Woman Aikido Teacher Saved Cop From Riot Mob

It was a woman Aikido teacher, Virginia Mayhew, who first introduced me to this special martial art.

Virginia Mayhew was a very special American woman aikido teacher who first brought this gentle, near magical, martial art to Hong Kong.

The year was 1967, and I was a very immature 19-year-old who was working as a photographer on a local English-language newspaper.

I had done a little Judo at the Chinese YMCA, in Waterloo Road, Kowloon, as a teenager, and one of my acquaintances suggested I might wish to photograph this woman Aikido teacher and her class for my newspaper.

First Aikido demonstration

I took dozens of photographs and wrote about this in my story.

When the pictures were published, the newspapers sub-editors had added the horrifying headline, "Aikido, The Painful Art". Virginia was less than impressed by this, but she never said a word to me about it (after her initial grimace).

She was very low-key about most things, but in the two years I got to know her a little I realized that she was "on a mission" to spread peace and non-violence through her beautiful martial art. People would find her because they wanted to learn to fight, and she would teach them how to "not fight". That was her lifes mission.

(Next page... Learning from O-Sensei.)

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