Peter Goldsbury

 

Hello Jorge,

I experienced something similar from my own teacher, who is 70 years old and has just received 8th dan. My (non-aikido) students who know him think that he is a typical, traditional, rather conservative Japanese.

When I started teaching aikido abroad, he was seriously concerned that I should not 'teach' certain techniques: I should show them quickly and then pass on to something else. But when I did this, there was a chorus of requests from the students for me to show the waza in slow motion. I did this but have never taught it in detail.

On another occasion, I showed a waza that my teacher occasionally taught and suggested that he had learned this from his own teacher (Seigo Yamaguchi). He was a little irritated and denied it: he had worked out the waza for himself and did not want another person to receive the credit for it. I might add that the students I showed it to (a variation on 1-kyou) had never seen it before.

I do not think my teacher was particularly concerned about who the waza were shown to; he was more concerned that the students should learn proper 'stealing'. Of course, in present-day Japan this approach is condemned as being excessively old fashioned and in any case it is thought to make sense only in the context of a traditional Master-Deshi relationship. I am not sure I entirely agree with this last point.