View Single Post
Old 06-24-2010, 08:50 AM   #99
ChrisMoses
Dojo: TNBBC (Icho Ryu Aiki Budo), Shinto Ryu IaiBattojutsu
Location: Seattle, WA
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 927
United_States
Offline
Re: Ki Aikido - quote from Gleason Sensei

Quote:
Jason Casteel wrote: View Post
Hi Christian,

I understand what you're saying and wasn't asking from how does it feel perspective, I was just commenting on Dan's post about people not being sure how they fit in when they have these body skills and also how reluctant they are to give them up in the typically dojo setting with people who don't have them.
You're still thinking of them as 'techniques'. Like I would apply a certain technique to shut someone down. This is more about changing how your body works. You can't really shut it off any more than you can make yourself taller (a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much). When I first met Ark he talked about creating the martial body (developing the frame) before one could learn any bujutsu. When we started doing Aunkai training, we (my whole dojo) basically took about two years off from doing waza. Most dojos are not going to do that. Now that we've come back to waza, we're having to rework how we do most of our techniques, because the old stuff (aside from the judo kihon) just doesn't work on people in the dojo anymore.

We're still working on how to integrate new people however, and are about to start offering a beginners class of sorts that will focus on tanren, ukemi and basic judo/jujutsu. It's our belief, that without those basics, you just can't do aiki.

I've gone through the exact scenario that Dan outlined however where I was training at two dojos, and the training in one led to severe frustration at the other. I continued at both for a while, but eventually had leave one behind, because I felt that I was dialing it back (as you describe) so much, that I wasn't doing anything in class. That was before doing Aunkai however. Certainly there are some people out there that make it work, and enjoy what they're doing.

Chris Moses
TNBBC, "Putting the ME in MEdiocre!"
Budo Tanren at Seattle School of Aikido
Shinto Ryu Iai-Battojutsu
  Reply With Quote