In Memoriam: Rolf M Jabcobsohn
by Ng Say Yong Sensei
The last time I spoke to Rolf, in the high-dependency ward of Tan Tock Seng Hospital soon after his operation for stomach cancer, he mentioned to me—not for the first time—what aikido meant to him. He said aikido kept him alive, by giving him a sufficiently rigorous yet gentle routine to keep him on his feet and his body active. He was also most thankful to all of us in the dojo who trained with him all these years, putting up with his understandably less supple body and occasional bad jokes.
Actually, Rolf didn’t look all that different from the first time I saw him when I started training at Tanglin Community Club. He was already not a young man thirty years ago. He didn’t move with measured fluidity, and he was already cracking the occasional bad jokes.
There was a time when I trained quite regularly with him. Those were lessons in generosity, dedication, and humanity. In partnering Rolf, I was taught not to rush or force a technique but to gently engage the subtle energy flow between nage and uke. That started me thinking about the symbiotic relationship between training partners—that connecting with and taking mutual care of each other are crucial components of aikido practice.
Rolf was the most consistent aikido practitioner in our dojo. He almost never missed a class. He’d turn up on Sundays, even when he didn’t feel well enough to train, to help set up the mats. For the longest time we’d reserve one row of mats for him to mop. So when he didn’t show up for class for more than a month, I knew something was wrong. Then we found out what happened.
The first Sunday after Rolf passed away, we trained as usual 9:30 in the morning at Tanglin Community Club. It was warm and sunny; the lush greenery outside swayed gently to the melodic songs of twittering birds. A ray of light streamed into the dojo to settle as a rectangular patch on the yellow mats. I was saddened when I looked at the mats thinking that we no longer need to reserve a row for Rolf to mop. At the end of the class, we observed a moment’s silence in his memory.
Rolf was our oldest practitioner, and I was always proud to tell people about it—that our oldest practitioner was way over eighty years old. Aikido had been an indelible part of his life, and he was still standing and moving on the dojo mats almost to the end of his eighty-eight years. I’m sure all of us who knew him as a fellow practitioner and friend will miss him dearly now that he’s no longer with us. But his aikido spirit remains.
Fare thee well, Rolf.
(3 Jun 2024)
Rolf helping to unpack the new mats at Tanglin CC Dojo on 23 Mar 2023
Transmission Through Touch
by Ng Say Yong Sensei
What is much more important than anything is that I touch you. Through me, through my touch, comes the touch of the founder of Aikido … It is transferred from person to person. These vibrations pass among us.
— Terry Dobson, It’s a lot like dancing … an aikido journey
Many years ago, Seishiro Endo Shihan came to our dojo to conduct a seminar. Back then, we had regular visits from instructors overseas, especially Japan. (George) Sensei and I went to greet him at Changi Airport. When he walked out of Terminal One Arrival Hall, we noticed that the left side of his nose was visibly swollen, but of course we didn’t dare say anything about it. As we shook his similarly swollen hand, he winced in pain and asked us with an apologetic laugh not to press too hard. He told us that due to his carelessness he had incurred the injuries in class when an uke accidentally bumped him. Then he said, almost to himself, that he had to train harder to prevent that kind of thing from happening again. I was immediately struck by his humility and positive spirit.
During the seminar, the injuries suddenly evaporated into thin air. He moved with grace and fluidity, and not for one moment did he seem affected by his swollen nose nor inflamed hand. I sat on the mat mesmerized by his every move like a dewy-eyed fan and was fortunate to take ukemifor him on quite a few occasions. Unfortunately, as a shodan, I wasn’t able to fully appreciate what he was trying to convey. But what was unmistakable was the mysterious energy emanating from his totally soft and pliant body. It was like touching cotton wool, and yet that cotton wool would suck you in, and without undue force, subdue your aggression. At the end of the encounter, you feel connected, convinced, and converted by that gentle persuasive power.
However, it was taichi that brought me closer to an understanding of Endo Shihan’s mystique. In the Wu-style taichi that I practice, the focus is totally on the internal. Like aikido, we’re told repeatedly to relax our bodies. Actually, the Chinese word used is 松, which means ‘loose’ rather than ‘relax’. It’s a total looseness of joints and muscles that we’re striving to attain. That looseness makes our whole body soft and formless like water, and that formlessness enables us to absorb and alchemize the energy coming from outside.
I believe Endo Shihan is teaching the same things in aikido. And he is evolving a sensibility from a lineage that goes back to Seigo Yamaguchi Shihan, then passes on to his many students. Mineo Tominaga is one of his students. He’s from Ozaka and runs a chain of dojos there. He kindly graced our dojo by conducting a seminar over two weekday evenings in early September.
I attended the first of those sessions. It rained heavily the whole afternoon but settled into a light drizzle by evening. The car park inside Tanglin Community Club was already full when I arrived at 7pm, so I had to risk a traffic fine by parkingalong the side road at the bay reserved for private buses. The dojo thronged with practitioners young and old. An air of subdued excitement filled the air-conditioned multi-purpose hall as we sat down under the glare of the blazing ceiling light on the bright yellow mats to take ceremony for our first seminar with an overseas shihan on home ground.
Mineo Shihan was a compact, unassuming elderly man. He did a series of six techniques with us—all from the gyakuhanmi katate-dori position. Like Endo Shihan, emphasis was on connection, disrupting partner’s balance, and flow. He moved with measured and composed steps, never rushing a technique, always angling for a proper connection with the partner. I took ukemi for him a couple of times. I couldn’t tell whether the feelings were similar to those with Endo Shihan—the encounters were, after all, more than twenty years apart. But his touches were certainly soft, and behind them, there was power in reserve, like stepping lightly on the pedal of a Ferrari rather than going full throttle.
