Quote:
Cliff Judge wrote:
Yeah and their technical curricula have changed to suit the fact that they practice competitively. Which shows that the technical curriculum that you learn from a teacher of Aikido is what characterizes Aikido. if somebody teaches you something technical, and says it is Aikido, there needs to be something that clearly demonstrates that this technical think was transmitted by Ueshiba for it to be Aikido. (If the teacher makes no claim of it being Aikido but you like it and find it useful training that fits in with your Aikido practice that's a different story.)  |
Everybody has changed their curriculum, for various reasons, and they all (including Kenji Tomiki) claim a technical transmission from Ueshiba, competition or not. What you do with Saotome is not quite the same as what you would have done in Iwama with Ueshiba - there's nothing wrong with that, of course.
I think that "transmitted from Ueshiba" is probably a better argument than the purely technical one for classifying something as "Aikido", but it still has plenty of problems. For one, the word "Aikido" itself isn't the exclusive property of the Ueshiba family, nor was it invented by them. For another, as I noted before, there are plenty of people with links to Ueshiba that are practicing what many other people don't consider to be "Aikido".
Why not just say that person A is doing this thing and person B is also doing the same thing and leave it at that without branding or trying to claim an exclusive brand? If you want a brand for your organization there already is one, the Aikikai, which is properly trademarked and of which both you and Saotome are members.
Best,
Chris