Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.
 

Habit I guess.:)

William Hazen

Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.
 

You must kill the brain...if not, they'll keep coming back! The zombies...

Seriously, of course Aikido works in a fight, it all depends upon how you train.

That's all.

Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.
 

Yes because it can only be profund if he agrees with you Stan.... obviously.

Well, now that Jun has dumped this down in the troll pit I'd just like to say that perhaps you should consider that your bizarre hero worship of Dan that borders on being a fetish isn't really reflecting well on him, nevermind yourself.... that said, you're going back on my ignore list now, laters.

Mike

Re: Daito Ryu's Aiki
 

Mike

It is not about hero worship it is about who has high level internal and
what that really means, if there is someone that can handle Dan send them, I am sure we would love to train with them.

stan

Re: Daito Ryu's Aiki
 

Oooh! Can I bring popcorn and a digital camcorder? Cause it's never valid unless it's on YouTube. :D Maybe we can have a seminar, because it's never valid unless the really good people are out doing seminars. :rolleyes: But, oh, wait! I forgot! (slaps head like the V-8 Commercials). They are already doing this stuff. :hypno:

(For those who have Emotopixelations Disease, what I wrote above is heavily dripping in sarcasm)

Mark

Re: Daito Ryu's Aiki
 

Interestingly a camcorder hasn't been needed yet. I have a basic trust in the nature of most budo guys. While I think they are indeed a weird bunch; usually (not always) when you tune-em, they admit it. Of course it helps to have about ten people in the room watching. ;)
As for you tube and all the nonsense of demanding video? It serves no real value to help someone get it. Hands on, and at home training is the only way.
I think Williams comment about seminars is somewhat valid except that he doesn't acknowledge that I am doing so on a somewhat regular basis these days aren't I? And that-for free! I see no reason that I am to be compelled to some standard set by others, disrupting my own life for the -benefit- of others. I do what I can and I think I am making a small contribution as I am able.
These are interesting times in that folks are traveling, sometimes from me to Ark, or from Mike to me, and training with all three repeatedly to compare notes, Even considering that the material covered is usually just basics, they are getting hands on and feeling power, sensitivity and sometimes practical delivery from all of us and comparing notes on movement, things taught. That they are willing to take it home and really work things through says allot I think. No doubt some will settle for a method that suits them. Once folks move along and improve their observational skills will improve and so will their judgements about various guys and their method of teaching. Of course that will be augmented by who will do the actual work at home to progress.
Suffice to say the skills are there, and I would encourage folks-as I always have- to go meet and test everyone and do your own research. Its your life and your training. Don't rob yourself.

As for William's teachers and Mike Haft on the other thread already doing these things or knowing folks who do-you guys will find out in the end. I maintain it is rare, and few have any real skills. One thing is for sure. Anyone who has it who is in a public arena or some sort, should be known for it. They should stand-out instantly. They would be noted for it somehow in some venue or another outside of waza. Why? Its not natural and most (no, not all) will not confuse your power with natural strength and waza.
In arts like Aikido it should be all the more prevalent, as you would not be able to be thrown or locked unless you chose to allow it. You would most likely have to shut-off, and anyone would have a terribly difficult time handling you on any basis.

Re: Daito Ryu's Aiki
 

Gee you just described my life in Budo since about 1967 when a wee pup... I am glad we agree on something...

It's ok to question those you don't know Dan...Not knowing anything of your history... Not seeing any visual proof I am content enough to rely on the word of others here. I'll also assume you've been to Japan and China and experianced Aiki in all it's forms or visited the Shaolin Monks when they toured The East Coast or watched Bruce Lee in his prime expand on the Waza of no Waza.
I have been a lucky man Dan. Not everyone Dan wants to be known...Some are content to live humbly and focus on thier practice. If you somehow think you're one of the few with the gift of Aiki Well you had to learned it from somewhere and how famous were those folks??? LOL Get my point...If they choose NOT to be known for it.... well....Does it deminish the fact they know it? Heck as I mentioned the is an entire Monestary devoted to Aiki in China...They tour the country as a group. Does anyone in the West know thier individual names except a blessed few??? Reknown is not a part of thier culture...Only here in the West is reknown such a big deal...The same with Japan even if you don't personally believe it. It's funny how you seem to be the only one you know. LOL

Don't think so...Alas I am at an end point with this....unless of course I get the opportunity to practice and learn from you. Until then I've got a side bet going with some of the folks here on how many Fan Boy Posts Stan will impose upon us touting your God Like Skills and insulting everyone elses practice in the process....

