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Old 06-07-2010, 04:11 AM   #1
Jon Marshall
Dojo: Bath Aikido Society
Location: Bath
Join Date: Nov 2009
Posts: 38
United Kingdom
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Ki Aikido - quote from Gleason Sensei

Hello everyone,

This is my first new thread. Gleason Sensei said in an interview.

Quote:
Unfortunately, aikido today has lost its origin, or in other words, it has lost aiki. Koichi Tohei tried to remedy this situation by creating the ki-society but, unfortunately that approach was unsuccessful. It seems that, in his own depth of understanding, he did not grasp the difficulty of others understanding as well.
Full interview here. It's also discussed in a thread on the Websites section of this site.

Having done ki aikido for 12 years before switching to "traditional" (inverted comma's because my current club's fairly informal and sometimes unconventional), I'm interested in the differences, and why Tohei's dream of a superior training methodology doesn't seem to have come to fruition. I say this because if Tohei's approach was as good as he'd hoped, then there would, by now, be a body of (ki aikido) aikidoka with clearly superior aikido. My limited experience is that I've come across good and bad aikido wherever I've gone. Also, that there isn't much crossover, so it's hard to judge.

Switching to traditional, I initially struggled with strong grips (still do sometimes). Likewise, I found others who could not cope with light, sensitive ("ki") attacks. I currently think that versatility/adaptability is an important virtue. I love ki aikido and might go back to it, but would be interested to know what others think about the whole ki aikido project. In particular, those who have trained in both ki aikido and traditional, and those with some experience in internal skills (Oh no, not another IS thread!)

Gleason Sensei also said...
Quote:
Aiki jutsu today seems to be in the same boat as aikido. Its essence has been hidden to the extent that it can no longer even be found. It is not ultimately profitable to pass down the real article because then people don't continue to pay you money forever.
I could be wrong, but I never got this impression about Tohei. If anything, I think he was more proud of his training methodology than his aikido. So why aren't the ki aikido aikidoka the cream of the crop? Or are they? And why don't they train outside of their style? Or do they? And is it time for the 2 approaches to come together again - healing old wounds? Perhaps this is already happening.

Look forwards to hearing from you,
Jon

Last edited by akiy : 06-07-2010 at 08:44 AM. Reason: Fixed quote tags
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