Quote:
George S. Ledyard wrote:
I think his teacher has probably made the correct decision, at least based on my impression from these posts. One, I think that the desire to "fight" runs counter to what the Founder intended for the art. While O-Sensei clearly wanted his students to be competent martial artists, he chewed them out at length when they went out and got in fights just to test drive their skills. He said such contests destroyed the "spirit of Aikido".
Two, if you wish to test out your skills, you do so with someone with whom you are friends who does another style and you can mutually play. If you turn something into a real contest, someone is going to get hurt. Setting up a contest with someone when it is about who is going to win requires a different attitude. Winning without hurting the other person requires either a very high degree of skill, one that you don't have in the early Dan ranks, or incompetence on the part of the opponent. If the opponent in question really has some skills in MMA etc, prevailing will almost certainly require creating some level of dysfunction. It is incorrect to assume things work in a true fight the way they do in the dojo. This is why we have uke and nage and we train using a free flowing kata system. Uke is taught to let go and take his ukemi when things are untenable. In a fight, the opponent is going to hang in there until he / she is unable to contend i.e. unconscious, injured, or dead. No one goes into a fight or contest thinking he's "uke".
I would guess that the teacher in question is trying to deliver a message about attitude more than anything else and I also think that message isn't getting through.
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There was also an ura to the public face of those scoldings, as there often is in Japan, and I note that he never banned anybody because of those incidents (some people were actually praised - in private).
Also, I can think of a number of cases where this kind of thing went on with his tacit approval - or at least, his silence, as long as it wasn't made into a public matter.
As it often goes in Japan - the speech doesn't always follow the behavior. I think it's a mistake to listen to a statement made in a Japanese cultural context and expect that western cultural behavior will follow.
When Ueshiba sent folks out to take challenges I'm pretty sure that he didn't expect folks to "play".
OTOH, the OP (although he used the word "fight") seems to be pretty much talking about just that - a mutually agreed upon contest, playing.
I could see the instructors advising against it (I would), but I wouldn't do any more unless there are issues that we haven't seen here.
As to making the name of the dojo public - well, that's the way it goes, you can't tell people in a publicly run class not to say that they attend that class. If he were publicly claiming to represent the dojo in some way I might see the problem, but as far as I can see that hasn't happened.
Best,
Chris