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Old 09-01-2011, 06:50 AM   #59
DH
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,394
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Re: Golden Center Aikido for your pleasure

Quote:
Yannis Mousoulis wrote: View Post
Quote:
Quote:Carina Reinhardt wrote:
I sure cannot feel by how it looks, but I don't see any attack, any unbalance, they are just walking, uke taking toris hand, do you think with that iriminage anybody will fall down?
Everything goes slowly...
Ok I'm opened minded, if Graham call it martial art...Tai Chi is also a martial art..
Absolutelly right! You cannot feel by how it looks, but any aikidoka with some experience, that has practiced with real attacks can see that nobody's actually attacking, nobody's breaking nobody's ballance, nobody's applying effective techniques in this video. And it's not only a matter of speed. This isn't aikido with no force. This is aikido with no aikido. Aikido is a non- resisting martial art, but a martial art nevertheless. They keep on redusing it to nothingness and then they are trying to find street effectiveness in Anderson Silva's U.F.C videos! Beats the hell out of me!!
I agree with the majority of those assessing these videos. There is no effective aikido in the videos and definitely no aiki to be seen.
Carina brought up Taiji and I think that is a good comparative example to use. Good Aikido people, like good taiji people, have for too long tolerated just anyone doing any manner of movement and allowed it to be called taiji or aikido. As a result. Taiji and aikido have become more or less the laughing stocks of the martial arts.

No one in their right minds would ever call the stuff that millions of these gentle people are doing- martial. But there is a more critical and underlying element at work here as well. None of these people in Taiji or aikido are doing aiki or Internal power either. And those are the very foundation of the art. So what are as former members who walked away and outsiders who are considering to join, left to say when the videos being produced and work being done by these ner do wells in dojos fail to deliver on either count; martial or IP/aiki? It would seem that instictually they recognize that something is amiss. All the while, the good work is being done, but with much less public exposure .

All in all, the tolerances granted via shear volume, the unwillingness to confront and be critical, has only done further damage to the reputation of these two arts. The next time you talk about the ever reducing numbers of people signing up due to lack of interest, or the laughter in martial art circles when these two arts are brought up (regarding effectiveness) I would suggest you ask yourself if this tolerance of nonsense done in the name of the art of Aikido or taij,i has helped these arts in any meaningful way. Increased popularity by ever reducing standards of excellence to the lowest common denominator was probably not the way to go.

Some senior teachers are taking back rank, or suspending it based on involvement and growth. Others are openly asking people to leave or telling them their ranks are frozen. I would suggest more of the same. Only those in the arts can repair the train wreck the arts have become. It is apainful process that begins with critical assessment. and selfless interest. Teachers need a clear model of excellence in front of them, and a lack of interest or value in requests to rank ner-do-wells and folks with good attendance.

Teachers as models
The first step -good teachers to model after- is the hardest to actually pull off. Good martial artists have always stood out from the budo wallpaper. The trouble we have now is that no one believes their own teacher was the wallpaper! I've lost track of the teachers who have told me how amazing their teachers were. Then you feel or see them and go ..."What?" This factor alone explains much of the state of affairs. If you got rid of about a million people teaching taiji, you would see an improvement in taiji in ten years. The same would happen with aikido. Of the thousands of videos out there, how many show a level of excellence in teaching aikido?
Just say'n
Dan

Last edited by DH : 09-01-2011 at 07:04 AM.
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