Davo in Sydney

I got the phone call on Saturday that a very good old friend of mine had just died. His funeral will be at 10am Tuesday at the McKay Family Funeral Home on the Pacific Highway at Palmdale, NSW, near the Ourimbah exit from the motorway to Newcastle.

Ed Watkins was a brave and courageous fighter - a true warrior - all of his life. And in the best meanings of the word, as well.

In World War Two, Ed had been a Military Policeman, and in "Civvy Street' afterwards, he had been a Station Officer in the NSW Fire Brigades. He used to live in Eastwood, with his wife, Shirley. I remember him nursing her through her long illness before she finally succumbed.

Ed was deeply into Yoga and Aikido, and that's how I first met him. We started training Tomiki Aikido together back in 1978. I was about 30 years old then, and Ed had just retired from the Fire Brigades and started training Aikido at the Epping YMCA with Alan Ames.

He was the first of Alan's little group of students to be graded to black belt by John Gay who ran the Australian Aikido Accociation from Melbourne, Victoria. He continued to train Aikido at the Willoughby Part Centre. I left and started a new Aikido group at the North Ryde RSL Youth Club.

After his wife Shirley died, Ed sold up his house and moved out to Mangrove Mountain, NSW, and built a small wooden cabin on the hillside next to the Satyananda Ashram at Mangrove Creek. He was a long-time friend of the Yoga community there, who knew him by the name of "Sunas".

Ed remained cheerful and an optimist right to the very end. His health was failing and he was often in severe pain, but he accepted it all as what he called "A Yogic Experience".

Ed once spoke about Aikido being a spiritual tool that forged a Sword of the Spirit. And while the sword of steel is one that takes life, the Sword of the Spirit is one that gives Love.

Ed Watkins. May you find that peace and love now. Sleep on, brave warrior of the spirit!