Kata/Suburi apart from Saito Sensei
 

Hello,

I am starting this thread in the hopes of collecting representative clips of bokken/jo kata/suburi *apart* from Saito Sensei's style, as that has been well documented in numerous videos

To start the ball rolling, please find:

Tada Sensei's 24-count Jo Kata

Chiba Sensei's bokken kata

:)

Re: Kata/Suburi apart from Saito Sensei
 

What exactly are you looking for here? Suburi based on, but apart from, Saito Sensei's movements...or just weapons movements that are totally separate? My dojo has 97 weapons forms in our basic aikido curriculum and many more in an offshoot weapons style. Are you just looking for tandoku movements or both tandoku and sotai such as kumi bukiwaza?

Re: Kata/Suburi apart from Saito Sensei
 

Re: Kata/Suburi apart from Saito Sensei
 

Here is a clip from the intro scene on one of our Aiki Buki DVD's. My teacher took 88 weapons forms, including jo, tanto, bokken, and split them away from our aikido system (which has 97 other weapons forms), into a system he called Aiki Buki for those students who want to focus on more weapon training. This includes solo forms (kata tandoku), paired forms (kumi buki), and continuation sets (renzoku waza). Here is a link to the intro of our instructional tapes...its edited but kind of shows some movements.

Being that the Weapons thread is typically slow other than product discussions, I'll see if I can load up some clips on Youtube from people's aikido or aikibuki tests...have to see what I got, load it on iMovie and publish to Youtube.

Re: Kata/Suburi apart from Saito Sensei
 

Perhaps I should describe my limited weapons training background. Besides the tanto, my exposure to bokken/jo started with a mixture of Saito/Chiba styles and then moved to Saito/Tada styles

While there are plenty of videos/books on Saito Sensei's weapons system (so much so that one of my instructors even quoted YouTube as a reference for step 22 of the 31 count jo kata), references (especially video) for Chiba/Tada or other Shihan's weapon styles are difficult to find. This makes it much harder to learn the styles of these other masters, because apart from your class, there is no way to check yourself or your memory of the movements.

After flipping through the various threads in the Weapons section, I cannot seem to find many video links.. and I thought it would be great if we had a thread that somehow captured the highlights of the weapons systems of various high-ranking Sensei, other than that by Saito Sensei. This would really help readers of the forum who are learning other weapon styles.

Besides Chiba Sensei and Tada Sensei, I understand that Saotome Sensei/Kobayashi Yasuo Sensei/Nishio Sensei also introduced weapons systems, and it would be interesting to see clips of those as well, in addition to Yoshinkan bukiwaza...

So yes, I think it would be wonderful if people could share *reference* clips or links to master pages that showed both tandoku and sotai

:)

Re: Kata/Suburi apart from Saito Sensei
 

Imaizumi (Shin BUdo Kai in New York CIty) teaches a variety of weapons work, including Saito's.

If it is 'innovation' you are looking for he has developed 2 kata of his own. I believe they sell a weapons kata DVD at the dojo.

Tohei and the Ki Society have 2 unique Jo kata that they used to teach.

Re: Kata/Suburi apart from Saito Sensei
 

In my aikikai training we learned two jo kata and two bokken kata....we didn't touch tanto until shodan exam when candidate is expected to do defense against free attack. We have a 7 set kumitachi and suburi for both bokken and jo (front, side, and thrust attacks with a secondary thrust organized into a combination of footwork; step-step, slide-step, step back-step, slide back-step, with a couple derivatives). In the other style of aikido I practice there are many many weapons forms...as noted, and linked, above.

cheers!

Son-Kian....I think that's a good idea as well as this discussion topic can sometimes be sparse.

Re: Kata/Suburi apart from Saito Sensei
 

I think the Chiba Sensei's 8 suburi video is wrong. If you want the more correct version it's in the Chiba Sensei Kyu grading guidelines DVDs.

Re: Kata/Suburi apart from Saito Sensei
 

Yea... to be honest, I kinda' hope that both of these videos are not very representative of "good" execution of either teachers forms...

/J

Re: Kata/Suburi apart from Saito Sensei
 

I will have to take a better look later, but right off the bat I noticed he steps forward first and then steps backwards the second time. We go backwards first and then forward in my dojo. Also, he does the first one three ways instead of two like my dojo does (he does: sliding, stepping in and stepping back). He also drops his bokken down near his back a lot, and that is a no-no in our dojo. Not sure if this is just something my sensei decided to change or not, but he did train with Chiba Sensei for quite some time. I will look later and see if there is anything else of interest.

