Marc Abrams

Graham:

1) Collusive Training. Watch your own videos and read your own writings and you should easily understand that what you do is nothing other than collusive practice. Both sides acting unnaturally to come to some colluded conclusion.

2 & 3) Where on God's green earth did you derive that all training should make people feel good in Aikido? Where on God's green earth did you come to the belief that what you do has martial principles to them and that I, one of the uniformed, could not see it?

Stanley Pranin worked very hard to put together the Aiki Expos, to help the Aikido world move back to the founder's Aikido and practice, and move away from the collusive, feel-good practice seen in your videos. Funny, I don't recall seeing you at any of them. You speak to other's about the words of O'Sensei, you speak to others about Ki is your work as though you are far more "knowing" that many of the posters on this forum. People have been trying to "wake you up" and get you to consider that what you are doing inside of your four-mat, cloistered, shared delusional space has little if any to do with the legacy of O'Sensei.

What, if any experience do you have with any of the direct student's of O'Sensei? You talk about Ki, yet have you any experience with Tohei Sensei or any of his top students?

Your practice lacks of martial integrity. You make ridiculous statements such as "You will never see sincere attacks with martial intent in an Aikido video unless you see an Aikidoka using it in a real life situation from some street happening or such." to try and hide this obvious fact.

Why don't you bring in some full-contact, karateka and film your encounter with him? Why don't you bring in some kendo person of equal rank and film your encounter with him? If you want some safer, encounters with reality, I would recommend these two idea:
1) George Ledyard Sensei conducts 4--day randori and weapons intensives in the US. You should attend one. Protective gear and shinai would be a safe environment for you to see what you can really do with weapons.
2) Kenji Ushiro Sensei will be in Lyon France in April of 2011. You should attend to get an idea of what Ki is really about, and how it can be used effectively and safely in practice with real martial intent.

Then again, you can continue to post about what you think that you know and what you think that you can do. We will continue to try and get you to taste a dose of reality. Hopefully, one day, you might wake up and see that some of those who you view as "uniformed" have put in far greater time, have developed greater skill levels that can be safely demonstrated with martial integrity with real martial intent in attacks, and have a deeper understanding of philosophies that you attempt to "teach" others.

Marc Abrams