Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote:
Nothing else will do it; not even claiming that Dan, Mike, Ushiro, Tohei, Rob, and others are rude for talking about something that some teachers don't seem to know, for some reason.
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For the record, it's not the being rude for talking about things that some teachers don't know that has annoyed me for the last year. It's the fact that
all aikido and
all aikido teachers are being lumped into the same group of people and painted as teachers of an ineffective art that is diluted/divorced from the teachings of its Founder. It is also the unbelievable grandstanding some people have been doing, I sometimes think that a lot of people involved in this should just do the decent thing and take out an ad for their dojo with Jun. At least he'll get some help running aikiweb that way and we are all using the bandwidth he provides free of charge for what, in some cases, is basically just grandiose self-advertisement (For the sake of avoiding potential unpleasantness note that I am not directing the previous statement to anyone in particular).
Internal skills are IMO the bedrock of aikido, I have always believed this, this is what I have been studying since I started aikido. It is what my teacher has been teaching on a full-time professional basis for 20 years. He isn't the only one either. There is plenty of good aikido out there, it has plenty of internal aspects if you look for it. But, you do need to know what you are looking for before you can find these things. Which is why the debate around here has been useful, all of this confusion could be condensed into a single thread entitled 'how to recognize internal skills when you see them' (You want to start it Mike or shall I? Anyone else?) Such a thread might eliminate the issues that allow these discussions to flourish in all their ugliness.
Regards
Mike