Interfacing Between Aikido Styles

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[Bill Angus]

I did seven years aikido in what I think was an Aikikai style (long time ago), took twenty years off and am now two years into my practice as a Yoshinkan aikidoka. Love it.
I'm interested in the interface between aikido styles; anyone have perspectives on having tried two?

Bill

[WilliB]

I did seven years aikido in what I think was an Aikikai style (long time ago), took twenty years off and am now two years into my practice as a Yoshinkan aikidoka. Love it.
I'm interested in the interface between aikido styles; anyone have perspectives on having tried two?

Bill

I have tried way more than two... it easy here. Not sure what you mean about interfaces... the organizations pretty stay separate, unless called together for e.g. the yearly seminars at the budo university in Tsukuba.

[Bill Angus]

By 'interface' I mean particular instances in techniques where differing styles take alternative paths - let's say for instance in shihonage, from shomen uchi...

[WilliB]

By 'interface' I mean particular instances in techniques where differing styles take alternative paths - let's say for instance in shihonage, from shomen uchi...

Oh. There are plenty of those. If you cross-train, you of course accept what they are doing in the place you are at. If you want to fuse different styles, you need to start your own ryu.

[Gorgeous George]

By 'interface' I mean particular instances in techniques where differing styles take alternative paths - let's say for instance in shihonage, from shomen uchi...

There's a shiho-nage in Yoshinkan left over from Daito-ryu:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LW9-LVx9cE&p=B0426FEF45816F05&playnext=1&index=16

And a form of ikkyo is initiated by tori with a strike:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM7XJ98gV74

That's all I know off the top of my head.

[WilliB]

There's a shiho-nage in Yoshinkan left over from Daito-ryu:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LW9-LVx9cE&p=B0426FEF45816F05&playnext=1&index=16

And a form of ikkyo is initiated by tori with a strike:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM7XJ98gV74

That's all I know off the top of my head.

There are so many variations, this will be a monster thread if you want to list them all.

[Gorgeous George]

There are so many variations, this will be a monster thread if you want to list them all.

Perhaps - but I don't want anything of the sort: I didn't start the thread, hence what I want to do does not dictate what will or will not be listed here.

@ Bill: the two examples I cited are things which are absent from aikikai aikido - in the case of the latter example, I don't think there are any instances in that style where tori initiates...

[grondahl]

There´s a lot of Iwama aikido within Aikikai, having tori initiate shomenuchi is the basic form within that line.


@ Bill: the two examples I cited are things which are absent from aikikai aikido - in the case of the latter example, I don't think there are any instances in that style where tori initiates...

[Gorgeous George]

There´s a lot of Iwama aikido within Aikikai, having tori initiate shomenuchi is the basic form within that line.

Yeah, I was conscious of the various styles under the Aikikai umbrella when I said it. A few weeks ago, when I was talking with my teacher, I mentioned all these different styles - Nishio and Iwama in particular - that are nevertheless Aikikai: he responded that he regarded Aikikai, in the sense of a style, rather than organisation, as what the Doshu teaches, and what is taught at Hombu.
I liked that, agreed with it, and it was in this sense I used the term - although as I said it, you're quite right: it was an equivocation.

[Adam Huss]

Yes,
I did almost exactly what you did; started in the AAA and am now in an organization that has both AAA influenced aikido and Yoshinkan influenced aikido (was uchideshi at a Yoshinkan school). My particular dojo has been focusing on combining the two influences into our technique. In fact, there was a recent yudansha test with myself and a senior to me where our goal was to display to our international director how our dojo has been combining the two stylistic influences. We pretty much tried to do 50/50 aikikai/Yoshinkan techniques, including things like displaying both the aikikai'ish (I know aikikai is a huge generalization) ushirotekubi tori and the Yoshinkan hojo dosa for ushiro waza ryotemochi....Yoshinkan leads for strikes, slide attacks/grabs as well as cross-stepping, etc. Its been a slow process but, gradual and consistent.

[Chris Farnham]

Yeah, I was conscious of the various styles under the Aikikai umbrella when I said it. A few weeks ago, when I was talking with my teacher, I mentioned all these different styles - Nishio and Iwama in particular - that are nevertheless Aikikai: he responded that he regarded Aikikai, in the sense of a style, rather than organisation, as what the Doshu teaches, and what is taught at Hombu.
I liked that, agreed with it, and it was in this sense I used the term - although as I said it, you're quite right: it was an equivocation.

This is a common notion,and I agree that there is a Hombu-ness about people who have come from the Hombu, but I think if you were to go there on any given day and attend the classes of all Shihan teaching that day you would see that it begins to fall apart somewhat. If you go on a Saturday and practice with Doshu, Watanabe Shihan and Sugawara Shihan, you will see that they differ as much from each other as they do from Nishio Shihan and Saito Shihan in a lot of ways. I have only ever practiced at the Hombu as a visitor, but every Hombu student I have spoken with agrees that there really is no "Hombu Style".