patrick de block

Hello,

I always get bored with this discussions, since years. And, to make matters clear, I'm a Tomiki Aikido practitioner, in case you want to dismiss me. And that's fine with me.

What strikes me in these discussions is how competiton is always narrowly defined as a sports event with certain rules which are overseen by judges.

'Competition in biology, ecology, and sociology, is a contest between organisms, animals, individuals, groups, etc., for territory, a niche, or a location of resources, for resources and goods, for prestige, recognition, awards, mates, or group or social status, for leadership; it is the opposite of cooperation.[1][2] It arises whenever at least two parties strive for a goal which cannot be shared or which is desired individually but not in sharing and cooperation. Competition occurs naturally between living organisms which co-exist in the same environment.[3] For example, animals compete over water supplies, food, mates, and other biological resources. Humans compete usually for food and mates, though when these needs are met deep rivalries often arise over the pursuit of wealth, prestige, and fame. Competition is also a major tenet in market economy and business is often associated with competition as most companies are in competition with at least one other firm over the same group of customers, and also competition inside a company is usually stimulated for meeting and reaching higher quality of services or products that the company produce or develop.'

This quote is from Wikipedia, so here I go, a non-exhaustive list of competition in aikido

- I have trained for ...years in Japan
- I have trained with ... (usually there follows an explanation why that teacher is the best)
- I have been ... times to Japan
- I have caried the bags of ... so many times on international events that I lost the count
- I have folded the hakama of ... countless times.
- I am a ... dan given to me by ... (...)
- I am your sempai
- Ask a simple question and you are told that you will understand when you are a senior ...
- ...

Some thoughts:

War is a competition, and I thought that aikido was advertised as a martial art.

In Tomiki Aikido you have shiai but you also have a three step program of kakari geiko, hiki tate geiko and randori to develop skill.

Young men (mostly) and the occasional women (more so) are competive, usually they grow older and become ... Anything wrong with being young and irresponsable, that's being young.

Ueshiba is famous for his displays of strength or power and he kept doing this into advanced age. (He never grew up?) Any problem with people becoming fascinated by this displays?

You can say that in competition usually people muscle their way through the technique, and that's what you are not suppossed to learn. But then, that is what 90 % or 95% of the aikido-people are doing, only it doesn't look that way since Uke's are very coöperative.

And in case you want to know, I've lost all my competitions and I am still doing aikido.