Re: Kata/Suburi apart from Saito Sensei
 

As for the Chiba Suburi, He is also doing the tenkan, Soto Tenkan sections in reverse order from what I learned. I guess it is possible that Chiba sensei taught it in different orders at different times, but the way he performs the basic cut makes me think that it is just wrong. I occasionally study with a Shihan here in Japan that was an early student of Chiba sensei and his system is based on Chiba sensei's weapons but his weapons branched from Chiba when Chiba sensei's weapons were still in development. For instance, his basic cut is a little more in line with the Iwama/Saito way, than Chiba sensei's current more iai influenced way of treating the bokken more like a live blade.

Re: Kata/Suburi apart from Saito Sensei
 

To clarify my earlier post. I meant to say that the basic shomen performed in this clip neither looks like the way I have seen Chiba sensei and his students perform it, or the way he(I presume) he might have performed shomenuchi many years ago based on my experience with this other shihan.

Re: Kata/Suburi apart from Saito Sensei
 

Actually, it's quite difficult to find clips of non-Saito weapons systems.. which is why I'm hoping people could share what they deem as the proper 'reference' clip

From another angle, I'm also wondering why it's *so hard* to find reference clips of non-Saito weapons systems... one reason Saito Sensei's weapons system has become so popular is because there is so much reference material available... so one great way to spread the knowledge of other weapons systems is to expand the material available.

In the case of Chiba Sensei's bokken kata. apart from the video attached and the old description from 13 years ago , there's very little information, which is a bit surprising, considering we are living in the Internet age

I believe that making knowledge of non-Saito weapons systems more freely available would help Aikido growth as students would be able to study and compare the alternate systems, but I would welcome differing opinions :)

Re: Kata/Suburi apart from Saito Sensei
 

Like previous people said, you can buy a dvd with Chiba Sensei's weapons work. The information is out there, you just have to be willing to purchase it instead of always getting it for free.

Re: Kata/Suburi apart from Saito Sensei
 

Ok, so I played around with iMovies and published some stuff on Youtube for this discussion.

Disclaimer, these clips are from tests or just practicing at the dojo...they are in no way representative of the most accurate or truest way to execute them...especially the ones I am in.

Most of the weapons I train at my dojo are different than what is normally seen. We do some suburi and the two 30+ count jo kata, like many others, but here are some derivatives.

Tanto tandoku kata dai san: knife kata number three...me performing during my last test. In all we have 5 tanto and 7 jo kata, and a couple tachi kata. There are some minor mistakes in this one. Published here.

This is a Kumijo Renzoku, or continuation. I'm not sure which one it is; we have four or so. Published here

Here is one of our kumitanto jo...not sure which one, could be De Osae Onaji Uchi. I apologize for the video quality and Jason Bourne shaky cam...I was the one taping it, my bad. Published here

Anyway, thats just a few samples of some of our 97 weapons forms.

Cheers!

Re: Kata/Suburi apart from Saito Sensei
 

Learn the system(s) your teacher offers. That's for free. And you won't learn something usefull from clips or dvd if you try it without a teacher.

Over here the weapons of Inaba Minoru are quite popular and teached by Tissier Sensei. You can find a lot on youtube. But you won't be able to learn this from just watching.

Re: Kata/Suburi apart from Saito Sensei
 

I agree :)

I guess it's good for reference and just knowing. But you won't really 'know' it unless you practise it properly with a qualified teacher who knows what they are doing.

Re: Kata/Suburi apart from Saito Sensei
 

Dear Ashley,
At last some one who shows put the value of something as opposed to people who put value of nothing.As the producer of British Birankai dvds since 1996 I can assure everyone that there is rich source of material from Chiba Sensei [including weapons ] available to purchase.
Bearing in mind that our group British Birankai spends considerable amounts of money in bringing Chiba Sensei /Miyamoto Sensei to our Summer Schools I personally do not think it is asking too much that people invest in the material rather than expect it for free.I have just taken our recent Summer School 2010 dvd material [Chiba Sensei /Miyamoto Sensei , Birankai International Shihan /Shidoin].

Re: Kata/Suburi apart from Saito Sensei
 

Dear Soon Piang ,
See my response below to Ashley.

