Thread: Bowing...
View Single Post
Old 02-05-2005, 03:19 AM   #28
batemanb
 
batemanb's Avatar
Dojo: Seibukan Aikido UK
Location: body in UK, heart still in Japan
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 1,031
Offline
Re: Bowing...

Quote:
Ron Tisdale wrote:
I think there are two sides to this coin. On the one hand, this type of training can seem outdated, capricious, and open to abuse.
I think this is very true, but I think this is typically a western view. I haven't done the Senshusei, I haven't been an uchideshi, but I have lived in Japan for a couple of years, and visited on many more occasions. Every time I trained I saw people behave in the way that Michael describes, these people were both young and old, kyu's and dan's, and they were not uchi deshi. The dojo's that I regularly train in during time in Japan do not have uchi deshi programs, but that doesn't stop the students from upholding training values.

We have to remember that Aikido was founded and developed in Japan, in a Japanese culture. Here in the west, many people try to adapt this into their own culture or way of thinking, but in doing this, we discard the things that we dislike, as Ron stated above. It's easy to dismiss things in this way.

I can't help thinking that without experiencing these things, which are basically examples of good manners, we are missing out on part of the training. As I said before, Aikido begins and ends with respect, to ignore this is to disrespect my training.

From the Japanese perspective, bowing is aisatsu (good manners). Bowing before you train (in any location) is not only for the mat, but for yourself.

rgds

Bryan

A difficult problem is easily solved by asking yourself the question, "Just how would the Lone Ranger handle this?"
  Reply With Quote