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Old 04-26-2011, 04:13 PM   #76
mathewjgano
 
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Re: Are we really doing O'Senseis Aikido?

Quote:
Matthew Gano wrote: View Post
Hi Dan,
Thanks for the reply. I probably shouldn't have even mentioned my experience. I was just interested in hearing specifically what it is about wrist grabbing that makes it ineffective, and thought it might relate. Considering my lack of ability I should have probably assumed it didn't and stuck with the question itself.
So it's just ineffective? No specific reasons why?
Take care,
Matt
Sorry, it just dawned on me I'm going off-topic. Dan, if you reply to this would you please PM me?
Take care,
Matt
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Old 04-26-2011, 05:18 PM   #77
Lee Salzman
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Re: Are we really doing O'Senseis Aikido?

Quote:
Matthew Gano wrote: View Post
Hi Dan,
Thanks for the reply. I probably shouldn't have even mentioned my experience. I was just interested in hearing specifically what it is about wrist grabbing that makes it ineffective, and thought it might relate. Considering my lack of ability I should have probably assumed it didn't and stuck with the question itself.
So it's just ineffective? No specific reasons why?
Take care,
Matt
If only were it that we stood on our hands and presented our feet to be grabbed instead, perhaps training with grabs would be more effective. It would get the arms to learn to transfer force from the ground to the spine and teach the legs, pelvis, and lower spine to be more mobile and extensive.
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Old 04-26-2011, 06:04 PM   #78
mathewjgano
 
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Re: Are we really doing O'Senseis Aikido?

Quote:
Lee Salzman wrote: View Post
If only were it that we stood on our hands and presented our feet to be grabbed instead, perhaps training with grabs would be more effective. It would get the arms to learn to transfer force from the ground to the spine and teach the legs, pelvis, and lower spine to be more mobile and extensive.
Careful! I'm goofy enough to try that!
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Old 04-26-2011, 07:15 PM   #79
Tony Wagstaffe
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Re: Are we really doing O'Senseis Aikido?

Quote:
Keith Larman wrote: View Post
FWIW, I'm doing the Aikido taught to me by my teachers as filtered through my own understanding and abilities. I come from a lineage that traces back to O-Sensei via Tohei via R. Kobayashi via my current instructors. But *my* aikido is now also informed by all those years of training, my own understandings, and also input from people like Goldsbury, Amdur, Ledyard, Harden, Threadgill, Sigman, and others found here and elsewhere.

None of us are doing O-sensei's aikido in one sense. In another sense we're all doing it. And everything in between.

Me, I focus on trying to be as honest to myself as possible about what I'm doing, why I do it, and what I'm hoping to learn. I am thankful to O-sensei for getting the ball rolling as well as he did as well as to his successors in various realms.

For me any further discussion is more or less like arguing about how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. I've played with guys who float, fluff and get all new-age mystical about the silliest of things (to my view). I've also played with guys from some groups who make Tony W look like a light and gentle fella -- brutal! Me, I'm following the path in front of me. Which was formed by the path I took to get here. Mine.
I am gentle with some but I'm not always like it, but at the same time we don't want to break each other do we? As is often quoted there are many ways up the mountain, either straight up or around and around a spiral until we hopefully reach the top? I would prefer the straight up version, as life is finite, but it much depends on the commitment of oneself and the student and who I have as training partners..... Very few want to find out..... oh yes it can be brutal, but that is part of the course? You tell me....
I have discovered a lot in solo training and then test my theories on willing partners, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't, back to the drawing board as they say, experiment, experiment, why not?
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Old 04-26-2011, 09:29 PM   #80
RonRagusa
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Re: Are we really doing O'Senseis Aikido?

Quote:
Attilio Anthony John Wagstaffe wrote: View Post
As is often quoted there are many ways up the mountain, either straight up or around and around a spiral until we hopefully reach the top?
Hi Tony -

What isn't stated is that the Aikido mountain we're all lumbering up along our unique paths has no top. Myself, I prefer the long and winding road, I'm lovin' the scenery and the journey. I'm in no hurry to see it end.

Best,

Ron

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Old 04-27-2011, 01:34 AM   #81
Lee Crockett
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Re: Are we really doing O'Senseis Aikido?

Attilio Anthony John Wagstaffe said:

A lot of reading and no experimenting to find out what really works is really the goal? Does it really matter who said what? What does matter is one practices against fully resisting ukes, it seems to me to be the only way to find out.... the moment of truth?
I dunno I've only been at it for the last 36 years and there seems to be less harmony in "Aikido" than ever before. I think the message is you have to do the hard before you can ever really achieve the soft, ying and yang and all that....?

I couldnt agree more.

If i cant do it on someone solid in the dojo, i dont fancy my chances in the street.
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Old 04-27-2011, 04:45 AM   #82
Hanna B
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Re: Are we really doing O'Senseis Aikido?

I am sure Saito sensei didn't lie. I am sure he said what he thought was the truth. There are many nuances to "truth", however.

"A said that B said x, therefore it is an established fact that B said x" is not really my kind of logics. You wouldn't find a court that excepted it as evidence. To many possibilites for misunderstandings and personal agendas playing a part, IMHO.
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Old 04-27-2011, 06:53 AM   #83
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Re: Are we really doing O'Senseis Aikido?

Quote:
Matthew Gano wrote: View Post
Hi Dan,
Thanks for the reply. I probably shouldn't have even mentioned my experience. I was just interested in hearing specifically what it is about wrist grabbing that makes it ineffective, and thought it might relate. Considering my lack of ability I should have probably assumed it didn't and stuck with the question itself.
So it's just ineffective? No specific reasons why?
Take care,
Matt
It's a limited contact point that's easy to work around, regardless of strength, using simple mechanics and it doesn't offer very much force potential or feedback. Ok for connection exercises, but not for building the skills needed to make and move that connection.
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Old 04-27-2011, 08:29 AM   #84
Shany
 
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Re: Are we really doing O'Senseis Aikido?

You make your Aikido in the image and likeness of Osensei's Aikido but never Osensei's Aikido. Aikido develops out of you and shapes according to your inner and outer expressions. It develops as the spirit gows wiser and sharper.

A good stance and posture reflects a proper state of mind
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Old 04-27-2011, 08:32 AM   #85
Carl Thompson
 
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Re: Are we really doing O'Senseis Aikido?

I have a question that has maybe only been touched upon in this thread: Is it necessary that aikido be taught in the exact same manner as the founder in order for it to be "Osensei's aikido?"

Perhaps the founder taught a particular way because he really was a "great teacher" in the pedagogical sense as well as for having created the subject to be taught? Osensei certainly observed plenty of his students teaching and he did not seem to require any of them to be possessed by the kami, spontaneously creating divine techniques in flashes of inspiration. That's not to say others couldn't have had any creative input into the birth of aikido, but it seems the founder was in a continuous process of creating and transmitting a vast system involving deep mind and body issues.

Osensei himself said "An instructor can only impart a portion of the teachings." Some instructors had more contact with him than others and some were more capable of digesting what he was doing and were therefore able to deal larger and more accurate portions for us to work from. If we view each of those portions as sketches of the founder (or copies of sketches as we move down the lineages) drawn from different angles with differing time limits and opportunities to observe, we can get a clearer overall picture, especially when these portraits agree with each other as well as with historic facts and other evidence.

Osensei's jo practice is a case in point: In order to teach it, various instructors came up with similar kata of varying detail depending upon their own opportunities to train with the jo with the founder.

Quote:
Christopher Li wrote: View Post
OTOH, I heard Saito say clearly that there were things that he had changed - don't just take my word for it, it's in some of the public interviews too.
I never got a chance to train with M. Saito Shihan, but for the reasons above I think he, as well as nidai Doshu, Tohei et al, necessarily had their own way of explaining the founder's techniques. In Saito Shihan's case in particular, he seemed to put a lot of effort into interpreting (for that is all I think anyone could do) as accurately as possible, acknowledging where he created whatever kata for whatever reason and for the most part, any additions seem to be precisely that: explanatory "additions" rather than fundamental changes.

Quote:
Lee Crockett wrote: View Post
This training, preserved today in Iwama, is hard strong Kotai training, for which M. Saito was told that all students were to train in this way until 3rd Dan before Jutai, Ekitai and Kitai training which focuses more on Kokyu Royku,
Just to clarify, are you saying kokyu-ryoku isn't part of kotai training? I think you must mean ki-no-nagare (flowing technique).

Quote:
Lee Crockett wrote: View Post
If i cant do it on someone solid in the dojo, i dont fancy my chances in the street.
This stresses the importance of training earnestly, but it doesn't mean one is making things work the way Osensei made them work. However, I'd agree with this yardstick just to qualify that what one is doing is at least some kind of budo.

Kind regards

Carl
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Old 04-27-2011, 11:12 AM   #86
Cliff Judge
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Re: Are we really doing O'Senseis Aikido?

Quote:
Jason Casteel wrote: View Post
It's a limited contact point that's easy to work around, regardless of strength, using simple mechanics and it doesn't offer very much force potential or feedback. Ok for connection exercises, but not for building the skills needed to make and move that connection.
This seems to jibe with what the Iwama guys have been talking about; focusing on simple mechanics for ten years before learning how to make a connection and move it is, in some people's opinions, and more hard and martial form of training.
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Old 04-27-2011, 01:52 PM   #87
abraxis
 
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Are we really doing O'Sensei's Aikido?

I began Aikido training with very little awareness of O'Sensei's Aikido. I began with the belief that I could learn a great deal from the Sensei I chose to train under. I quickly learned that my Sensei was always trying to pass on to his students the Aikido O'Sensei had taught to him. I also saw this attitude was shared by visiting Senseis. Each of O'Sensei's direct students made great efforts to demonstrate to us the Aikido O'Sensei had taught them. And this was invariably followed by "Now you do it". This early experience has taught me that if you want to practice O'Sensei's Aikido you should seek out his first generation students or, if that isn't possible, then O'Sensei's second generation Shihans. At least that is my understanding but I do not have a lot of experience or practice so I apologize for my incomplete understanding. I hope it will not reflect poorly on the Sensei's I have been privileged to observe and hear speak.
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Old 04-27-2011, 06:43 PM   #88
stan baker
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Re: Are we really doing O'Senseis Aikido?

O'Senseis Aikido is based on developing aiki in the body first then waza.He really did not teach anybody in that way.One needs to find someone who teaches aiki body building,if you want to understand O'Senseis Aikido.

stan
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Old 04-27-2011, 07:23 PM   #89
Tenyu
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Re: Are we really doing O'Senseis Aikido?

Quote:
Stan Baker wrote: View Post
O'Senseis Aikido is based on developing aiki in the body first then waza.He really did not teach anybody in that way.One needs to find someone who teaches aiki body building,if you want to understand O'Senseis Aikido.

stan
O Sensei's Aikido is based on developing a grounded harmonically non-resistant Internal relationship with uke. The phrase Aiki in the body, as a thing in itself, implies Aiki can ever be independent or separate from uke. It can't. I believe the phrase really refers to nage's integrity, balance, and connection with nage's own center. I'll specify all of nage here as I've witnessed the resistive, independent, or 'dead' limb issue affecting both nage and uke.
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Old 04-27-2011, 07:44 PM   #90
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Re: Are we really doing O'Senseis Aikido?

Quote:
Tenyu Hamaki wrote: View Post
O Sensei's Aikido is based on developing a grounded harmonically non-resistant Internal relationship with uke....[and] nage's integrity, balance, and connection with nage's own center.
I believe this can be seen in the videos of OSensei in his later years.
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Old 04-27-2011, 08:43 PM   #91
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Re: Are we really doing O'Senseis Aikido?

the main point is O'Sensei did not teach the solo training necessary to have his kind of internal power and aiki.

stan
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Old 04-27-2011, 08:55 PM   #92
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Re: Are we really doing O'Senseis Aikido?

You may be right but his students taught their students solo training and did so with reference to OSensei's practice. I know this discussion
has moved me to order

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/ima...283155&s=books
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Old 04-27-2011, 09:09 PM   #93
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Re: Are we really doing O'Senseis Aikido?

Ueshiba would get his ass kicked today. Different era and mindset...no cultural limitations and/or consequences.

Keep fooling yourselves,

Mickey
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Old 04-27-2011, 09:27 PM   #94
mathewjgano
 
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Re: Are we really doing O'Senseis Aikido?