I hope I am wrong but I bet at least a 100.

Bowing down to you Dan. :)

William Hazen

Re: Daito Ryu's Aiki
 

Hi folks,

Likewise, here. Can you all just please drop all of the personal stuff? It's unnecessary here and I'm frankly sick and tired of seeing it all.

-- Jun

Re: Daito Ryu's Aiki
 

Sorry for my part in this Jun...I think I'll just bail for a while. Got too much to do.

William Hazen

Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.
 

Girl, you speak the truth here. When I think of the times my passions got the better of me on this medium and how poorly I communicated I generally give an embarrassed little chuckle or half-snort of disapproval. Tough, tough medium but it has been educational.

The strange thing about the threads going on right now, is the negative and overly defensive tone has gotten worse not better. This is a surprise to me as I expected once folks started reporting back the tone would change for the better. Miss judged that one....perhaps I shouldn't buy that Enron stock I have been thinking about.

MJ

Re: Daito Ryu's Aiki
 

Then, too, there's this gem from Chas Clements on rma:

"A bunch of martial artists get together and a fight breaks out. Quelle surprise." ;)

Re: Daito Ryu's Aiki
 

The problem is, Mike, that the fight here never actually breaks out. People just whine and borch and get in a snit, then go home and pout.

Cofightus interruptus.

I'd rather see a knock-down-drag-out where some of these jamokes get on the mats together, aiki the living snot out of each other, then go for beers. Resolution and peace at last, and maybe a rip-snortin' hangover for all. :D

Re: Daito Ryu's Aiki
 

Some of that is inevitably going to happen, Cady. On all sides. Depends on whose Al gets Gored. ;) I wouldn't like to see that. I really think that what needs to be done needs to be done at the level of exertion of Tohei's ki-tests and then gradually expanded to logical extensions of the particular skills. As I've pointed out a number of times, it's possible to have *some* jin skills while being too muscular and ultimately that's also a dead-end.

I remember a guy who did judo and bragged about how good his muscular "push hands" was. He even got a lot of teaching gigs, based on his judo/wrestling approach to "Tai Chi". He wanted to meet up with me, but not enough to come visit, so he insisted that I come to New York City and try it out. Well, I wasn't going to fly to New York from Colorado, but I suggested that he meet up with my pal John Carlo, the ex-UFC guy. Of course, we all knew that John Carlo (who could bench about 450 pounds, IIRC) would slap him around.... in other words, John Carlo would "win" any engagement between the two, so my challenger backed away quickly. But think about it. Suppose John Carlo had met up with my challenger and whupped him good.... would that mean that John Carlo in fact had really great Tai Chi and "internal skills", just like the other guy was claiming? Of course not.

Getting together on the mat and seeing who can kick whose butt is probably not a great suggestion. People should get together, but it needs to be kept fairly clinical or the outcome of the discussion will never be accepted by everyone.

My opinion, FWIW.

Mike

Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.
 

snip Not so surprising, when you realize that the defensive reactions and deafening silences are coming from the camps with the most to lose in confidence and self-defined status, were they to discover that in fact, these skills being discussed are what made Ueshiba's skills so remarkable --- and that they are largely lacking in their own aikido.

Safer to think you "have it all," and that anyone who says otherwise must be an outsider with unauthetic "outsider" skills that are not Ueshiba's and are not aikido.

Re: Daito Ryu's Aiki
 

I was being facetious, Mike. Too many heavy, pouty threads make for unpleasant, tense reading. In the absence of the ability to upload softcore porn or "Opus" comic strips into this forum, I opted for light humor to break things up a little. :hypno: :crazy: :freaky:

:)

Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.
 

Hi Mark
What do we measure the contention by?
1.The hundred or so who have gone out to meet Ark, Mike and I?
Or
2.A few frustrated posters that appear occasionally on a forum?

Heres another thought
3. How about the twenty or so I have met who have told me they were very pleased at all the discussion and were delighted that aikiweb let it come to light.
Since none of these people -including those training with Ark and Mike-seem to be backing off, rather their numbers are growing, at what point will we arrive in the near future with so many saying (like Ellis has in past) "Aiki web was where all the interesting discussions were at."

In the fullness of time I believe many others will echo Ellis's comment and will thank Jun for his generosity and tolerance. Hell they already have.

