Thread: Talent & Aikido
View Single Post
Old 12-02-2010, 01:18 PM   #20
Tim Ruijs
 
Tim Ruijs's Avatar
Dojo: Makato/Netherlands
Location: Netherlands - Leusden
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 463
Netherlands
Offline
Re: Talent & Aikido

Quote:
George S. Ledyard wrote: View Post
I think a truly exclusive Teaching Certification track would solve many problems. It would be based on ability, period. Then Dan ranks could reward all sorts of things and people wouldn't have the association that some Dan rank actually meant you were at some standard level, because as we all know, that simply isn't true.
In such a track who will judge potential yudansha? Their teachers no doubt, or perhaps a group of teachers. But how will a grade given in the US relate to the (arguably same) grade in the Netherlands? The teachers most likely will never have met. Who sets the standards?
Problems aside, on the technical part (instruction) all this is perhaps feasible. However, I am very afraid politics will interfere quickly. Dare I say would result in the very system that exists today?
At a different level I do not believe a teacher can grade your progress/growth as a person. People cannot be compared on an absolute level (which any grading system does). This ultimately implies duality, competition. But this [growth] is what Aikido is about: learn to balance mind and body.

Good students find good teachers...(and no that is not a mistake)

I am very interested in this subject and appreciate you sharing your view (perhaps different thread, PM).

In a real fight:
* If you make a bad decision, you die.
* If you don't decide anything, you die.
Aikido teaches you how to decide.
www.aikido-makato.nl
  Reply With Quote