I had a Dream

The other night I dreamed participating an Aikido Seminar with my late teacher Kobayashi Hirokazu. Kobayashi Sensei passed away almost 20 years ago. As young students, my friends and me travelled across Europe on summer weekends to attend his seminars in France, Italy, Swiss, The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.

Sometimes I dream of the one or other past teacher of mine, dreams of my former Zen teacher are usually nightmares with a relatively simple plot: I try doing my best in a certain situation and mess it up, he is silently standing just behind me, which I don’t realise until the chaos I produced is complete.

Kobayashi Sensei sitting next to me in real life, long time ago.

The dream of my late Aikido Teacher was quite different. Kobayashi Sensei was much elder than he looked last time I’ve seen him, almost how he might actually look if he lived on to the current day. And his technique, which I always considered as most elegant and perfect, had developed further: even more subtle, more efficient, more flowing and adopted to the physical capabilities of a very old man. I was fascinated to practise with him again. After waking up it did not feel like waking up from a dream, but more like the morning after coming back from an Aikido seminar: full of inspiration and motivation to practise and digest what I’ve just learned.

 

I am not superstitious, not outside Japan. Being trained as a scientist, I have several rational and sobering explanations for such a dream at hand. No, it was not the late Obi Wan advising Luke to use The Force and let go kind of thing … but that does not matter.

The other night I received a final Aikido lesson from my late teacher, どうもありがとうございました。