I agree with the idea of "passion and this being a tough medium." it is very diffcult to breakthrough with this idea of training. But I can't but help agree as I look at the amount of hits and thread counts, as well as the aforementioned people spending time and money to travel that it has indeed been looked upon as " educational."
I guess I am more optimistic now-I wasn't before. Most who have felt it, want it for themselves.I think a few are actually going to attain it, and they will teach others.
It should NOT go unoticed that all..dare I repeat...ALL have come back with reports of the teaching being very open, a positve experience, that moved folks forward and laid out things in simple terms and walking away with some beneficial training tools.
There was NO contention. I think its been a very positve step.

Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.
 

I think it's slightly more than that. Good training produces good technique but techniques are just tools and frankly if my Sensei handed me the best hammer and chisel ever made it wouldn't automatically make me the next Michelangelo.
I think you need an experience base and with Aikido I think the only real way to get that experience base is to go and get mugged and assaulted a lot.
I'm sure Kevin can back me up when I say there's a difference between a soldier who is highly trained and a soldier who is highly trained AND has combat experience.
History is repleat with highly trained but green armies, often with superior technology, getting their ass handed to them by bearly trained, poorly equipped, but highly experienced armies. If that makes sence. Isandlwana stands out in my mind as the perfect example of this.
As good as we make our training, it is still training. Even if we take a training exercise like sparring, make it full contact and hand out prizes for winning it, we're stil not providing the student with anything like real world experience.
Like it or not despite being highly trained most of us are green as can be and the people we're training to deal with are probably quite used to violence and have tons of real world experience.

Also I think that the most important self defence skills are just the kind of things you just can't teach, or at least can't fully teach. Can you teach someone to be creative and to adapt? Can you teach grit and aggression?
Again I'll use an example from the military: If we want a special forces soldier we have to go and look for them in the regular army, you can't just grab anyone and train the kind of qualities into them that the special forces want.

So maybe the important question isn't "Does Aikido work?" or even "Does my Aikido work?" so much as "Do I and my Aikido work?"

Re: Daito Ryu's Aiki
 

William.

If I meet someone good I give them credit , Dan is not the only one,but he is the only one that teaches for free,

stan

Re: Daito Ryu's Aiki
 

Sure combat does grant us a certain amount of wisdom that can only be garnered in that environment, and that experience is invaluable.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that you cannot approximate it "good training"...to a degree that allows for effective simulation of the conditions that you incur in combat.

Notice I used the word Wisdom in the first sentence....in Knowledge Management circles you have Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom. Wisdom represents a synthesis of Information, and Knowledge that is pretty much gained through real life experiences. It is hard to gain that wisdom in any other way really.

You CAN retain Wisdom institutionally to a degree. That is, we can learn or archive wisdom in the institution through those that have "been there,done that". It is possible to take the "lessons learned" and transfer that knowledge to others. Note I said Knowledge, not wisdom.

I think that Martially, we can learned a great deal from the experiences of others through various training regimes and methodologies.

The key to it is to as Brian Dewey wrote, "It all depends on how you train".

Synthesis or Wisdom occurs somewhere down the line when you strike out on your own and put your skills to test in some fashion.

A great deal of wisdom has been learned in the UFC type venues in the last few years. It has changed much about how we view martial arts and training.

Same with Police Officers and Soldiers that take experience various situations on the street.

As well as civilians that find themselves in various situations.

I can remember my first "real fight" many, many years ago....Years before I ever trained in martial arts. I took home the lesson that "there really was no such thing as a fair fight!"

That in itself is Wisdom! Learning intrinsically without the help of formalized martial arts training!

Wisdom also teaches you things like, "Don't come to a knife fight empty handed, come with a gun or don't come at all!".

Wisdom also teaches you things like Matt Larsen like to say "The winner of a hand to hand encounter is the guy whose buddy shows up first with a gun!".

Anyway, Fights are tricky beast! The few that I have been in, I am not sure how much technically my training really did for me, or in the future how much it really will help.

Wisdom kinda works that way. You learn that luck plays a big part, The guy who has the information first (the jump), and who has the most buddies, and/or the better weapons, and of course Size matters!

Budo and martial training matters too, of course. Not so much maybe in the technical skills you gain, but in the esoteric stuff I think, more so. Dammit, I gotta say it again...Musashi!

Not saying that technical skills don't matter, they do...given all else equal....and that may count for alot!

Anyway, back to the main point of the subject...Wisdom.

