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Old 03-23-2001, 02:49 PM   #16
PeterR
 
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Dojo: Shodokan Honbu (Osaka)
Location: Himeji, Japan
Join Date: Mar 2001
Posts: 3,319
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I agree that a situation can not be truely abusive if the student has the choice to leave or stay. However, there are people out there that are abusers by nature and others that are victim by nature and more often then not they find each other.

That said there is a whole gauntlet of what people are after in their training and what they are able to take. I do think it is the teachers job to find that out and adjust the training to that student within the boundries defined by that teacher.

For example in my particular dojo my best students are pushed as hard as I am willing to take myself yet others I am much more gentle with although these too are pushed. Personally speaking if my low limit is too high for some I don't want them.

At Shodokan Honbu there was also this striation. There were some that were put through an intensity of training that I could not take or would and others that trained at an intensity level far below mine.

If you view Aikido as a Budo, and Shodokan definately views itself as that, a toughening up of the body and spirit becomes an inherint part of the training. One should be allowed to be all you can be (hey we get US Army advertisements in Canada also).

Those that train at this level - if they ever had the victim mentallity - are long past it.


Peter Rehse Shodokan Aikido
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