13 September 2003: Milt Sensei Raises the Bar

Of all the aikido instructors I've ever trained with, Milt Daniels was my favorite.  A black guy from inner-city Philadelphia, Vietnam vet, about six-and-a-half feet tall.  He was one of Shuji Maruyama's students from way, way back, from sometime in the Sixties, when Maruyama had just recently come to America and just had that one dojo, barely scraping by, in a part of Philly that only black people and hippies would set foot in.  I trained with him for nine months, once a week, when I was living in Philly in 1989 and early 1990.  Other nights, I trained with other instructors - the Center City dojo (it was on Chestnut Street back then) had a lot of yudansha, so there was a different instructor every day of the week.  Milt was the one whose class I never missed, though.  I don't know if he still teaches, or trains in any dojo, or, if so, where.  If you see him, say hello.

Milt would never let anyone call him Sensei.  He never got dragged into aikido politics.  He didn't worry about keeping up with Maruyama's latest revisions of the techniques or the rules.  He just loved the art, because he got it.  He got what it was about.  His aikido was absolutely clear, simple, and humble.  It was aikido with nothing to prove.  He just did the moves because he saw that they were beautiful, just as they were, with no force or flourishes.  Bare bones.  Simple circles.

And one day, after class, Milt quietly, simply, humbly changed my life and my aikido forever, by sitting down with me for ten minutes and teaching me how to practice zazen.

Last night I dreamed about Milt.  Never happened before.  In my dream I showed up to visit the Center City dojo.  I was on the mat, stretching, waiting for class to start; very few people were there.  And I turned around and Milt was bowing onto the mat, smiling at me.  I got up and started toward him, and knew immediately that he just wanted me to attack him, with no greeting, no words - that was the only greeting that would do, because that would tell him everything he needed to know about where I was at right now.  I attacked him about a dozen times, and it was the best aikido I've ever experienced.  Each time, he threw me into a breakfall, and each breakfall was perfect bliss; I was floating, I was falling and landing so gracefully that it felt like no impact at all.  My attacks, his throws, my falls, all seamlessly flowing together to create a dance of transcendent beauty, a level of aikido I'd never seen or imagined.

And then we were suddenly done; we knew it was time to sit down and await the beginning of class; we knew the instructor was about to appear.  And we sat in seiza and I turned to Milt like I was going to say something, though I wasn't sure what could be said.  And he was grinning at me, and he said softly, "It's still just light judo.  Ain't none of us alive can even dream real aikido yet."