Tim Heckman

I've been training for a little over two years, and I find this subject interesting. I'm lucky to live in Chicago. I'm in an organization that is currently not recognized as Aikikai due to a split, but the parent group was a split from Ki society that was reaffiliated with Hombu about ten years ago.

I really enjoy training with different groups. I've trained with USAF, Ki Society, Fugukukai Tomiki, and with the Abe sensei folks so far, as well as the Aikido World Alliance/Aikido Association of America that is the basis of my training. It's my contention, based on my varied but limited experiences, that the state of American aikido is not so bad.

So far, I haven't found anyone that is training on a level that bears no resemblance to a commonly accepted reality. I'm not saying they're not out there, but I am saying that they are on the fringes. And there will always be goofballs on the fringes...

As people have said, the different groups in Aikido are due to personality/money/political differences. No matter what the reason, these differences are still very fresh in many senior instructors minds, even if the reason for the split is fifty years old. I see no way to reach/impose a common standard for shodan, but I think that the existing standard for shodan is actually closer to being uniform than most of think.

To me, right now, the best thing that I feel I can do for worldwide aikido is to get on the mat and train. The next best thing is to study and see how different people have interpreted O'Sensei's aikido, so that I can work on finding my own.

Of course, anyone else's mileage might vary...