Thread: Strength vs Ki.
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Old 06-16-2011, 12:29 PM   #203
Tony Wagstaffe
Location: Winchester
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 1,211
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Re: Strength vs Ki.

Quote:
Dan Harden wrote: View Post
I simply cannot believe anyone is going on and on about Chiba as someone great. I mean, okay he's got pretty decent aikido, but one of the greats? Come one guys. He wouldn't list himself as great either.
And for the naysayers. Chiba, Ikeda, and Saotome know what I am doing. Each has noted the changes in certain students and has told them they needed to keep training this. One has noticed the change in so many people that he has asked to meet me.
Why any of this causes such a stir is amazing to me. If you don't like it fine. Have a nice life, but it is becoming a movement within the art, with more and more people realizing it ...is...Aikido.

You can't logically (not that logic has stopped anyone here) holler about "each being let alone to do what they want"...and then bitching when a whole bunch of teachers and students are excited to be switching over and doing something you're not. They were all where you are. They are not stupid, and yes...they know the difference. You can't explain away Ikeda's decades on the mats and tell him he doesn't get it. You cannot explain away Gleasons 45 yrs on the mats and tell him he is being conned. Who can tell Ledyard he can't tell the difference between what he was doing and what he has now felt? Now add other SHihan and a host of mid level teachers. How are you going to explain away their own teachers feeling the difference ...in them.
You can't. When you try, it just sounds like sour grapes.
Worse when the responses degenerate into a level equal to school yard name calling. This latest turn by a few people here, accusing those teaching Ip/aiki of immoral, and almost criminal, acts perpetrated on unsuspecting Aikido-ka -while oddly absurd- shouldn't be tolerated. The fact that it is, says something about the attitude of the community willing to accept it.
Hanna made a compelling point; that it is getting to be a bit much, that it seems its all we are hearing. Her and I have corresponded and I am divided on the issue myself. I don't like seeing people angry over it. But the exitement that many feel is also overwhelming to them. One Shihan said what I have heard echoed many times across the country and across the pond: "I feel I am finally catching on to my first love, what drew me to aikido in the first place. This is what I was hoping for in the art, why I went to Japan, and the art didn't deliver on its promise." For them it is a very profound experience they are going through and they are seeing how it can power their aikido. They are greatly enjoying that.
As one person said,
"Why does it have to be such a big deal?"
"Because it IS a big deal!"

So during this time, it is difficult for it not to be a topic of conversation since it is so very fundamental to the art itself.
Dan
I have a question for Dan as he is so convinced of his own "ability"
How do you rate in your I/P terms people such as Shioda, Tomiki, Shirata, Chiba, Shimizu and a host of Ueshiba's deshi? As they all practised judo or aikido at some point in their lives. I am very interested in your comments as I'm sure everyone else will be to......
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