Immediately, Suenaka quit Sacramento College and headed back to Hawaii to spend a little vacation time with his family before heading overseas. Upon arriving home in February, however, he was stunned to discover O’Sensei himself was in Honolulu; incredibly, Suenaka had received no news of the Founder’s historic visit. Suenaka arrived the day after O’Sensei’s blessing of the newly-constructed Hawaii Aikikai. Although he was unable to attend, his family did; his father, mother, and brother Greg can be seen in many frames of a film, available on video, of the event.
While in Hawaii, O’Sensei was gracious enough to teach a few classes and give several lectures. Naturally, Suenaka took full advantage of the situation, attending as many classes and lectures as he could, as well as those conducted by Tohei Sensei who, having spent some seven years planting the seeds of aikido in America, had accompanied the Founder there to see the seeds bear their first fruit. Suenaka’s first glimpse of O’Sensei was at one of these lectures, during which the Founder demonstrated first-hand the heart of aikido, manifested in the spiritual power of ki. Suenaka vividly remembers the demonstration:
“O’Sensei stood there and put his hand, straight-armed, on this guy’s head, like he was blessing him, and then, boom!, the guy just crumbled, straight down to the ground. Then O’Sensei put his finger on the side of the guy’s head there on the mat, and the guy couldn’t move. Then he turned the guy over on his stomach and laid the back of his head on the middle of this guy’s back, like he was laying on a pillow. He told the guy to get up, and the guy couldn’t move! Now, I looked at that and I thought, ‘This is awesome!”’
On about the third day of his visit, a banquet was held in O’Sensei’s honor at the Rainbow Garden Teahouse, a local inn where he was staying during his time in Honolulu. Among the invited guests were those martial artists who found themselves drawn to this new art of aikido, Suenaka included. Following the feast, O’Sensei retired early, as was his habit. Not long after his departure, Suenaka decided to get a closer look at the mysterious, diminuitive master, unaware that just a few minutes later, he would unexpectedly have his first face-to-face meeting with the Founder.
After a few moments investigation, Suenaka identified O’Sensei’s bungalow and quietly crept closer, not wanting to betray his presence and risk angering Ueshiba. Finally, he got close enough to see inside:
“He was sitting in his room—the sliding shoji screen door was slightly open, as he really liked the natural surroundings, the breeze. . . . I was standing approximately fifty feet away, in the trees behind some bushes, just watching him, just to see what he was doing in there. He was sitting in seiza, reading a book.”
Suddenly, O’Sensei began to speak:
“I understood Japanese vaguely then. I couldn’t speak very much, but I could understand that he was saying something like, ’Hey you, out there!’ His back was turned toward me, and he said, ‘Why don’t you come in here, don’t stand out there.’ Of course, I looked around and didn’t see anyone else there but me, so I approached the door, and I said, ‘Boku?,’ which means ‘me’ in Japanese. And he said, ‘Yes, you!’ So I went in and sat down and faced him on the other side of the table.
“I was very intimidated. He didn’t even look at me. He continued to read, and I looked at him. I had never thought what I’d feel like (meeting O’Sensei). I guess I’d never expected to feel like a dumb fool, just sitting there—and I sat there for a good long period, ten or fifteen minutes. That’s when he wet his finger and reached back behind him, without looking, and brought out a little baby cockroach—he had caught him on his back and his little legs were waving in the air—and I looked at it and said, ‘Oh, yeah.’ And he put it down and let it run away. He never killed things, never even flies or mosquitos.”
The small incident with the insect may not seem like much, but it sent Suenaka’s mind reeling. How had O’Sensei known the little cockroach was there? Even more, how had he known Suenaka was there? Was O’Sensei sending Suenaka a subtle, even comical message? Not certain what to do, whether to stay or leave, speak or remain silent, Suenaka remained seated, watching the Founder as he read. To say he was nervous would be an understatement, and he wondered if the Founder was angry for being spied on. A few minutes later, O’Sensei again challenged Suenaka’s perception.
“After the cockroach incident, I just continued sitting there and watching him as he was reading. There might have been a breeze or something, I don’t know, but . . . I was watching the page just turn by itself, and I was thinking, ‘My God! Such power!’ I was really impressed! But I really don’t know if it was a breeze or not that did it. He didn’t touch the page at all . . . To this day, I don’t know.
“We didn’t converse at all. Only when he said,’ See, look at this,’ and I went ‘Uh hum.’ But after a while, he looked up at me and looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘Okay, you can go now.’ Then he smiled, and I left.”
As may be expected, this first face-to-face meeting with O’Sensei had a profound effect on Suenaka, who in the days to follow observed O’Sensei even more intently than before. For his part, O’Sensei obviously remembered his unexpected evening visitor. Several days after their initial meeting, Suenaka paid another, more formal, visit to O’Sensei at his bungalow, this time as part of a group which included his father, brothers, and others. During the visit, O’Sensei made a point of asking Suenaka if he planned to attend yet another luau in his honor, an upcoming weekend affair organized by Dr. Wakatake, an aikidoka and respected local physician (who was later president of the Hawaii Aikikai), and held at his country home in Punaluu, on the other side of Oahu. Naturally, Suenaka answered yes.
The luau was a grand affair, featuring professional musicians, dancers, and other entertainers, as well as an seemingly endless supply of food. Rather than travel back and forth from home to the party, Suenaka and others stayed on Wakatake’s estate. One night, after O’Sensei had gone to bed, several of the older aikidoka dared Suenaka to slip into O’Sensei’s room and leave a note on his nightstand without being detected. The note itself contained a message to the effect of “Gotcha!,” meaning someone had managed to sneak up on the preternaturally perceptive Founder without his knowledge. As Suenaka stealthily entered the room, he saw O’Sensei had his back turned to the door and was facing the wall, apparently asleep. Carefully, he lay the note on the nightstand and hastily made his exit. “The next day, after he got up,” recalls Suenaka, “O’Sensei handed me the paper and said, ‘You forgot this on my nightstand last night.’ Everybody laughed and thought it was funny; I was just dumbfounded.”
The second day of the luau passed much as the first, with demonstrations and classes during the day, and Saturday night filled with food and entertainment. With festivities still in full swing, O’Sensei again decided to retire early, and called for his otomo (valet) to assist him. However, his otomo was nowhere to be found; it was soon discovered he had instead elected to enjoy the Honolulu nightlife. Suenaka recalls his first glimpse of O’Sensei’s formidable anger:
“He was enraged—he was yelling and carrying on and everybody was scared. Everybody just spread out, nobody wanted to be around him—they thought the world was going to explode! . . . [But] he got right over it. That’s the way I am now, and maybe it was something he ingrained in me. I told O’Sensei later I had learned that from him—he said, ‘Well, you maintain that frame of mind!”’
His otomo absent, O’Sensei changed his mind about retiring and instead decided to take a walk along the beach to enjoy the cool of the early evening. Even though O’Sensei didn’t even know the name of the young Hawaiian who had just recently unceremoniously invaded his privacy, to his delight, Suenaka was invited to join him:
“We walked across the street—the