View Single Post
Old 04-03-2012, 10:20 AM   #140
sakumeikan
Dojo: Sakumeikan N.E. Aikkai .Newcastle upon Tyne.
Location: Newcastle upon Tyne
Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 1,266
United Kingdom
Offline
Re: The Founder's Teaching Ability

Quote:
Jackie Adams wrote: View Post
Good morning Mr. Li,

I am pleased to tell you where I think were we are getting our lines crossed. The mentioned uchideshi had many years of training under the Founder. The amount of contact they had with the Founder was not always consistent. During the periods of time where the Founder was absent either permanently or intermittently the uchideshi worked on their own to improve their skill. How hard they worked, to what what extent they developed their skill is subject to opinion.

What am focusing on is the fact that they where not always teacher dependent, and worked independently to develop their own skill. Not how hard they worked at it. My focus is on the Founder who did worked more independently than dependently. His teachers passed on or where absent living the Founder to train and develop on his own. Didn't Takeda travel teaching intermittently from place to place, vs having a central dojo he taught out of? Isn't there stories of Takeda only showing a technique once without explanation? All his students including the Founder learned under these conditions, independently with significant absences of his teachers. All his teachers passed on before the Founder as well. This is the point I am making.

The Japanese word I am looking has escaped me that defines an intensive self training. The Founder did it by going up into the mountains to train isolation. Not being an Aikido historian, I hope someone will expand on the details. The reason it is being brought up is to point to the Founder was not teacher dependent for his skills. For him there where no other learning resource outside his initial teachers.The Founder trained on his own, developing his skill on his own. No one taught him dependently like today. In comparison, the instruction time and attention he received was very limited and short.

The independent path taken by the Founder proves to me, a student of Aikido, if willing, can improve on their own making great strides in their skill. If they are not told everything by a teacher it isn't an epic failure. Independent learning and the benefits, are over shadowed by the myth the path to success is teacher dependent. Where the student solely relies on the teacher to provide all the information, all the "secrets" of the art to the student under some unwritten obligation. Worse it has become the norm because we have convinced ourselves dependently learning is the only way to learn. The pandora box had been flung open because of that idea. People complain about their lack of skilI rushing to an outside quick fix that is just as teacher dependent. All without knowing they can fix it themselves, developing there own skill with time and effort. The proof of that success, in developing skill independently was shown by the Founder. But, many Aikido students don't see the Founder as such an example.

Students have been accustom to being milk feed information and their training coddled to such an extent they reach a point of feeling they have been cheated in someway out of key information by their instructors. Some students develop as sense of entitlement, making demands of information. The key here is to avoid that trap. Instead placing confidence in their own ability to develop skill on their own, obtaining the information on there own. Then any information from a teacher is useful. A teacher job's is to guide the student to their own success, not make it happen for the student.

It is the student's responsibility to take control of his own training and learning, under the guidance of the teacher. How much desire, how hungry a student is to improve, is based on that student's willingness to work for it. If a student is a poor practitioner it is because there was little effort placed toward his own development. How good a student become is up to the student, not the teacher.

This is why I think the Founder's teaching ability is without question. He was more open then his instructors with the information he obtained on his own. He encouraged his students to learn in his presences and absence, to develop on their own. To what level the students achieved is of debate, a debate am not comfortable engaging or feel necessary.

I am not a Aikido historian, but my searches have not revealed any instructional link between Shidoda and Horikawa. I have not found Shioda stating or his school mentioning there is an instructional link to Horiikiwa. The picture could just show a visit being made by Shioda who by that time was an established Aikido practitioner. It would be better evidence if a picture showed the two men training. Is there a picture of that?

Thank you. Hope everyone's day goes well and is enjoyable!
Dear Sir,
May I offer the term Shugyo which can be translated into intense training or a mindset in the present?Za Zen related. Or possibly the term Misogi , which is purification method usually done either by ascetic practice or again hard training Hope this helps, Cheers, Joe..
  Reply With Quote