Tony Sargeant. Born in Cambridge UK on the 02. 02. 1950 British
Started Aikido in September 1973 at the age of twenty three
(Also a teacher of Tai Chi, 14 years, Yoga 20 years, Meditation, 10 years. I have been clairvoyant since the age of 28 and over the years of travelling the world I have devised a healing method that works on re-energising the meridians to balance the body.)

It was a strange way I came to Aikido, but this is my story. I was running my own small car workshop and a customer approached me who had four vans and a car for which he wanted to arrange a twelve month contract for servicing. This was such a big opportunity for me; I asked if I could have his account as this would bring in a good guaranteed income. He agreed, however his terms were that his teacher was about to start an Aikido class for beginners at a local school and I must be one of his new students, I jumped at the offer just to secure my financial future.
I remember the time well, I knew that I had no intention of actually turning up and would make up a wonderful lie, on why I could not make it at the time; this was because I had never taken part in any sports since leaving school and was not interested in martial arts, especially one I had never heard of or could pronounce!
One very important thing about my working life was that I would start work from 7 am and work all the way through to 10 pm most days and on Sundays I would work until 3 pm.

Aikido beginner's class
On the day when the class was to start I had genuinely forgotten that it was on that night and my normal routine of the day was no different than any other, this was until for some reason that I cannot remember I ran out of work early. I decided to go to the local pub for my two pints of beer that was my daily intake before going home. This was quite usual for me that if I did need a break in my day I would go over the road at 6 pm when the pub first opened then I would go back to work.

Fate
So I had run out of work and planned that after my two pints I would go home, but when I tried the pub door it was locked, I then remembered the land lord saying that as from this week he would not be opening until 7 pm. I was not happy and decided to drive to another village where I could satisfy my thirst. On arriving I found that this pub was also closed, and decided to go home. My wife was very surprised when she saw me as I did not have a mobile phone in those days, I asked when my dinner would be ready, and her reply was that I would have to wait a while due to my early arrival. Again I was not happy with a second failure of the day. (I must admit that I was a young twenty three year old male chauvinistic pig.) I took my self off to the living room put the TV on and placed my feet up on my square orange footstool. The TV was a very modern unit three channel set, to annoy me even more I would have to get out of my seat each time the channel needed to be changed, ( as there were no remote controls then either) so up and down then back over the channels just to find nothing of interest. As I sat there with no entertainment and no food or drink in me I remembered the Aikido class.
Was all this fate? I think so; because of all the things I could think about this was the last one that came in to my mind. To make it even more strange the customer that first told me of the class lived a long way from Cambridge and I lived twenty miles from my workshop.
Here is the strange part; the school was in the next village to my house.
I decided to go, not knowing what to wear, I went in jeans and a tee shirt, I still remember not having a clue on what I was doing or more to the point I had no idea what was being done to me, every time I would get up from the floor I would find my self hitting the underneath of the small table that the children would work on, it being a school room in which we trained. I managed to survive the night unscathed and remember it to this day, the feeling it left me with, the feeling of not being in charge for the first time in my life of my own body but also a feeling of great happiness stayed with me until the next day until 11 am. I know this is not many hours between but this made me want to go back. I did and I never missed a class or days training of my own for the next twenty two years of my life. I even arranged my marriage around my Aikido training. Since then I have built my house and dojo here in Orwell UK near Cambridge and have reduced the training to fit in more with life.

My English Aikido teachers
My first teacher was Richard Stripe who was a first degree black belt that had been taught by Haden Foster, head of Aikido in London, before he moved to Cambridge. The class was once a week at that time and we moved from the school to a Judo club in Cambridge to train. The training was for me too far apart so I asked if we could train an extra night. I was a 4th kyu at the time and our normal training night was Thursdays, he said that he had a heart condition (in fact he had 8 heart attacks) and did not wish to push himself but said that I could teach the class on a Tuesday. In those days you did not need to have insurance for teaching or had to be any special grade. I started the class; there was an average of three plus me. My friend Bob had started at the same time as me and so we decided to take it in turns to teach. I had to travel about fifteen miles each way and some times found that I was on my own. (Many of you must have had the same thing happen). Sensei Stripe could see how keen we both were and he told us to go to London to advance our skills. When I reached 1st Kyu level from Mr Hayden Foster, Mr Stripe said as he awarded me my belt at the next Cambridge class in front of all of the other students that I was the worst student that he had ever taught in twelve years but now I had become the best. It was that evening that Mr Stripe handed over the Cambridge Aikido Club to me. So from 4th Kyu Bob and I would go every Sunday and train in "The Hut" in Hillingdon (near Heathrow airport) 68 miles from Cambridge. We would take turns in the driving and did this for several years.

