The essence of aikido
 

I've often thought what some of the old(er) masters would think, if they showed up at my/your dojo tomorrow (assuming that we/you train tomorrow :))?

People like Shioda, Tomiki, etc. And what about the big guy, Mr. Ueshiba?

Jim23

and what - may I ask - were your thoughts ?

Re: The essence of aikido
 

"Oh no, this is like that film where the guy dies in a crash but he was supposed to survive so they sent him back in somebody elses body. And it's my twin brother I never knew I had! Man, I'm gonna bore my therapist with this one."


andrew

I suppose people who trained with them in Japan would have a better idea of what they would think (by the way, which is correct: honbu or hombu?).

Maybe someone who has trained with them could respond. Even tall tales would be better than nothing.

Jim23

in a lot of dojos they would probably see the shoes tossed carelessly on the floor rather than put carefully on the rack, the magazines/newspapers left on the chairs and tables, the dust bunnies in the corners and the inch of dust on the weapons rack, the left over food molding in the fridge (and let's not even discuss the bathroom), and the gis so in need of washing they can stand on their own...and leave before watching any techniques done.

colleen,

Please hold that mirror just a bit closer so that we can look at ourselves better!

Great answer. All of these things show the quality of our mind/heart. If these things are part of the focus, I'll bet the waza is not so bad.

Regards,

Thank you, Clark Sensei, but the credit in my thinking goes to my first sensei, Gregory Hofler. Subsequent ones have echoed it, but those who have spent time in one of Hofler Sensei's dojos i'm sure know the meaning of the word 'clean' :)

I think I follow. Dirty socks = dirty underwear??

Does this mean that Morihei Ueshiba had an OC disorder? :D

Jim23

i guess it's OCD if you clean it several times after it is already clean--not often seen in our dojo cleaning, unless there is one task many are trying to avoid, and so the carpet might get vacuumed a couple or three times :)
I thought my first sensei might have OCD when i started there...i've always been a cleaning fanatic , so didn't mind the cleaning, but one day i saw him lining up the boxes of bandaids in the first aid/cleaning closet. Oh come on, i thought, but then tried to think of other reasons he might do that. I came to realize every little detail was important, and focus on each task, no matter how small, should be absolute. It became important that things should be not only clean, but that even clean disorder encouraged disorder in other areas. I smile now when i line up the chairs in the visitors' area, or the papers and pens on the desk, and wonder if i need a bit of prozac in my morning coffee.

Colleen,

When you start doing waza in multiples of three, you know you have a problem. :)

By the way, could you please not start your post with a lowercase letter! I also noticed that you used a lowercase 'i' seven times and an uppercase 'I' three times.

Also, you didn't use a period after your first sentence!! I'd also really prefer if you would insert a space before and after the dash in your first sentence.

It's driving me nuts!!!!! ;)

Jim23

Sorry...
I type poorly and hate to wear my glasses :D.
Seriously, sorry I took your thread off track, anyone want to get back to the question originally asked?

Believe it or not, it was a real question.

My thoughts are just questions. How would they teach, grade, etc? I'm sure many people out there will be able to answer, based on their experience or from what's been passed down to them.

Has training changed much over the years (I know that, even now, it is quite different from dojo to dojo)?

Jim23

I was just reminded of a Terry Dobsen story in regards to grading. If I remember the story correctly, O'Sensei passed out the annual promotions list and Terry Dobsen's name was not on it. O'Sensei upon seeing him told him that he forgot to promote him. Terry, being the guy he was, said he treasured that more than any promotion he could have gotten.

Superb story Erik.

Also, I think Colleen is probably right, they would probably notice the cultural differences (i.e. we in the west are lazier, less diligent, less of a group and less likely to wash our gi).

However I expect Ueshiba would be pleased that many dojos still carry many aspects of his philosophy, and are keen on developing our own aikido.

Ian

Erik,

That's a funny one.

I really expected many interesting stories and opinions here.

Jim23

Okay Jim!
I just didn't quite understand you post (english is not my first language so I tend to miss some of the nuances but hey - it makes it a lot easier to be a pushover ignoramous (sp?) ;))

As a response to your question: I consider Nishio Sensei (8 th. dan shihan) one of the great teachers and I know he generally likes what he sees when he comes to europe, but if he (or any other great sensei) should find their way to our dojo to observe an every-day class they would probably be very happy to see a few very talented aikido-ka's but it would hardly balance out the rest of us running around like chikens believing we're peacocks ;).
I still remember three 8. dan senseis visiting my old Kendo-dojo. They spend the first of a three days stay teaching us to put on our clothes and armor correctly. Day two was dedicated to learning how to hold the sword and some basic waza and on the third day we were actually allowed to do a little sparring. It was VERY humiliating...... Perhaps the same thing would happen with one of the old masters of Aikido visiting our dojo. Since they would have travelled half the way around the world they would probably tend to make us work hard on basics. Not because we do that particularily bad, but because they regard it as imperative in order to create the basis of developing good Aikido. If they have to teach us for a brief period then there is no need spending time doing fancy stuff and working with the details at a very high level, since only a few would benefit from that. Basics is allways good. Right ?
Enough of this. I'm not really getting my opinion across, but I'm supposed to be working right now and haven't got the time to refrase the whole thing. E-mail me with questions if anybody want me to elaborate.
Sincerely

Aikido Masters
 

Read the Masters of Aikido volume published by Aikido Journal. Almost uniformly the old Deshi cmplain that Aikido has lost its heart, that people are going through hollow motions but do not have the foundation of hard training to back up what they are doing. I was surprised at the consensus amoungst teachers who are otherwise quite different.