Even though I have 7th dan, I received my shodan from Yamada shihan. However, we have maintained the sensei-student relationship ever since and on his visits to Japan, Sensei would always get in contact with me and we would talk, He told me about his 'unwelcome, uninvited visitor' (cancer) and I told him about my own visitor, equally uninvited and equally unwelcome. So there was a certain fellow-feeling. We would always meet on my visits to Tokyo. I am now the senior instructor in the Hiroshima dojo, but the regular visitor is Tada Hiroshima Shihan. Since I was doing my Ph.D. at Harvard, I trained at the New England Aikikai, where the senior shihan was Kanai Mitsunari Shihan, with Fred Wagstaff and Fred Newcombe as assistants.
Great
Even though I have 7th dan, I received my shodan from Yamada shihan. However, we have maintained the sensei-student relationship ever since and on his visits to Japan, Sensei would always get in contact with me and we would talk, He told me about his 'unwelcome, uninvited visitor' (cancer) and I told him about my own visitor, equally uninvited and equally unwelcome. So there was a certain fellow-feeling. We would always meet on my visits to Tokyo. I am now the senior instructor in the Hiroshima dojo, but the regular visitor is Tada Hiroshima Shihan. Since I was doing my Ph.D. at Harvard, I trained at the New England Aikikai, where the senior shihan was Kanai Mitsunari Shihan, with Fred Wagstaff and Fred Newcombe as assistants.