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Old 09-25-2013, 07:51 AM   #43
Cliff Judge
Location: Kawasaki, Kanagawa
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 1,276
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Re: YouTube: Moriteru Ueshiba Doshu

Quote:
Jon Reading wrote: View Post
For me, these types of demos are an odd combination of form, nostalgia and presentation. While not a koryu, aikido often embellishes its connection to a specific historical period of training. It's a demo designed to preach to the choir. In other words, if you are familiar with aikido, the demo is fine. If you are new to aikido, aikido is not a koryu so the pseudo-historical style is off-putting and the lack of a contemporary adversarial relationship is seen as ineffective.

I have said this before, I think takemusu aiki is something that is not easy to communicate in demonstration. It either looks fake or it has to presented to not look fake. Practiced spontaneity.
Maybe this gets put in the "stuff Kisshomaru did to ruin Aikido" bin these days, but Aikido is supposed to transcend a contemporary adversarial relationship.

In my personal experience, whenever I share Aikido embu videos with friends and family who are not martial artists they find them very interesting and fun to watch. There is rarely a question of whether it is fake or not. They remark on the smoothness and flow, and the circularity of the movement. This is a WIN as far as I am concerned. It is typically people who have spent training hours in an aggressive/fearful mental state, trying to use their muscles to force an opponent to do something they don't want to do, who look at Aikido and the only explanation they can come up with is "it's fake."

It is also a huge win when a good Aikido embu follows a set of koryu embu. After sitting through koryu guys demonstrating kata after kata, you get to see a constant, dynamic, spontaneous, ever-changing explosion of energy.
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