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Old 07-13-2015, 07:24 PM   #55
JP3
 
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Dojo: Wasabi Dojo
Location: Houston, TX
Join Date: Mar 2013
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Re: Shinto Clapping in Aikido

What if the class, as we do... or rather do not do to be more gramattically correct... do not clap at all?

My class is not insulted - or at least they don't express it to me - because we don't clap. I would postulate that they don't clap because I don't clap, and I don't clap as my instructors don't clap, and their instructors didn't clap before them.

As I trace my.... hmmmm lineage, if you will, from O-Sensei, there's him, the O-Sensei guy with all his personality trats which made him the person and genius martial artist he was. I presume that he clapped as described, though I doubt if anyone on this board actually "knows" that he did it all the time every time, as non of us were there. Video does not count, y'all. But let's assume it was his thing as has been reported.

So, O-Sensei claps prior to class in one manner or another. I presume Kenji Tomiki was present during this? Did he just toss it out because of the background he had when he came to train? I imagine that the phys-ed/judo stuff he had in his head when he went may have, if not conflicted with Shinto observance at least sort of strayed? I don't know, do people in gym class/judo class in Japan go through such clapping rituals prior to a standard workout? Knowing judo, somehow I doubt it.

Tomiki Sensei conveyed his art to Karl Geis personally and though various instructors (Ms. Miyaki, Riki Kogure (spelling always messes me up here) etc. I know from that group of Sensei Geis' students that they didn't do clapping..... so I didn't do clapping, so my class doesn't do clapping.

So, are we not doing aikido because we simply start class with a different sort of centering tradition to our practice?

I find it interesting that the kanji character for kuzushi illustrates a mountain falling on a house.
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