known about. But for the most part, I didn’t learn much new. Still, putting everything together and seeing the chronology, and how one thing affected another, was a lot of work.
MAYTT: What do you want readers to take away from both Nadeau’s biography and his teachings?
LH: I want readers to understand the process of transformation. The book explores transformation from different perspectives. One is the transformation of Robert Nadeau from the James Dean wannabe growing up in Redwood City in the early 1950s into Robert Nadeau Shihan, eighth dan, one of our greatest living Aikido teachers today, and how he evolved through that process. He wasn’t born an eighth dan; he came from very humble roots and developed himself into someone who has had enormous influence on the world, his direct students, and the growth of Aikido around the world. In the book, we also lay out Nadeau Sensei’s articulation of O-Sensei’s fundamental processes for transforming yourself through Aikido: to become more of who you can be, to approach life in a more balanced and harmonious way, and to become a better person – one who can live well with others through improved communication and intimacy.
What’s really unusual for a book like this is that we also include wonderful stories from his students about the impact of his teachings. So, on one hand, you have the teachings themselves; on the other, you have people’s reflections on what they took away, how they understood the teachings, how they changed, and how they were transformed. So, there’s Nadeau Sensei’s personal transformation, the process you can use yourself to transform, and stories about how others felt transformed. I think it’s quite rare for a martial arts book – or an Aikido book, or a book about a great teacher – to have all three of those elements in one volume.
BN: Very well said, Laurin. O-Sensei had an enormously big vision, and one source of concern, though not meant as a criticism of what people are doing, is that O-Sensei’s vision of how the universe works, and how you can embody that universal experience in your own life, might be lost as time goes on. It would be regrettable if the art of Aikido becomes just an art of physical movements without that huge vision O-Sensei brought – the reason why we do these movements. If the art becomes just technique by itself, much of the spirit of Aikido will be lost. That’s something we hope the book will help prevent. It’s not that the techniques are unimportant, but they are by no means the sum total of what O-Sensei was trying to bring into the world.
MAYTT: Is there anything else you would like to say before we finish?
LH: The book is called Aikido: The Art of Transformation: The Life and Teachings of Robert Nadeau and was published by Inner Traditions. It’s available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and bookstores around the world. We also have a website with more information: www.nadeaushihan.com.
I think it’s a good read. I’ve given it to people who have nothing to do with Aikido, and they’ve come back saying it’s really interesting. The stories come to life; it’s not a cold, dry book about philosophy. There isn’t a single paragraph about how to do a better waza. Instead, it’s about how to live a better life and become a better person. Reading the personal stories is inspiring, like hearing how someone took something from a class, applied it to a problem in their life, and felt better for it. That’s really cool. So, you don’t have to be an Aikido student to get something meaningful from this book. If you are an Aikido student, even if you’ve practiced for a long time, you can get a lot from it. Nadeau Sensei is a kind of treasure in the Aikido world. He doesn’t teach widely anymore or travel like he used to when he was younger. Some of his lessons have become so widely adopted and diffused that few people realize he was one of the first proponents. The book also gives a real appreciation of how Aikido developed after O-Sensei passed away. There are many books about O-Sensei’s direct disciples – eighty, ninety, or even a hundred of them. Each took something different away from O-Sensei and articulated it differently, so each perspective is unique. Yet, at the core, there is enormous consistency among them, which shows how great a teacher O-Sensei was. This book offers a rather unusual and effective way to convey O-Sensei’s teachings, especially the so-called spiritual aspects of Aikido that Nadeau Sensei has dedicated his life to promoting and teaching. His teaching style isn’t “I’ll teach you, and you sit and listen.” Instead, it’s more like, “I’m going to tell you, now you do it. I’ll tell you you’re not doing it right, and then you try again.” But ultimately, it’s up to you.
Each co-author has their own story in the book. I mention in mine that when I took my first class with Nadeau Sensei back in 1999, my first impression was, “Wow, this guy’s got great Aikido technique.” My second impression was, “I can’t understand what he’s saying.” His vocabulary was so alien to me. But at one point in class, he turned to the students and asked, “What are you experiencing?” In all the years I’d trained in Japan, no one had ever asked students during class what they were thinking or feeling. I think Nadeau Sensei is one of the few teachers who does that. It’s empowering for students, forcing them to get in touch with who they are and what they’re going through. That’s one of the wonderful things about being one of his students.
That’s my summary. Bob, why don’t you wrap it up for us?
BN: I think you pretty much laid it out, Laurin. Nadeau Sensei has a sincere interest in whether people are progressing or not, and sometimes he’s willing to put a little pressure on you if he sees you can go further.
The first time I went to Japan was in 1998, long after Laurin had been there. At that time, there were still many of O-Sensei’s students teaching at Hombu. Obviously, now most of them are gone except for Hiroshi Tada Sensei, who seems to be able to live forever. If you look at the Aiki Facebook page for the All Japan Aikido demo they did just a week or so ago, you’ll see Tada Sensei at ninety-five years old still out there whomping and stomping. But aside from him, those teachers have all come and gone. One of the things I noticed in 1998, when many of them were still teaching, was how different they were from each other! If you didn’t know better, you might have thought, “Are these people even practicing the same art?” Reflecting on it, the conclusion I came to was that O-Sensei was very good at seeing each person’s natural arc of development and was committed to helping them achieve as much of that as possible, rather than trying to make carbon copies of himself. What Nadeau Sensei has done is lay out what that developmental process actually is, and how you can utilize it yourself.
MAYTT: Thank you for this great conversation, Senseis!
This is a second part of a two part interview. Read the first part here.
To learn more about aikido and its history in America, click here.
Martial Arts of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow 