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Old 01-28-2012, 09:30 PM   #273
graham christian
Dojo: golden center aikido-highgate
Location: london
Join Date: Oct 2010
Posts: 2,697
England
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Re: "The goal is not to throw"

Quote:
Gary Welborn wrote: View Post
Graham
A couple of things.....the training I am talking about is the casual gathering of folks to learn, compare, check and confirm principles, waza and just plain what works and what doesn't......no set teacher and the purpose is not to learn another way. Purpose is to make sure your stuff works (most of the time) and if not how to fix that. This has to be a sharing among friends (not talking about best friends), among folks who respect each other. A week ago Saturday we celebrated the 33rd memorial workout for the found on the dojo I started in back in 1974. 8 of the old gray beards, me included, each took about 20 minutes on the mat to teach, tell stories or whatever....300 plus years of Aikido experience between us. What did I think about after it was over? After realizing that each of us had pieces of the puzzle, but not the whole....what I stated at the end of my session....what if the 8 of us had stuck around together for another 15 years after Ishisaka Sensei's passing and worked together informally to get better.....wow....but it never happened. From my point of view, past a certain point real progress comes only with such gathering of folks working together to get better....a study group. It is also a given that sometimes individuals and groups need a kick in the a@% to get past certain blocks.......most individuals and groups don't even see the need.

Being limited somewhat by age and time I can't get around to a lot of folks to see where they are like I would like to and like I did regionally 20 years ago. Of those I know of who are in a position to provide this kick while actually be friendly, helpful and almost casual in their approach....one is Dan and the other is my friend John Clodig. My point here being that all of us need to get hit by the proverbial 2 by 4 occasionally just to wake us up. Having been around Aikido as long as I have, having trained with as many individuals and teachers as I have, having watched as much video as I have, having sat of as many testing boards as I have.......it 'feels' to me that you could benefit from getting out more.

It may be that my wife and I may come to your part of the world in a few years as my family is from Wales and Scotland and her's is from Ireland..... I'll be in my 70's, but will stop by if we have the chance.....

Just go straight

Gary
Sounds good, both what you did a week ago and the thought of meeting you in the future.

Regards.G.
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