Quote:
Michael Gelum wrote: View Post
Ueshiba would get his ass kicked today. Different era and mindset...no cultural limitations and/or consequences.
What are the differences in mindset that would cause O Sensei to get his ass kicked?
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Old 04-27-2011, 09:30 PM   #95
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Re: Are we really doing O'Senseis Aikido?

Quote:
Michael Gelum wrote: View Post
Ueshiba would get his ass kicked today. Different era and mindset...no cultural limitations and/or consequences.

Keep fooling yourselves,

Mickey
Given that he came from a relatively well-off family and showed business aptitude at an early age, I figure he'd probably be one of the guys smoking cigars in a box-seat with a trio of hot "escorts" watching the young idiots beat what little brains they have out of each other.
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Old 04-27-2011, 09:43 PM   #96
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Re: Are we really doing O'Senseis Aikido?

Quote:
Michael Gelum wrote: View Post
Ueshiba would get his ass kicked today. Different era and mindset...no cultural limitations and/or consequences.

Keep fooling yourselves,

Mickey
Takeda, Ueshiba, Sagawa, Mochizuki.....all prided themselves on MMA. Were they alive..they would be more current than most everyone. They would pursue modern combatives...and still have IP/ aiki.
I think it is a case of armchair athletes who so easily dismiss these men; what they did and what they accomplished.

I am not considering the nonsense ueshiba did in his later years.
Dan
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Old 04-27-2011, 11:31 PM   #97
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Re: Are we really doing O'Senseis Aikido?

Quote:
Michael Gelum wrote: View Post
Ueshiba would get his ass kicked today. Different era and mindset...no cultural limitations and/or consequences.

Keep fooling yourselves,

Mickey
Dear Mickey,
How do you arrive at your conclusions here?Did you ever train with him?I think not .If not how can you tell whether O sensei could handle himself or not?If the episode with Tenryu [a Sumo wrestler] is correct ie Osensei pinned Tenryu with one finger,i think your opinion[while I respect your views ]is flawed.
Hope you are well, Cheers, Joe
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Old 04-28-2011, 05:38 AM   #98
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Re: Are we really doing O'Senseis Aikido?

Quote:
Dan Harden wrote: View Post

I am not considering the nonsense ueshiba did in his later years.
Dan
Dan,

It'll be interesting to see how you feel when you're in your 70's. You may find sport fighting trivial and that Ueshiba's progression is more than enough for you to continue to explore aiki into old age. Wouldn't that be a lark?
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Old 04-28-2011, 06:29 AM   #99
DH
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Re: Are we really doing O'Senseis Aikido?

Quote:
Jason Casteel wrote: View Post
Dan,

It'll be interesting to see how you feel when you're in your 70's. You may find sport fighting trivial and that Ueshiba's progression is more than enough for you to continue to explore aiki into old age. Wouldn't that be a lark?
Not my meaning. I meant the stuff where he waved at them and they fell down. It stands to reason he retained some power in his old age. Takeda was in his 70's when he did that angry demo at the budokan. Sagawa did a limited freestyle exchange with two olympic judo guys. There are plenty of guys in the Chinese arts that can deliver power in their old age.
I have no interest in arm waving no touch stuff though, it discredits everything good.
Just say'n
Dan
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Old 04-28-2011, 06:37 AM   #100
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Re: Are we really doing O'Senseis Aikido?

I've heard more than one of OSensei's Shihans emphasize--Yes, Aikido is an Art but it is a Martial Art and when you train you must have this in mind. E.g. When you throw you should be aware that many techniques can be killing techniques if practiced in the style which OSensei originally taught them.

Of course many people prefer to emphasize Art and Harmony and do not practice the Martial aspects much at all. On the other hand, there are those who choose to practice physical confrontation to the point of trying to disable a partner who is emphasizing the Art and Harmony of Aikido.

Whether OSensei did not practice or teach a particular type of Aikido and whether or not any of us is practicing that today is really something that can best be debated by OSensei's first generation students. Even then, their individual opinions are likely to be colored by their own personal perceptions and the era in OSensei's life when they were taught by him--and whether or not they've had a lot to drink immediately before the question is put to them.

Last edited by abraxis : 04-28-2011 at 06:52 AM.
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