Marc Abrams

Graham:

People have been remarkably patient with you. You come on to this forum presenting yourself as somebody with knowledge and ability. People with demonstrable knowledge and ability have both questioned your claims and outright dismissed your claims. People have asked that you provide some demonstrable examples ( your videos are woefully lacking in this area if you have not already figured that out yet), such as holding an open seminar so that people can assess for themselves what you have to offer. Let's review some of the areas of concerns:

1) You say that you have understand a lot of what O'Sensei said: Fact 1- You do not speak or read Japanese. Fact 2- Much of the translated works of O'Sensei have not been accurately translated.
Fact 3- Much of what O'Sensei use to talk about was so heavily embedded in his deep religious beliefs, that without a deep understanding of the culture and beliefs, many of his own direct students had trouble figuring out exactly what he was trying to say.

Taking those three facts into account, it is highly improbable that you in fact understand a lot of what O'Sensei said. At best, some aspects of the translated works resonate with YOUR belief systems. To most people on this forum, who do have a much deeper understanding of what O'Sensei said (for example Chris Li) they simply point out the error of your ways, to which you seek to wiggle your way out of by claiming that your idiosyncratic understanding is somehow accurate.

2) You claim that what you do is "effective" and based on O'Sensei's principles:
To highly skilled and experienced Aikido teachers, your videos are uniformly dismissed as not representing O'Sensei's principles and displaying no signs of being any where near effective in any manner, shape of form. You talk mysteriously about having spent 10 years testing yourself. You talk mysteriously about some unspoken weapons skills. You talk your way out of having to demonstrate this to any open audience. The burden of proof is simply on you. You can allow Dan Harden to attend one of your classes, since you say that you are open to such encounters. This forum, for the most part, will respect the feedback that Dan provides us with. Better yet, hold an open seminar. Allow some of the senior Aikidoka from Britain to attend, besides other people, and allow your skills to be observed and felt by a larger audience. To Mark Tennenhouse's credit, at least he had integrity to put his money where his mouth was. You have yet to display any kind of budo integrity in terms of allowing what you say to be felt and observed.

You spend so much of your time discounting the feedback from other people. You spend so much of your time telling people that they simply do not understand the depth of your understanding and depth of abilities. You spend no time verifying a single thing. You complain about the keyboard warrior, yet you seem to be the worst offender of all. You come on this forum and put forth words and then hide behind them, saying that you are beyond the need for verification.

People have asked the legitimate question of why do you post on this forum. It seems to me that you should simply stick to a personal blog. If you put forth ideas and beliefs on this forum, it seems to most sane, rational and reasonable people that you should be able to amply demonstrate what you say to an open audience IN PERSON, as opposed to your words.

Many people are conflicted about you on this forum for a number of reasons. One, is that you appear to be a sincere, nice person, BUT you do come across as either overly sanctimonious and/or deluded in your beliefs and abilities. Another reason, is that there are a number of responsible people who view your ideas as being irresponsible (in terms of saying that what you do is martial and effective, while demonstrating nothing of the kind), misrepresenting Aikido in both is philosophy, practice and application. They post, not to enter into some kind of genuine discussion or face-to-face meeting to flesh these things out (you studiously avoid both of these situations), but to try and provide people with what most consider more accurate information. Another reason, is that people have heard what you say before (70's- & 80's) and have watched the responsible martial artists, with genuine integrity, discover that their previously held notions were simply a stage in their training that they moved beyond.

You have already worn out your welcome with some of the most respected martial artists on this forum. Their attempts to guide you were met with an attitude and response that placed you on the ignore list. Dan Harden's latest attempts to assist you in your understanding of things was very kind and very well attended. Your response to him was typical of how your respond to anybody who does not agree with your view of things. You avoid any real tests, while discounting any real need to do so, while trying to pass off your ideas as somehow valid and reasonable within the world of Aikido and larger world of budo.

Frankly speaking, in absence of you demonstrating in an open manner (lets say holding an open seminar), I can only hope that people simply stop responding to you. It seems to spur you on to writing more and demonstrating nothing. People's response should uniformly be "put up or stop typing." At the end of the day, martial arts is about what you CAN do, as opposed to what you CLAIM that you can do.

Marc Abrams