It seems to me to be illogical to study any empty handed art for any prolonged period of time simply to gain Wisdom to win a fight based purely on technical skills. I kinda covered it in the few "axioms" of offered above. Empty handed arts simply are inefficient in teaching the range of things that you might need in a fight, and again if the guy gets the jump and the monkey is on your back...well it just may not be your day!

So why bother studying this stuff?

Because there is much wisdom to be gained in the study of Budo type arts that can help you.

We have another thread hot right now on "Budo Prepares you to Die". Stuff like that thread is why it is important. The wisdom gained to help you when it is your day, and also when it is not your day!

Re: Daito Ryu's Aiki
 

On "green armies":

it is not so much the issue of "poor training of the soldiers", that is the technical training or martial training of them that causes them to not be effective.

It is the institution that fails the soldier, not the fact that they are "green". Sure there are many cases in history when "poorly trained" armies have been defeated.

However most of the time, it is the institutional knowledge/wisdom of the army that fails...also known as Organizational Leadership.

A seasoned army with poor leadership will almost always lose to a poor army with good leadership.

I think Sun Tzu covers some of this in his book right? Know yourself and know your enemy.....

Anyway, how does this relate to Aikido and Fighting.

I think it is possible to train people outside of the experience of fighting and approximate the conditions through appropriate methodology without them actually having to be in a fight.

What is important is the methodology and the institutional
experience/wisdom of the organization, AND that they can effectively transmit that information/knowledge to the person.

So, you can employ a "green army" in combat for the first time, and have them do remarkably well, IF they have been trained properlly AND they have Proper Leadership.

It is not forgetting the lessoned learned in the past.

Our problem many times in Martial Arts is that our various arts, over time, forget the lessons learned, and we simply end of doing "Dead Kata".

Know yourself and Know your enemy!

To thine ownself be true!

Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.
 

Cady,
It is surprising to me, if not to you. I understand what you are saying I just do not have a frame of personal reference for it. Frankly the more I have drank from the fountain, especially in the last two years, the more the fountain has become a fire hose. The potential seems to grow exponentially as compared to what I learn. So little time and so many possibilities. I guess I can see how that would intimidate some, but for me it is exciting.

Take care,

Mark J.

Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.
 

I hear ya, Dan but these last few threads have still been a bit of a surprise to me. You know I've been on the forums for a fair number of years and I predicted those that didn't get the first hand experience would have had the sense to quiet down until they did. Silly me.

Oh please do not get me wrong, I have been generally happy with the discussions, once the.......(how to put this nicely)..........unnecessary stuff has been scrapped away. Over the years, having been a part of the unnecessary stuff many times myself I do my best to be tolerant. (Before anyone feels the need to flame me on that comment it is not directed at anyone specifically at this time…..however if that changes I will let you know!) Honestly I have hopes that the discussion will continue for a long time to come and there will be many more posts to provoke thought, discussion and heated debate. Your recent posts on E-budo have been great, more, more, more. :)

Take care,

MJ

Re: Daito Ryu's Aiki
 

Where I come from we call it putting your money where your mouth is. I have had the pleasure of meeting several posters here who have come to our little neck of the woods to check out our Aikido.I gone to a few seminars myself and met allot of folks from AikiWeb. So in my experiance folks do check you out. I have family in Boston and have no qualms about paying Dan a visit while I am there and learning from him.

The thing that bugs me about the 'internets" is the tone of Argumentum Ad Authoritum. Where folks automatically posture as experts on a givin topic Not that anyone here has done that.:rolleyes:

Which is also silly considering some folks here have never been in a fight! LOL

As was just mentioned in the Combatives Thread one has to love Cognative Dissonance if one wants to understand "the internets"

Me being the trusting guy I am will take you at your word Until the Big Amigo upstairs gives me the blessed opportunity to experiance if the walk... matches the talk....and folks.... I have no fear of that being as good for the goose... as it is for the gander. :D

We have something we call rule 62 and I try to live by it.

"Don't take yourself to darn seriously." :)

Peace Out Brothers & Sisters

William Hazen

PS Hopefully folks know that I have the greatest respect for all and that means everyone no exceptions.

Re: Daito Ryu's Aiki
 

Cady, You may recall that I invited Dan to do something like that a while back, but he declined. ;)

How are you doing with the jo trick? :)

Jim

Re: Daito Ryu's Aiki
 

Since this thread is labeled "Daitoryu Aiki" I thought I would take this time to give a completely shamless bump.

Okamoto Sensei will be in the US:
NY April 19,20
Florida - April 22,23
NC April 26,27

Please contact me for details.

Thanks !

Howard Popkin