Gozo Shioda and JFK's Bodyguard
 

I read a bit about Gozo Shioda doing a demonstration in Tokyo for John F. Kennedy and after the demonstration JFK apparently thoguth that it was very impressive but wondered how Shioda would do against his big bodyguards.

Shioda invited the bodyguards one at a time onto the mat and ended up perfoming yonkajo onone of them. I'm wondering if anyone has any links that I could check out to read more about this event and/or links to videos of the event.

I believe the video that shows this demonstration was entitled "Gozo Shioda: Kamiwaza Denju" but I can not find it anywhere.

Thanks in advance,

Paul

There is a DvD that is available that has this footage. I don't recall the name of it however. I beleive budovideos.com sells it.

From what I saw, it was one body guard and Kancho played with him. Kennedy and his wife can be seen in the background laughing their butts off.

1962 - Demo for John F Kennedy and Jacky Kennedy

1973 - Yoshinkan Koganei Dojo Grand Opening

1983 - Demo for Sir Lawrence Vanderpost

1989 - Kagami Biraki

1991 - Kagami Biraki

http://www.budovideos.com/shop/cata..._Yoshinkan.html

That sounds like it would be some footage to watch! Too bad you have to pay for it :(

Yeah and it isn't cheap either. I wonder if that particular footage is out there somewhere on the web in .mpg or .avi format.

Would be nice if it was on the web somewhere. I have very few good aikido clips to watch.

I need to find more.

I second that..

Don't know how up to date these are, but fwiw...

http://yoav.8m.net/AikidoVideoLinks.htm

http://www.stanford.edu/group/jujitsu/Video/index.html

http://www.nihonto.ca/Knives.mpeg

http://groups.msn.com/RMAHamilton/videoclips.msnw

http://www.altinet.net/~karate/mavr2.htm

The first one is interesting. He pirates those clips from many of Yoshinkan tapes, then has the nerve to tell us not to use them anywhere else. What a goof!

Hey Don! Thanks for the sites!!! I'm going crazy because I want to see O'Sensei but quicktime is giving me problems... it gives me the broken quicktime symbol... I redownloaded it and its still doing it : (

It's not Quicktime, it's the links.

Re: Gozo Shioda and JFK's Bodyguard
 

Apologies for ressurecting an old thread, but. . .

This video (in two parts) has got to be one of the funniest things I've ever seen done on aikido, and it includes some of the famed Kennedy bodyguard footage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6eiGyAL9uY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrV5RgkFf9s

It's a Japanese TV program on Gozo Shioda. Some very nice footage of the late master - but watch also for a highly amusing O-Sensei impersonation. Also, you get to see aikido done to Beat Takeshi (Inoue-sensei and Yasuhisa Shioda-sensei visit his TV show)! Doesn't get much better than this :). . .

Re: Gozo Shioda and JFK's Bodyguard
 

Funny stuff, to be sure (I should point out that the Kennedy in this video is in fact Robert, not JFK).

Re: Gozo Shioda and JFK's Bodyguard
 

Yeah, now that I watch it again I see they state that pretty explicitly and it's also in the captions (not being an American, I couldn't really tell by just looking at the guy). . .is there also separate footage with JFK, I wonder, or was the initial post inaccurate? I'd suspect the latter, but who knows - perhaps Shioda-sensei was big with the whole family :)

Re: Gozo Shioda and JFK's Bodyguard
 

This is a common misunderstanding. The Yoshinkan "Kennedy Demo" occurred in 1962, involving Robert Kennedy, as he traveled abroad as Secretary of State. There was, to my knowledge, no similar incident with John Kennedy.

Re: Gozo Shioda and JFK's Bodyguard
 

RFK was Attorney General, not secretary of state.

Re: Gozo Shioda and JFK's Bodyguard
 

Right you are! Seems odd that he was on an official state visit to Japan at the time of the demo. That's definitely SoS type stuff...

Re: Gozo Shioda and JFK's Bodyguard
 

It's a fun video. You just knew that the bodyguard fella (a good sport) was thinking "Oh crap, what the f...?!!" He's laughing and having a mixed moment of wonder and embarrassment. I wonder if he asked Shioda if he could train with him, after that. Or if he just went away thinking, "those wacky old Japanese dudes! What will they think of next?" lol

I'm really glad that folks have dug up and put these old films on YouTube. Shioda was one of the more "show biz" types, but that only means that we have archival records of the stuff he was working on.

Re: Gozo Shioda and JFK's Bodyguard
 

True, but when you're the president's brother, you automatically carry a lot more diplomatic weight than your garden variety Attorney General. Between the bland Dean Rusk, who had no prior connection to JFK before his SoS appointment, and an RFK, a foreign power can easily decide who gets them more access to the White House.

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled programming.


best,

R