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Old 08-05-2010, 11:19 AM   #63
jonreading
 
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Dojo: Aikido South
Location: Johnson City, TN
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Aikido: more than a martial art?

Quote:
As I previously said: your technique has to be commensurate with the situation; killing a man for grabbing your shoulder to tell you you've dropped something is not.
If you choose to break somebody's wrist instead of killing them (when they were trying to kill you), then you are showing them compassion - not to mention the fact that the essence of aikido is to yield to this person.

The purpose of budo in O'Sensei's thought, to the best of my knowledge at least, is to protect people - not to hurt or kill needlessly, or for its own sake: you take up a martial art to help people/society, not to harm people.

And again Judo fits that much better than Aikido does. In Judo the goal is to improve yourself to better society as a whole and the techniques are such that you can defend yourself without the need for any fancy ukemi on your attackers part.

Judo fits Aikido's mission statement better.
I believe there is a strong similarity between the [stated] mission of Judo, and the [verbal] goals of aikido, as espoused by leading aikido people such as O'Sensei. We see this not only in writings, but also through the strong relationship between early judo and aikido. There are several paths to the mountain top and I think while aikido and judo are similar in their journey, there still remains enough to differentiate each as a unique martial art.

Second, I think that these similarities allow judo a unique perspective to comment on some aspects of aikido inconsistent with its philosophy. It is sometimes unpleasant to hear about fallibility in our martial art but that gives us the opportunity to address those issues. Other [Japanese] martial arts share components with aikido as well and each have perspective on those components.

I think aikido is a fighting art, compassionately administered. We should not shrink the principles of aikido to meet the dojo environment in which we train today. I recognize that we have modified our techniques and training to maximize safety, minimize injury, and expand the art. However, we need to also recognize the principles of aikido are larger than what we see in the dojo today. I Aikido has an image problem because we are constricting the message of aikido to how we train on the mat because we are unwilling to pursue the art on a greater level (or unknowledgeable about where to pursue more knowledge).
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