For as long as his family can remember, Tsuneo Obayashi kept busy helping people, teaching people. He just never saw it that way.

He led Boy Scout troops, taught kids to swim, coached tennis and baseball, even taught martial arts for more than half his life, but he never made a big deal about it.

"He did it for his own satisfaction," says daughter Amy Matsuda. "He had his motto."

That motto was "You learn by doing and then you learn more by helping others to learn."

To him, teaching was the path toward mastery.

Even into his 90s, he taught classes three days a week to senior citizens and once a week to clients of Ho'opono Services for the Blind. He did all this for free, all because he liked doing it.

Obayashi taught Ki, a discipline that like martial arts uses guided meditation, breathing and controlled body movements to connect with the universal life force. He found he got a better understanding of Ki by teaching it to students who couldn't see the exercises. It wasn't enough to just tell the students what to do. He had to take their hands and guide them through the movements. It was a new way to experience the lessons he had learned.

He came to martial arts later in life, after he was married with children. He had always enjoyed sports, but here was something new to learn. He started with judo, and also studied aikido, earning a black belt in the discipline. He studied Ki from a Japanese master who visited Hawai'i in 1976. Obayashi quickly went from student to teacher. "Funny how people just came and followed him," Matsuda said.

After a retiring from a career as a surveyor for C. Brewer and Co. in Ka'u, Obayashi moved to O'ahu. He taught classes, and people just came and followed him. He taught at Ho'opono for close to 14 years.

Obayashi stayed active as long as he could, volunteering to teach Ki classes up until about a year ago, swimming several times a week at Waikiki beach, taking the bus to get around town, doing the things that pleased him, teaching what he could along the way.

Matsuda says her father lived his life the way he wanted to. He left the way he wanted to, at home, in peace. He died July 14. He would have been 95 years old next week.

"He didn't want us to keep his ashes," Matsuda said. "Some people believe that ashes are sacred, but I guess he believed that ashes are ashes, but your soul is alive."

Obayashi's ashes will be scattered at his usual swimming spot. He will be remembered by all his students — kids he taught to swim who are now in their 60s, a generation of men who remember him as their Scout leader, hundreds of people who learned by his gentle guidance.

Says Matsuda, "I think he was satisfied with his life, but he never talked about things like that."

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.