The Hut
This was the first headquarters for Aikido in the UK. It was originally a Judo club which invited teachers from Japan to teach there. The first step was the arrival of the now late Kenshiro Abbi a great master of Judo. He had met O Sensei and had found the art of great interest and wanted to show the British students this new art. It was very much welcomed and they started to add it to their teaching classes. Kenshiro Abbi sent his friend Nakasono Sensei who would be teaching Aikido to try to spread the word. This was the start of regular training in the art from that point on right up to a short time ago when the landlord took "the Hut" back for his own use. (It was connected to a pub. Great!
I obtained the levels of 1st 2nd and 3rd Dan at the Hut
At the point I reached my 1st Dan with Bob, I thought he was so talented because I would go to a seminar at least once a month somewhere in the UK and found that when I struggled to show him what new parts I had seen he would immediately do it and much better than me. This went on until we prepared for our 2nd Dan. The value of my constant training had paid off for me whereas he felt that he did not know the techniques deep in his body and you could see it. I wondered if someone could choreograph all those years and not really have absorbed it in to their body.
When at 1st Dan level I started wondering about Aikido and the more I trained the stronger I got. I always have been strong, so strong that I would remove a lot of car engines with my bare hands and for my fitness I would hold a 5 gallon drum of oil above my head for up to five minutes, the hard part was the oil inside would move as I did, so it was crucial not to move and to slow down the oil when lifting it above my head.
I had two teachers at that time, Mr. Foster and Hamish McFarland, it was never a problem for them to throw me in anyway they decided. However, the rest of the high ranks would try not to train with me because I was too difficult to handle. I had this thought all my training life until I met Saito Sensei in New Zealand in 1983.

Meeting Saito Sensei
As I have said, I was becoming disillusioned with Aikido and needed to find some answers. I had seen some footage of O'Sensei throwing top students with ease but sadly he was no longer alive, I decided I would write to the then magazine "Aiki News" run by Stan Prannin. I had seen a demonstration of a Japanese master who demonstrated in one of his videos for ten minutes on his knees, I was so impressed that he was my first choice.
On writing to Stan he replied saying that this person was very good and in the future he would become a great master. However, if you want to go to the best, there was only one man who new O'Sensei and was teaching still at the dojo of O'Sensei in Iwama.
Saito was in his early fifties and had recently retired from the railway. At the time Saito was not known much in the western world.
A friend of mine, Ron Russell, decided to emigrate to New Zealand and had informed me that Saito Sensei would be teaching a seminar there. At this point in my life I had very little money and could not afford the trip, however my club agreed to put up the flight money and Ron said he would pay for my training. So off I went. During the seminar sensei heard that someone had come all the way from the UK to New Zealand just to see and train with him, he told Keith Hartley who was running the seminar that I could go with sensei wherever he went. What a great honor for me.
I would hear about O'Sensei and more.
I was the only one allowed to film the seminar and he used me for uke for Ti-Nohenka and Morotedori, this was the first time for me and I was not going to miss the chance, so I grabbed him with all my strength. He said to the class "This man is the strongest on the mat" and then said, "I feel sorry for him because if does not loose this strength he will never learn Aikido." Well, since that date, I have kept this firmly in my mind. After this he used me several times and on each occasion threw me as if a fly had landed on him! At last I had found my teacher for the next twenty two years.

Dojos and organisation.
In my Aikido life I have built three dojos and am about to build my fourth on the beautiful island of Kefalonia ,Greece ,where me and my partner Jane will hopefully live for the rest of our time. This should all take place at the end of June this year. You can see our web site at www.iwamaryu.org.uk for all our details.
We have dojos in Russia, Jersey and all over the UK. The new addition to the organization will be known as Iwama Ryu Greece, from which I will continue to head the organisation.
Students range from a small group of children to adults and average nearly four hundred at any one time. In general we do not now promote children's classes.
Most of our clubs run two classes a week however many also run a class every day of the week especially in Russia where we have very devoted students.

