Williams Sensei would send out all the Dan grades out to teach and to demonstrate in the hope that people would watch us and listen to us. Our teaching was free of charge, and this often enabled us to obtain free accommodation with the students. Although Williams Sensei was not a particularly religious man, I remember him saying, "You are mt disciples, and now you must go out and teach the gospel of Aikido."
In the earley 60's, Williams Sensei called all the Dan grades together and said that he wanted us to attend the longest and most important seminar to date. It was to be held in Cardiff in Wales. The demonstrations and interviews were to be televised.
As usual, our accommodations were to be with local students. When we arrived at the Cardiff dojo - Williams Sensei and eight Dan grades - all the students crowded around saying, "Sensei, would you please stay with me?" One student politely took my arm and said, "Sensei I would be very pleased if you would stay with me at Sunnybank Farm." After living in London, I thought it would be a great treat for me to stay at the farm for the weekend.
The student and I drove for miles into the wilds of rural Wales, eventually arriving at a very remote farmhouse. The weather seemed very cold but dry.
I woke up the next morning at 5am with cocks crowing and the cows doing whatever cows do to create noise. After I shock my head and realized where I was, I looked out of the window. To my horror, I saw that the snow had fallen and drifted right up to the bedroom windows.
We were snowed in for three days until a neighbour from miles away dug us out with a mechanical digger. I missed the seminar and the television appearance.
It was then that I resolved to stay a city boy.

When Abbe Sensei told us that he had invited a new teacher from Japan to visit us, we were all quite excited. We had never seen a Japanese Aikido master other then Abbe Sensei.
The new teacher was Nakazono Sensei (then 6th Dan). Abbe Sensei told us that Nakazono Sensei would teach us for two weeks. It was two weeks of hell. Nakazono Sensei had us practicing on the mat for three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon, and then the dan grades had to practice an additional three hours in the evening. During this seminar there were many broken bones and other injuries.
Abbe Sensei had taught us to be strong and not be thrown unless the technique was effective - that being strong showed respect for your teacher. He also taught ukes to attack on balance so as not make the throw to easy. As he taught, Abbe Sensei would hit us with a shinai and explain that, while his English was not very good, the shinai spoke English fluently. So, in those early years, that waswhat we knew - the strong fighting art of Aikido
At first, when Nakazono Sensei saw how we practiced, he was angry with us and perplexed. He did not understand. But, at the end of the seminar, Abbe Sensei explained why we were the way we were. Then Nakazono Sensei realized that we were genuine students with great respect for himand a strong desire to learn.
In England, after a hard practice, it is traditional to finish the evening off with a pint of beer at the local pub. But Nakazono Sensei was keeping us on the mat until 10pm, and the pubs closed at 10:30pm. So Williams Sensei said to me, "Ellis, as my assistant, it is your duty to ask Sensei if we can leave the mat at 9pm so we can have time to get to the pub." I asked Nakazono Sensei (what a fool I was!), and he became angry. He said that he had travelled across the world to teach us Aikido and that all we wanted to do was go to the pub. What he didn't seem to understand was that this was our vacation from work. (I reminded Nakazono Sensei of this incident when we met later in Santa Fe, and we were able to laugh about it.)
In 1963, I was Nakazono Sansei's assistant at a national martial arts demonstration at the Royal Albert Hall in London. That was a proud moment for me, and also for my parents, as this was the first they had ever seen me in a Aikido demonstration.