Quote:
Henry Ellis wrote:
Marc
He asked his students if they thought he should grade himself to 7th dan - done - another outstanding achievement.
I am so pleased to see that my old student has gone on to great things, and to achieve higher grade than I am...I am so proud 
Henry Ellis
Aikido Controversy
http://aikido-controversy.blogspot.com/ |
I'm not responding in order to contradict your efforts to keep history straight. I went through the material on your web site a while back, and my only comment is how pathetic does one have to be to to present fake aikido credentials.
However, there are real cases of people leaving teachers and surpassing them.
One of my main aikido teachers once trained under another sensei, and for reasons I have never asked him about he left that teacher and started his own club while moving on to a new primary teacher from outside the area. He is now a fully legitimate Aikikai seventh dan and shihan, and outranks his former teacher. It probably helped that the teacher he moved on to was a direct student of the founder.
I'm not sure the earlier teacher is exactly proud of his former student. Watching the two interact is a strange case of politeness and not quite perfectly hidden barbs.