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Old 07-07-2006, 12:13 AM   #91
CNYMike
Dojo: Aikido of Central New York
Location: Cortland, NY
Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 1,005
United_States
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Re: Brawling with a friend

Quote:
Don Magee wrote:
..... You have simply told me not to question a master. You have talked about culture and how this stops us from being able to even explore the possibility of using a different training method. I have argued that the training method and the culture are not related and that in my opinion the culture is detrimental to the learning process if it is slowing down advancements in teaching practices ......
If you want to hugely oversimplify it, yes, although I never said specifically that culture does not allow us to "explore new training methods." I have made two points:

1. A martial art is intertwined with the culture it originated from. You can not separate the two, even if it's only restricting yourself to using English terminology, without losing part of it. It's not just about the techniques.

2. A martial artist should not go against the wishes of his seniors and instructors. Like it or not, resepect is a big part of the arts that are handed down to us; being disrespectful, such as pursuing training methods you have been told not to do, is a very big no-no.

So whether the I-method helps or hinders learning Aikido has nothing to do with the points I've raised, because learning the techniques is only part of what you are doing. You don't agree with that; that's fine. But that is not me talking or even something I got from an Aikido instructor. It's really the thinking of my Kali instructor. But that, in turn, comes from the way the arts are. He's said one of his goals is to preserve the systems he teaches by teaching them to other people. There are things in Kali that are not super destructive, not even relevant in today's society, but they are part of the art so he teaches them.

That is my counterargument. Don't want to agree with it? Fine. That's ok. But that is where I am coming from.

Quote:
.... I am not content to do things the way they are done. I want to know why they are done that way ....
See above.
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