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Old 12-30-2015, 08:39 AM   #19
Walter Martindale
Location: Edmonton, AB
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 802
Canada
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Re: Opinions on this please.

For a while, when I was training in Tokyo for judo, there was an elderly red/white belt would ask me to practice... Which meant he would do a bunch of tachiwaza, utter a loud kiai, and I would take ukemi. He did it with lots of us gai-jin. Could we have resisted? Oh, yes. Could we have thrown him? Oh, yes. Would I have stood a snowflake's chance in a volcano against him if he was, say, 40 years younger? I doubt it...

Would we have made it out of the dojo after beating up an old man in front of two or three university judo teams AND the Japanese national judo team? Probably not in one piece.

The "no touch" ukemi happening in the video attached to the article, with the ancient O-Sensei Ueshiba Morihei MAY just be a manifestation of respect shown to the old founder of the art when, following the demonstration by the founder, the people training would return to more realistic training... Would he have done "no contact" waza when he, himself, was 30 or so years younger? Not likely... Would people think it fake? not likely.
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