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Old 02-11-2011, 03:33 PM   #96
Mark Freeman
Dojo: Dartington
Location: Devon
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 1,220
United Kingdom
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Re: New Internal Style of The Wooden Staff

Quote:
George S. Ledyard wrote: View Post
You wouldn't have very experienced senior teachers posting on this topic if it were just a matter of the individual in question. But this is a forum that is a resource for newbies as well as highly experienced people. Folks actions have a karmic payback that takes care of things in the end so we don't really have to do anything. But the inexperienced folks who come here to learn from those more experienced need to have some guidance. So the senior folks should give their opinions. In some cases those opinions will be largely in agreement and in others there will be little agreement, even amongst the most senior teachers. That's fine because they serve to frame the debate and the newbies can decide whom they agree with.
Hi George,

I have only clipped a short section of your answers to my rhetorical questions.

I appreciate the full and knowledgable post in response. I happen to be a long serving student of a teacher who has lived his whole 55 year aikido career as a 'budo' man. He removed himself from the wider world of aikido many years ago to follow what he saw as his own true path, which he felt he owed to his own teacher, keeping his own integrity rather than deal with the egocentric politics emanating from abroad.

Plenty of students have gained what they know from him, then decided they know better, then gone off to form their own fiefdoms and mini empires. Some of them openly acknowledge the part he played in their own development and some don't.

The world of MA it seems to me to be slightly stuck in its tradition of thinking it 'owns' knowledge, I can see why it is this way, as knowledge is power so to speak. I personally play by my teachers rules, I only teach with his permission to members of our own federation.I have no problem with that. However, there is nothing to stop me leaving and setting up my own school of 'Markido' and gathering a whole new group of my own students. I have the knowledge and skill it's mine to give.

anyway, thanks again for the time taken. Personally I think Tenyu has shot himself right in the foot doing what he has done, and only time will tell if he has learnt any lessons from the affair. He's not the first and certainly wont be the last to think that he has more to offer than he really has.

regards,

Mark

Success is having what you want. Happiness is wanting what you have.
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