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Old 12-03-2011, 07:52 PM   #37
Ken McGrew
Dojo: Aikido at UAB
Location: Birmingham, Alabama
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 202
United_States
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Re: O Sensei observation

There are a group of people who take turns jumping on anyone who questions the claims they make about a variety of related issues including what O Sensei meant by aiki. They silence people by a variety of means. If you happen to belong to ASU they use their relationship with three named instructors to silence you. It's rediculous. I think the ASU teachers should ask them to stop playing that game.

Anyone can read Saotome Sensei's books, study his videos, study the videos from seminars, read the interviews, go to seminars, or speak with a number of his long time and early students. I have done all of these things recently. I have also had many conversations with Sensei about all these issues. But Mark and others as usual ignore the evidence and launch personal.

It is repeatedly presented by people on the other side, or in the pack as it were, that these debates are all settled and they have won them. Ofcourse this is not true. They have just dominated the discussions because Aikido people are usually conflict averse. It is presented as of everyone agrees. This is not so. Again, ask people who were at the seminar last weekend what Sensei said about blending.

Those of us who are training the harmonizing notion of Aikido that O Sensei and Saotome Sensei describe and demonstrate must preserve the art from efforts to shrink it down to a more limited approach or one that ignores the ukemi training process. By cooperative I don't mean fake or necessarily gentle. I mean aiki. It's ok to explore other arts. But you dont get to force them on the rest of us. You don't get to bully the rest of us into submission and silence.

Last edited by Ken McGrew : 12-03-2011 at 08:00 PM.
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