Thread: Vantage points
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Old 01-04-2013, 06:09 PM   #190
ChrisHein
 
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Dojo: Aikido of Fresno
Location: Fresno , CA
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Re: Vantage points

Quote:
Kristoffer Sandven wrote: View Post
Have you ever heard Dan claim this stuff is "his system" or his creation? Quite the opposite: He's arguing that Takeda / Ueshiba had this, but (most of) their students didn't get it. It's being rediscovered.
No I haven't. That is my problem. Is Dan teaching something new? Or is Dan teaching someone else's system? What is Dan teaching, because from Dan I hear a little of both. That is the part that sounds strange to me. If Dan "Transcended" older systems, then he's teaching his own system, right? Well if Dan isn't teaching his own system, then he's teaching someone else's system, right? We can't have it both ways.

Quote:
Have you considered that Dan's intentions are good? That he actually cares about this stuff. And that he spent years trying to discover it himself.
Yes, I have. And he might be, I'll even say that right now, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, and asking him to clear up things that are hard to understand from the way he writes.

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It wasn't even his idea to start teaching it outside his own dojo / small group of friends. He was asked time and time again by a senior Aikido instructor and finally decided to help people in the Aikido community find back to something that was lost.
This is kind of misleading. Dan have been a big promoter of his stuff for many years. For a very long time he's been on the internet talking about how he understands stuff ( I say stuff because it's changed a bit over the years) that most people in the Aikido world don't get. The Aikido community is ripe for this kind of thing, so of course he was eventually asked to come and show his stuff. He must also be pretty good at it, because he's still around, and lot's of people on the net seem to like him. But you can't exactly paint Dan as a humble, quiet guy who doesn't want to tell others that they are wrong and he is right. I don't think that's a bad thing, sometimes we need that sort of thing.

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Consider the facts: He does not have any organization, he does not give out any titles, grades or ranks. There are no uniforms used during the seminars - just your regular sweatpants and T-shirts. And nobody's allowed to call him sensei. How this can be about him and "his system" is beyond me...
The flip side of this is, Dan is always saying that he understand things others don't. And that if others would do what he's doing they would become great martial artists. He is always talking about how other systems don't teach what needs to be taught. He's always saying the he has a method that has proven results, and that most people switch over to what he's doing when they see it. To me it sounds like he's talking about his own system, but he say's he's not.

So is it a unique system, or is it someone else's system? It has to be one or the other.

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I'm happy he offers his knowledge here and in seminars - and I'm going to take advantage of it. Maybe you should, too, while it's still possible?
I'd love to.

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