By this time, though, Warren Suenaka had no doubts. He immediately made aikido the new focus of his studies, and Roy Suenaka, though he needed no persuasion, was told to do likewise.
Warren Suenaka wasn’t the only man impressed by aikido’s uncommon power and efficacy. Tohei Sensei’s first visit to Hawaii lasted one year—long enough to establish a firm foothold, during which time many of the island’s ranking martial artists rushed to study under him. Among these early U.S. aikido pupils were many who attended the first demonstration at the Nishi-kai, including Yukiso Yamamoto, at the time fifty years old, Kazuto Sugimoto, “Koa” Kimura, and Isao Takahashi. For lack of a private dojo, aikido classes were conducted at the YBA hall in Honolulu on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and at the Kompira-san—a Buddhist temple which already doubled as a dojo for numerous martial arts, including judo, jujutsu, kendo, sumo, and kyudo—on all other days except Sunday. Suenaka studied every chance he could, alternating between classes at the YBA and the Kompira-san, training in aikido five days a week, almost to the exclusion of his judo training. As Yamamoto was also studying aikido, this potential conflict of focus caused no problems. Indeed, upon his departure a year later, Koichi Tohei appointed Yamamoto chief instructor of the brand-new Hawaii Aikikai, the parent organization for aikido in the Hawaiian islands, the headquarters of which was, naturally, at the YBA. Tohei awarded the judo godan (fifth degree black belt) the aikido rank of sandan (third degree black belt) and did the same for Takahashi and Sugimoto, naming them assistant chief instructors to Yamamoto. All three rotated among the YBA, Kompira-san, and other area schools, teaching aikido, though at the time Yamamoto had not totally forsaken his judo study and instruction.
Warren Suenaka throwing Roy Suenaka sayu-nage in their back yard in Honolulu, Hawaii, just before Suenaka Sensei’s departure for Japan; March, 1961.
Although Suenaka would later develop a close and lasting personal relationship with Koichi Tohei, he had little contact with his future mentor during these early days of study, other than the normal contact one of many students has with his sensei (of course, Tohei remained in Hawaii but a year during this first visit, and Suenaka had left Honolulu by the time of Tohei’s subsequent visits). Suenaka studied hard and learned quickly, in large part because of his prior experience in other martial arts. His skills in ukemi (falling and tumbling techniques) were already honed through his judo study, while aikido’s similarities to jujutsu enabled Suenaka to readily assimilate aikido technique. “I just sort of melded or fell right into aikido,” he says. “It was almost natural for me. (These other arts) were building a foundation for me, so when I went into aikido it was second nature.”
Honolulu’s Kompira-San Training Hall today.
It should be noted that even though aikido was now the primary focus of Suenaka’s study, in 1955 he somehow managed to find time to begin the study of kendo under Shuji Mikami, at the time the highest-ranking kendo master in the Western world. Suenaka studied under him for just short of three years. And a year earlier, in 1954, Suenaka also became involved in amateur boxing, and fought competitively until 1958.
By the age of eighteen, Suenaka Sensei had already received dan (black belt) ranking in three arts. His high school graduation, though, as it does with anyone, marked yet another turning point in his life. While he could have found a job and remained at home in Hawaii, continuing his martial studies as before, Suenaka opted instead to see the world. Accordingly, on September 26, 1958, Roy Suenaka enlisted in the United States Air Force.
CHAPTER THREE
Airman Suenaka
We all have a point where our earliest memories begin. For most, it is perhaps our third or fourth year; for others, it might be earlier, recollection triggered by some momentous event that burns itself into our consciousness. For Suenaka, his earliest memories are of December 8, 1941, when he and his family were returning home from an outing and suddenly the skies over Honolulu were filled with Japanese Zero fighter planes dancing with American aircraft during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Though just eighteen months old, his memories sketchy at best, Suenaka can recall the day. One image stands out in his mind—the sound of machine gun fire as he watched from a bunker two planes engaged in a dogfight overhead. “For some reason, I remember seeing fireballs. It’s something a person doesn’t forget.”
It might have been this unforgettable early glimpse of air combat that led Suenaka to investigate becoming an Air Force fighter pilot. However, his initial enthusiasm was cooled somewhat by the gradual realization of the lengthy study necessary to attain that goal. First, he would need a college degree. Then, he would attend Officer’s Preparatory School. And then, if he made it that far, he would move on to actual pilot training. Nevertheless, he was determined to give it a shot.
After completing boot camp at Lackland Air Base in San Antonio, Texas, in December 1958, electrician and Airman 3rd Class Roy Suenaka was assigned to Mather Air Force Base, the ATC (Air Training Command) and SAC (Strategic Air Command) base in Sacramento, California. After enrolling in Sacramento College to study electrical engineering, top priority was finding a place to practice martial arts. Just a few months after arrival and with Yamamoto Sensei’s blessing, Suenaka began teaching aikido at the Mather Air Base gym. He also landed a part-time job with the San Juan school district teaching judo, plus some aikido, at Encino High School two hours a day, three days a week, for which he was paid the handsome sum of ten dollars an hour. For a young man in the early 1960’s, it was excellent money, especially since the Air Force already paid for his housing and medical care on top of his base salary.
As aikido was in its infant stage in the United States, Suenaka’s aikido classes, modest though they were, made him one of the first people to teach organized aikido on the U.S. mainland. While it seems logical that there may have been other aikidoka who opened earlier schools on the mainland, probably U.S. servicemen who began their studies in Japan, documentation is scarce. Eugene Combs, who was introduced to Yoshinkan aikido at the Army’s Camp Drake outside Tokyo in 1955, opened the American School of Aikido in Lawndale, California in 1956, making him one of the first to teach the art on the U.S. mainland. In May of 1953, about four months after his initial arrival in Hawaii, Koichi Tohei traveled to San Jose, California to conduct an aikido demonstration there, while Kenji Tomiki traveled to the U.S. mainland one month later at the invitation of the U.S. Air Force (more on this later). However, these latter two events were demonstrations only. Besides Combs, the first wave of aikidoka to teach on the mainland were born of Koichi Tohei’s 1953 Hawaiian visit, and included not only Suenaka, but Tokuji Hirata, who began teaching aikido in San Diego around the same time Suenaka arrived in Sacramento, and Isao Takahashi, who moved to Los Angeles in 1959, becoming chief instructor at the Los Angeles Aikikai. Other Hawaiian aikidoka who subsequently emigrated to the mainland include Roderick Kobayashi, Clem Yoshida, Harry Ishisaka (who commenced his aikido study after moving to Southern California), and Ben Sekishiro, all of whom commenced their aikido studies after Suenaka’s departure from Hawaii (with the exception of Kobayashi, who began his study in 1957).
Much like his father, Suenaka took every opportunity he could to investigate and, in some cases, study as many different arts offered in the area as he could. In particular, while in Sacramento, Suenaka developed a brief friendship with noted tang soo do instructor Mariano “Cisco” Estioko, and occasionally studied with him on an informal basis as time allowed. Studying different arts, no matter how briefly, whenever the opportunity presented itself was a conscious practice for Suenaka, meant to provide him with as broad a martial reference base as possible. Just as his street-fighting experience, both during his youth in Hawaii and his later days as a serviceman in Japan and Okinawa, provided him with “real world” proofs for his primary disciplines of aikido