Re: Kata/Suburi apart from Saito Sensei
 

The video of Guy Needler Sensei is fair.Mr Needler gets the sequence of the suburi a bit mixed up but in general the 8 suburi are there.Please tell -why do you state the video is wrong?Are you an authority on Chiba Sensei 's work?

Re: Kata/Suburi apart from Saito Sensei
 

Again, I probably have to explain myself

You may wish to know that I have *already* purchased 3 DVDs from different years of the Birankai Summer Camp in America... they are very interesting, but do not focus only on weapons... in fact, I was unaware there was a DVD solely on Chiba Sensei's weapons style... I have also *bought* Imaizumi Sensei's two DVD set on ashi-sabaki.. although I did not know there is a DVD on his weapons system as well...

I started this thread because we were reviewing Saito Sensei's 31 count jo kata, and the instructor mentioned our 'other' jo kata came from Tada Sensei. This roused my curiosity about Tada Sensei's weapons style, since I previously had no exposure to this style.. and I was unfortunate to miss his once-a-year weapons class at the Aikikai Hombu Dojo... but of course, I could not find any online material on that weapons style, except for the clip I posted

Moreover, because I had moved to a different country, and hence from a Saito/Chiba to Saito/Tada weapons-style dojo, I was hoping to review Chiba Sensei's bokken kata (as a refresher), but again, apart from the video (which I thought was helpful) I posted... there was not much material online

Rather than start 'another' thread asking about possible links for very specific weapons systems, I thought it might be more interesting to ask about other weapons styles in general... but this has met with negative feedback

I want to take this opportunity to thank Adam for posting his sample clips.. It was interesting to see that jo/tanto kumi tachi... I would not have imagined such a combination.. and the other links from that youtube page on the 31-count jo suburi in myanmar was also an eye-opener (for me at least)

Re: Kata/Suburi apart from Saito Sensei
 

In a way, this highlights issues raised in this thread

Because there are numerous reference clips on Saito Sensei's weapons system, one can make an immediate comparison between Saito Sensei and other people's interpretation or presentation of his various kata/suburi

However, when someone make a new clip from a non-Saito system, the lack of reference clips makes it hard for others to evaluate this new clip, perhaps making the situation less clear than it could be

Re: Kata/Suburi apart from Saito Sensei
 

No, I am not an authority on anyone's Aikido work. Perhaps 'wrong' was a bit extreme. However if I may convey my own personal opinion, however insignificant it is, Needler Sensei's style of execution looks very different to the one shown on the Kyu grade guideline dvd which people regard as a good reference. And of course as you have pointed out, the sequence is a bit mixed up.

Please don't get me wrong, I'm only posting for the sake of discussion, not trying to impose any sort of authority on anyone.

Re: Kata/Suburi apart from Saito Sensei
 

Glad I'm not the only one who feels that way. I would love to make it over there to train at the summer camp there! For now, it is but a dream.... but maybe one day!

As to the OP: I completely understand where you are coming from. With today's technology, it seems the internet is one of the first places we look for information.

This has the most current list of DVD's with U.S. Birankai: http://www.birankai.org/VideosDVDs.html

Here is a list of Birankai UK DVDs on sale: http://www.britishbirankai.com/conte...ategory/35/66/

Here is a dvd with Chibas 36 jo basics - same as the one from Birankai, just a different source, but I thought you may find some other dvds of interest (under DVDs on left, hit aikido - you will get TONS!): http://www.budovideos.com/shop/custo...roductid=21364

Here is a video of one of his kumitachi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwxBl...eature=related

Here is Biran Onlines page with other videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/BiranOnline#p/u

I am sure there are other places with dvd/video of his tsuburi and kumitachi and such. There is also a video of testing requirements up to first kyu. I believe the tsuburi you are looking for may be in there (but I am not certain). Also, you could try finding weapons seminars by Mike Flynn (one in Oregon in September), who is an amazing aikidoist all around, but his weapon work is top notch. He is one of the primo weapons people in Birankai. He doesn't come to the U.S. too often though, as he resides in the UK or is it Scotland?. Best of luck!

Re: Kata/Suburi apart from Saito Sensei
 

I just want to suggest that you go to YouTube and type in Nishio and perhaps 'ken tai ken' and take it from there... it is a treasure chest of aikido related sword work.. katas - paired katas.. however be warned... it's addictive :)

- JJ