Ellis Amdur

Hi Chris - Well, let's imagine that there was bodyskills training inherent in the 8th gneration of Araki-ryu. And the teacher taught his 9th gen. students. And all of them thought - "why do I have to waste time on all these breathing skills, this stretching and coil and stance training, because I can really be an effective, quite violent fighter without that tedious practice? I'll just do more of the other training." And they'd be really good - there is historical evidence of that. (But they, like me, probably showed a lot of joint damage in their mid-fifties, if not earlier). AND - 10 generations down the line, I'd say, "Why were you so STUPID as to let this good stuff go!" Or, if the teacher decided not to teach it to the 9th generation because he wanted to keep some goodies to himself so he remained the alpha dog thruout, I'd say, "Why were you so SELFISH as to keep this good stuff to yourself." With absolutely no imputation of anything towards Mochizuchi, whom I've only seen a couple of times, I think the former question could be asked of a LOT of the 2nd generation-onwards-aikido shihan and the latter question very possibly asked of Ueshiba himself.
Then again, when I read that some of the greatest swordsmen of the Sengoku period received menkyo kaiden in two or three years, it is possible that a lot of teachers, concerning most students, thought, "pearls before swine," because one can certainly learn everything that "fast" if one puts in the mileage. Ten miles in one day, or ten miles in one month - the same ten miles. Why waste time teaching anyone who hasn't put in the miles - all they'd have then is an interesting allegation. And the more peaceful the era, the more one has the luxury of being lazy and thinking one can take 20 years to learn something.
All of which relates to a) Dan's frustration of repeating oneself to a student who can't grasp or won't listen b) and if things go to a certain point, Nishioka Tsuneo's statement to me is apropos. "'Hamon,' for me, is when a student obviously can't learn or is not willing to learn. In that case, I simply tell him he's doing great."

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