Book Review: Remembering O’Sensei, Living and training with Morihei Ueshiba, Founder of Aikido

Edited by Susan Perry with a foreword by Moriteru Ueshiba. Shambhala, 2002

Susan Perry is well known within the Aikido world as an experienced Aikidoist, with well over 30 years practice and the editor-in-chief of Aikido Today Magazine, which started in 1987 (now ceased publication).
The book has a foreword by Moriteru Ueshiba, Aikido Doshu. The book is a collection of stories about O’Sensei basically taken from interviews over 15 years.

The introduction from Susan Perry makes a very good point:
“O’Sensei’s lessons were not always the same for every student. Instead he matched his lessons to what he preserved as a student’s interests and abilities. Accordingly, his live-in students as well as students who trained more briefly under his authority came away with different perspectives of the art and different stories about their teacher”.

There are 31 contributions to this book some of them are:
Seiseki Abe, Kenshiro Abe, Ken Cottier, Terry Dobson, Robert Frager, Mary Heiny, Robert Nadeau, Morihiro Saito, Mitsugi Saotome, Moriterau Ueshiba and Yoshimitsu Yamada.

This is an unique book as the 31 contributors provide snapshots of their training with O’Sensei, their off the mat interactions with him and their observations of his daily life.