At some point in the seminar, the dojo—well at least my section of the dojo--almost transformed into a dance floor as we revelled in the joy of movement with controlled peals of laughter. It was fun, and Aikido practice should be fun, with lots of positive energy generated. And that can only materialise if focus is on the internal, on the very spirit that makes us a living thing. Each encounter between nage and uke brings with it an affirmation that we are beautiful, and alive.
I think that was the message Endo Shihan was trying to transmit through the delicacy of his touches twenty years ago. But I was too young, too insensitive, too eager, to get it. I probably still don’t get the full measure of his wisdom. But through Mineo Shihan, his teachings have wafted to us again like the subtle fragrance of cherry blossoms. Aikido is a tactile martial art. Transmission is through direct contact with the skin. And Endo Shihan has once again transmitted, through Mineo Shihan. It has come full circle.
“It was like touching cotton wool, and yet that cotton wool would suck you in, and without undue force, subdue your aggression. At the end of the encounter, you feel connected, convinced, and converted by that gentle persuasive power.”
Essay submitted for Yondan grading (2007)
by Ng Say Yong Sensei
Tiger! Tiger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
— The Tiger, William Blake
1992
"Is he Japanese?" I asked Rafael, my dojo leader, as I slid out of my gi.
"No, he's Singaporean," Rafael whispered reverentially, hands by the side and head appropriately bowed.
"Well, he certainly behaves like one," I thought, recalling his manners in the dojo — strict, almost ritualistically so —the way I imagined how a Japanese martial arts teacher should behave.
But it wasn't quite Sensei's dojo manners that made the most impression. It was his movement. Even though the intricacies of the techniques eluded me, I could see him moving with the grace of a Balinese dancer. That our training was conducted in a dance studio made the analogy between aikido and dance even more intriguing. When Sensei took his ukemi, it was performed like an intricate dance. I always looked forward to the moment when Sensei flipped Rafael up in the air with a deft flick of his wrist, letting him hang there almost indefinitely before bringing him down to the mat with a soft thud.
Magic, I thought, somewhat enviously. Back then, I moved with the grace of a poorly lubricated robot. I would jerk my way through a shiho-nage as other students glided with measured assurance through the same movement.
"I could never move like that," I sighed with resignation, "I don't have the talent."
But for some reason, in spite of my obvious ineptitude, I hung around while the other students gradually dropped off. It had something to do with the philosophy of aikido. The more I read about aikido, the more it appealed to my sensibility. There is a profoundly spiritual dimension to O-Sensei's teachings that made aikido so much more than just a martial art.
But it was not only the philosophy of aikido that made me stay. It was something more immediate and tangible — the possibility of re-defining myself, a possibility clearly exemplified by Sensei.
Sensei is the physical manifestation of what aikido can achieve — a melting of form and function. Like a tiger palming down a galloping antelope in full flight. Deadly effective, yet undeniably beautiful. In that moment, there is no duality of good or evil, it just is. But that one moment of perfection does not happen by chance. It is moulded through years of training on the dojo mat — in Sensei's case, more than four decades.
Each time I sit on the mat looking up at Sensei demonstrating a technique, I see a whole world of possibilities opening up before us. In particular, I see aikido offering us the opportunity to live up to our highest human potential. We're like pliable clay waiting to be moulded into a beautiful piece of art. But that can only happen if we allow ourselves to be moulded. We must have discipline and an uncompromising attitude towards training. But equally important, we must be prepared to empty ourselves of preconceptions, to remain pliable so that our Sensei can help mould us into what we can be. It is this endless promise of redefining myself, from clunky robot to graceful dancer, that keeps me in aikido.
8 April 2007
Fifteen years have passed since I first stepped into the dance studio at my workplace that served as our dojo back then. Out of the fourteen or so students who started with me there, only one girl is still practising aikido.
I would like to think that my movements have improved somewhat since those early days. But each time I watch my Sensei in action at the dojo, I am reminded of how far away I am from perfection. And that is as it should be. Sensei is fond of telling us that between his Sensei and him lie an unbridgeable gulf of perfection. It is the same between my Sensei and me.
Rafael, who introduced me to aikido, was one of Sensei's regular ukemis. He has since been promoted to a sensei, and left Singapore with his family to stay at Victoria Island in Canada. These days, I have the privilege and honour of taking ukemi for my Sensei with some regularity. On some occasions, when the moment is right, he would flip me up in the air with a deft flick of his wrists, and there I would hang almost indefinitely, before he decides to bring me back to earth with a soft thud.
Magic, I would think to myself when I lie on the mat below his feet, no longer envious.
Postscript — August 2023
This essay was written in 2007 as part of my Yondan grading. Some of the sensibilities expressed in the essay have somewhat changed. Awe and respect have been tempered by later developments. But the gratitude remains. Grateful to O-Sensei for the gift of aikido, to Rafael and Sensei for introducing me to aikido and its myriad forms of expression, to my fellow students who train with me over half a lifetime, to young practitioners today who take ukemi for me allowing me to deepen my understanding of the art. And above all, grateful to be alive and still moving.
As I wade towards the fourth decade of my aikido journey, my interest and fascination for it have become, if anything, even stronger. But it’s no longer about techniques, nor martial effectiveness. It’s about the artistry of movements, flow of energy, perfect blending of form and function. The ferocity of the tiger with the gentle grace of a swan.