We formed Iwama Ryu GB in June 1990 after a teaching demonstration in London when a top sensei, Terry Bayliss came up to me and said he had never seen such powerful Aikido .He suggested we should form our own organisation and this we did. We started with a few clubs and it has grown. My colleague, Paul McGlone, agreed to be the second principle and is still today. He holds the rank of 5th Dan and I hold 6th Dan we both know that we have a long way to go but we both are as excited about the future as we always were.
My own dojo here in the UK, at the time of writing, is open all the year round for deshis to come and train for periods of one day to one year. There is the possibility for approved students that such training may continue in Greece, with reservations.
I have now retired from work at the age of fifty two and will continue to spend my time teaching and repairing people with the system I have created over the years, if you are interested it is www.mindbodymanagement.co.uk

My current understanding.
I can sum my self up in most of my Aikido life as a very opinionated person and this has been a big down fall in making friends in the Aikido world. In the last few years I have been able to change dramatically after meeting and now following a spiritual leader, Mother Meera, in Germany. She has given me the chance to be non judgemental and it is a wonderful feeling. Of course I am not completely enlightened but I have a start and in time I feel that it will take me closer to O'Sensei.
My beliefs are very much of the Buddhist way of life and having trained Iwama style for twenty two years I needed to find something more. I have tried to think what it was that made O'Sensei able to throw his students with such power and ease. These are my own personal thoughts.
O'Sensei trained in many martial arts when he was young and he became a body guard for a religious leader (Did it start to rub off on him?). While in this role and following that path in life he was captured and put in chains, his fate was to be executed the next day. When the time came he was reprieved and freed to return to Japan.
My own thoughts and experiences lead me to believe that if you were to be sentenced to death you would try to make peace with all the things you had done wrong in your life and make a few promises for the future. Would or could it change your whole life from then on? I think so. Not only to determine not to waste each day left but I think that such an experience could be humbling in a spiritual way, and in my own way I feel that damaging personal circumstances have made me travel a similar path. Events have made me look at another direction in the way I strive in the future.
A new light dawned when I met the spiritual leader Mother Meera, who changed me in a way to try and see and use love in my life. I still have all those deep and basic thoughts and feelings from the martial arts but now I can apply these understandings from a completely different angle, that I had never before known possible. In the past I thought constant working on the technique would bring perfection of movement. Now I know that adding extensive training to universal love and understanding will take me further on the path to the oneness I seek .
Over my 30 plus years in Aikido I have met people all over the world, at each dojo you are always welcomed and taken care of. This aspect of Aikido I believe has worked in bringing the world together, the sadness is, it seems to stop there, I hope that this will grow into the feelings between the teachers out there.
In terms of my greatest knowledge gained, foremost was with my training in Iwama under the supervision of Saito Sensei and later his son, the new head of Iwama Ryu, the remainder of best teaching I found in America under many top senseis, with special thanks to Sensei Pat Hendricks, who I consider to be well on the path to O'Sensei.

My most Memorable Aikido Experience
I have been asked to write about my most remembered moments, this would take a lot of time because wherever I followed Saito Sensei around the world year after year he would show things that just amazed me. (Perhaps another time)

One thing that still makes me smile is on the first day of the seminar I met his massive uke, who was his deshi in Iwama, that had come with him. He was André from Switzerland, a 1st Dan that had been just awarded by Saito Sensei. Saito used him for the Ti-No-henka, then I went straight for him to train with, I just could not move this guy. I asked him to hold me as he just had Sensei because Sensei moved him with so little effort. His reply was, "I was holding Sensei a lot harder than I am holding you."
The most memorable occasion of all was on that first meeting in New Zealand when we had a dojo party and Sensei was on good form and very happy. He picked up one of the plastic forks and called over Maria, a Ni Dan from the club, and told her to grab the free part of the fork, at this point the whole group laughed, he was not amused and told her to get up and grab the fork, this time she did and before our eyes, she grabbed... he threw her over and over again... it was unbelievable. His next words were, showing off the fork in one piece, "This how much strength you need for Aikido" then he placed his other hand on the fork and snapped it so easily and said "That is how much you don't need."
A master beyond belief and this kept on, as I have said for the rest of his life.