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Old 03-11-2001, 12:33 PM   #8
paul spawforth
Dojo: wakefield tomiki aikido club
Location: England
Join Date: Mar 2001
Posts: 19
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I have been to a couple of seminars and courses where every style of aikidoka attends, and so far i have not seen or heard any political rivalry between styles. Being a student of Tomiki style aikido i think my style is probably the most ridiculed within the aikido circle, the reason being that many staunch traditionalists (and of course O'sensei) believed there was no room for competition in aikido for they think it brings about big ego trips and selfishness, i have also been to one competition and experienced no big egos and certainly no bad feeling. I think the most part of the political arguments have now died down and everyone gets on with studying their own style with the attitude of "whatever style of aikido you study really makes no difference, at the end of the day we are all still students of aikido!" with regard to the rank question i think different styles don't accept rank from each other because of the differences in syllabus and grading requirements....

Hope this helps

Paul, Tomiki style.
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