A demonstration of Master Chida Tsutomu from 1992

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[GShorr]

What do you think?
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[kfa4303]

......and the Oscar goes to.......Uke! A little, ok a lot, over the top for my tastes. Then again, I'm not a big fan of the Yoshinkan "Mr. Roboto" approach to most of their techniques. You can get kicked as hard as possible by a grown man and not fly around that much. LOL!!! What is being shown here is beyond ridiculous. Quite frankly, this is what gives Aikido a bad name and makes people think that it's nothing more than an absurd dance of some sort. Almost without exception, the harder/stronger the technique looks, the weaker it truly is. To put it into musical terms, his demo was all staccato and no lagato. In other words, not very Aiki if you ask me, which you did.

[Cliff Judge]

......and the Oscar goes to.......Uke! A little, ok a lot, over the top for my tastes. Then again, I'm not a big fan of the Yoshinkan "Mr. Roboto" approach to most of their techniques. You can get kicked as hard as possible by a grown man and not fly around that much. LOL!!! What is being shown here is beyond ridiculous. Quite frankly, this is what gives Aikido a bad name and makes people think that it's nothing more than an absurd dance of some sort. Almost without exception, the harder/stronger the technique looks, the weaker it truly is. To put it into musical terms, his demo was all staccato and no lagato. In other words, not very Aiki if you ask me, which you did.

Interesting response. When I watched this, it seemed to me that people would decry it as being too muscular or "jujutsuish" or "external". THIS is certainly not the stuff that gives Aikido a bad name.

FWIW it certainly looks like Chida is actually doing the throws here. Ukes are all participating but i really don't see them throwing themselves nearly as much as an Aikikai hombu uke would be.

[Gerardo Torres]

......and the Oscar goes to.......Uke! A little, ok a lot, over the top for my tastes. Then again, I'm not a big fan of the Yoshinkan "Mr. Roboto" approach to most of their techniques. You can get kicked as hard as possible by a grown man and not fly around that much. LOL!!! What is being shown here is beyond ridiculous. Quite frankly, this is what gives Aikido a bad name and makes people think that it's nothing more than an absurd dance of some sort. Almost without exception, the harder/stronger the technique looks, the weaker it truly is. To put it into musical terms, his demo was all staccato and no lagato. In other words, not very Aiki if you ask me, which you did.
The demo looked OK to me, especially the tachi-waza section. Good technical aikido, and not too stiff even by Yoshinkan standards. Although this is not my preferred approach to aikido, I agree this is hardly the kind of demo that gives aikido a bad name.

[SteveTrinkle]

[QUOTE=Karl Arant;336582]......and the Oscar goes to.......Uke! A little, ok a lot, over the top for my tastes. Then again, I'm not a big fan of the Yoshinkan "Mr. Roboto" approach to most of their techniques. You can get kicked as hard as possible by a grown man and not fly around that much. LOL!!! What is being shown here is beyond ridiculous. Quite frankly, this is what gives Aikido a bad name and makes people think that it's nothing more than an absurd dance of some sort. Almost without exception, the harder/stronger the technique looks, the weaker it truly is.t that's interesting: When I first got to Japan in 1988,I was on the train heading to the dojo for one of my first aikido keiko ; an older gent noticed my folded up keikogiand asked which martial art I was studying I told himAikid then, in very good English , he told me, "Japanese martial arts are very interesting":"many times if it looks real, it's fake and many times if it looks fake, it's real" the gentleman's astute observation has stuck with me and proven to be true on a couple occasions

[Ian@Renshinkai]

Thanks for posting this!
It's hard to find video of Chida Sensei from that long ago.

I'd also like to add that, whatever people's opinions may be of technique, these ukes are definitely not throwing themselves. Anyone who's been thrown by Chida Sensei can attest to that.
His technique is very soft but very powerful, and he really does use uke's power against them so the harder they go the harder they get thrown. That's why they are "flying around that much", because they're going hard.

It's a demonstration and I think the ukes did a great job.
Hats off to them!

[robin_jet_alt]

I am actually very impressed with this demonstration. It appears to be Yoshinkan aikido at its best. If you want to know how it felt to the Ukes, the OP was one of the ukes in the demonstration, so why not ask him?

[Millsy]

Must say I found this to be a very interesting demonstration. Not really the robotic Yoshinkan I sometimes see just very stable Nage and commitment from Uke's. There are a lot of demos out there giving Aikido a bad name, Can't see this is one of them.

[dps]

......and the Oscar goes to.......Uke! A little, ok a lot, over the top for my tastes. Then again, I'm not a big fan of the Yoshinkan "Mr. Roboto" approach to most of their techniques. You can get kicked as hard as possible by a grown man and not fly around that much. LOL!!! What is being shown here is beyond ridiculous. Quite frankly, this is what gives Aikido a bad name and makes people think that it's nothing more than an absurd dance of some sort. Almost without exception, the harder/stronger the technique looks, the weaker it truly is. To put it into musical terms, his demo was all staccato and no lagato. In other words, not very Aiki if you ask me, which you did.

Do you have a video of yourself or your Sensei that we can see how it should be done?

dps

[sorokod]

Do you have a video of yourself or your Sensei that we can see how it should be done?

dps

I think this is one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSjZRMsTdnY

At about 2 min. mark some footage of the main teacher

[robin_jet_alt]

I think this is one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSjZRMsTdnY

At about 2 min. mark some footage of the main teacher

Nice dojo!

[sorokod]

Nice dojo!

Good light too.

[NagaBaba]

I think this is one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSjZRMsTdnY

At about 2 min. mark some footage of the main teacher

Oooooo...magic aikido lol I mean the ukes magically fall down by themselves :)

[NagaBaba]

......and the Oscar goes to.......Uke! A little, ok a lot, over the top for my tastes. Then again, I'm not a big fan of the Yoshinkan "Mr. Roboto" approach to most of their techniques. You can get kicked as hard as possible by a grown man and not fly around that much. LOL!!! What is being shown here is beyond ridiculous. Quite frankly, this is what gives Aikido a bad name and makes people think that it's nothing more than an absurd dance of some sort. Almost without exception, the harder/stronger the technique looks, the weaker it truly is. To put it into musical terms, his demo was all staccato and no lagato. In other words, not very Aiki if you ask me, which you did.

No, you are wrong. Chida sensei is quite solide and uke has to be soft to preserve his own integrity. You simply don't have good level of trainning to see the obvious true.

[sorokod]

...You can get kicked as hard as possible by a grown man and not fly around that much.

As NagaBaba pointed out, uke has to be soft to preserve his own integrity. Consider this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIJDj7rPDoM

Another example of properly soft ukemi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtPGTuPzo1k

On the other hand the uke shouldn't have the luxury of unilaterally disengaging and hopping into a little roll just to satisfy a social contract.

[dps]

......and the Oscar goes to.......Uke! A little, ok a lot, over the top for my tastes. Then again, I'm not a big fan of the Yoshinkan "Mr. Roboto" approach to most of their techniques. You can get kicked as hard as possible by a grown man and not fly around that much. LOL!!! What is being shown here is beyond ridiculous. Quite frankly, this is what gives Aikido a bad name and makes people think that it's nothing more than an absurd dance of some sort. Almost without exception, the harder/stronger the technique looks, the weaker it truly is. To put it into musical terms, his demo was all staccato and no lagato. In other words, not very Aiki if you ask me, which you did.

What do you think Karl?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYFb4TWPJPg&list=UUpW_pRqY1_qMdRvYSJfF_Vw

dps