Teaching

When Kosaka Sensei said, 'Rick carries my legacy,' he actually said Rick, and others, carries my legacy. Since this was the first time I'd heard him utter such a statement, I wondered who the 'others' were. I'm fairly certain though that the 'others' refers to Nobuyo Okuda and Robert Williams.

When I first started to help Kosaka Sensei teach the classes, Nobuyo and Robert were among my first two. Robert was extremely talented and seemed like an enlightened Guru to me already, I even wondered why he came, did he really need this training?

Nobuyo too, was already a tea teacher. Nobuyo wanted to live here in the U.S. so she gave up the Iemoto (inheritor) position of her families practice in favor of her sister.

I think that to have me start teaching with these two was almost a joke among the 'real' Sensei.

They asked me to teach Nobuyo how to 'walk'. This was our basic instruction in walking, sitting, kneeling, and bowing that was my main practice when I started with the Los Angeles Kyudo Kai. I was so pleased and proud that they asked me to teach someone. I walked up (with my nose in the air) and said, 'follow me' and had her copy my movements as I had copied the Sensei who taught me. But as I watched Nobuyo-san from the corner of my eye, I quickly realized that she was already better than I was. I lead her through the movements a few time and said, 'ok, she knows it.. now what do you want me to do?' I think they sent me to make tea.

After I was 'stamped' Nobuyo-san began to call me Sensei (even though we had agreed years before that there was only one Sensei in our school, and that was Kosaka Sensei); but I insisted on calling her Sempai (senior) too. So although the Sensei' teased me by having me try and teach those already beyond me, we now tease eachother with such phrases as Sensei and Sempai too.