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Old 01-18-2012, 10:15 AM   #35
Brion Toss
Dojo: Aikido Port Townsend
Location: Port Townsend, Wa.
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 104
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Re: What Distinguishes Aikido from Daito Ryu?

Quote:
Chris Hein wrote: View Post
After studying other forms of Jujutsu and chin na, I started adding lot's of things to my Aikido. Things that I thought perhaps the founder overlooked. Then when I started seriously looking at Daito Ryu waza I realized that most of the techniques I was adding were in Daito Ryu. That made me ask the same question, why did he "prune back" the techniques. It was only after doing very heavy randori with multiple attackers that I found what I believe to be a reasonable answer- most of the techniques removed were not ideal for dealing with multiple attackers.
This sounds like a correlation/cause error. If you saw a car that had two tires with no tread on them, and the other two of a different side, idling really roughly, you might conclude that the owner was poor, or not good at maintenance. But a little further information might reveal that the car was in fact optimized for drag racing.
Similarly, it seems unlikely that Aikido's evolution was shaped by a consideration for multiple attackers, even if the forms adapt well to that situation. A simpler, more encompassing explanation might be that aiki was stressed, making for, among other things, cleaner, quicker entries, and compassion was stressed, making for, among other things, less time spent with uke.

Regards,

Brion Toss
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