Welcome to AikiWeb Aikido Information
AikiWeb: The Source for Aikido Information
AikiWeb's principal purpose is to serve the Internet community as a repository and dissemination point for aikido information.

Sections
home
aikido articles
columns

Discussions
forums
aikiblogs

Databases
dojo search
seminars
image gallery
supplies
links directory

Reviews
book reviews
video reviews
dvd reviews
equip. reviews

News
submit
archive

Miscellaneous
newsletter
rss feeds
polls
about

Follow us on



Home > AikiWeb Aikido Forums
Go Back   AikiWeb Aikido Forums > General

Hello and thank you for visiting AikiWeb, the world's most active online Aikido community! This site is home to over 22,000 aikido practitioners from around the world and covers a wide range of aikido topics including techniques, philosophy, history, humor, beginner issues, the marketplace, and more.

If you wish to join in the discussions or use the other advanced features available, you will need to register first. Registration is absolutely free and takes only a few minutes to complete so sign up today!

Reply
 
Thread Tools
Old 05-13-2013, 08:57 PM   #1
Dave Gallagher
Dojo: Shobukan Dojo, St.Louis
Location: St.Louis
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 125
United_States
Offline
I agree with this (warrior, engineer, archaeologist)

I have come to admire David Valadez sensei of the Senshin Center in Santa Barbara. He recently posted the following on the Center's FB page. I have to say that I agree with him 100%.
He wrote:

"I'm using the classes as a description for the perspective taken in studying, learning, and practicing the art. In my experience, the "engineer" and the "warrior" look to study waza for different reasons and as a result come to learn and do different things. As a result of that, the art becomes as different as the artists themselves are different. Studying waza for the sake of idealizing postural force vectors, for example, as the "engineer" would, does not produce the exact same insights as studying waza for the sake of being able to return home safely at the end of watch or at the completion of a tour of duty, and this is true no matter how important postural force vectors are to the martial effectiveness of a given waza. The same holds true for those that are looking to emphasize the grace and beauty of the art, the "artists," or those that are looking to uncover the origins of dead forms, the "archeologists." Each of these dominant groups today may hold, albeit in their own way, that what they emphasize IS the doorway to martial effectiveness and/or the ultimate Truth of the art, but none of them have seen that they have remained stuck in that doorway -- that they have created a secondary emphasis now held as primary, that they are not in the inner sanctum but are only on the outside looking in. This is why, and of course for other larger cultural reasons, Aikido training sessions all over the world resemble more a science class, or an art class, or a history class, than any warrior tradition from the past or present. Today, at these training sessions, you are more likely to hear, "Your vector to the attacking angle is supposed to be complimentary," or "Relax, and feel the infinite nature of the circle being expressed," or "This is how Osensei taught my teacher to do the technique," than you are, "Get your f-ing face off the mat, dig deeper, and get your ass up NOW and do it again because someone else is already training harder to put you back down once and for all!" Thus, training sessions all over the world do not require strong bodies, or the self-discipline that goes with maintaining a 24/7 operational fitness that's built upon proper diet and conditioning. Training sessions to do not generate fear and instigate survival reactions via the presence of martial intensity, so nor do they cultivate the spiritual centeredness necessary to move beyond the lack of virtue contained in our habitual and reactive states of being. Training sessions do not utilize repeated and prolonged exposure to danger as a means of fettering the mind, so nor do they cultivate authentic forms of awareness and centeredness capable of surviving beyond ideal conditions. In the past, when the Hell Dojo opened its doors up to the engineers, artists, and archeologists of that day, they were all thought of as guests, and its clear from the photo documentation of that time that there was two schools in that dojo -- an inner, more real school, and an outer less authentic school. The former school was made up of warriors and they looked and thought and acted like warriors of any age and culture. The latter school, well, its members looked like and thought like and acted like the dominant practitioners of today. The guests have taken over the house, and today, the warrior is not only a stranger to the art, but he/she is an unwanted stranger.". I agree with this.

I began my training in Aikido with a teacher (Dave Lowry) who understood and taught an Aikido That worked in a real world self defence situation. Lowry's teaching was spot on as I had to use it to defend myself twice while working security at a housing complex in a very bad neighborhood.
I have known Dave Lowry for over 35 years and he has always had the warrior/samurai mind set.
Hell Dojo's are good for you.

It is the duty of the strong to protect the weak.
  Reply With Quote
Old 05-14-2013, 07:02 AM   #2
Dave Gallagher
Dojo: Shobukan Dojo, St.Louis
Location: St.Louis
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 125
United_States
Offline
Re: I agree with this.

I should have mentioned that the Shobukan Dojo was not exactly a "Hell Dojo" but practiced very effective Budo.

It is the duty of the strong to protect the weak.
  Reply With Quote
Old 05-14-2013, 08:36 AM   #3
Cliff Judge
Location: Kawasaki, Kanagawa
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 1,276
Japan
Offline
Re: I agree with this.

Intensity is good, actually it is the most important aspect of good training, but fear is a particular type of intensity that is only good in small doses at a certain level of advancement. Being brutal is not very practical either.

Though I am not sure the Kobukan was actually a brutal place. In fact I don't really have a good picture of why exactly it was known as "the Hell Dojo..." I think people assume that this is because people were getting horribly injured every day, dying, and everyone was making an earnest effort to kill and eat their training partners. But I recall one of the older shihans saying that there were rarely any injuries there.

It could just be that they wiped themselves out with warm ups and then took ukemi until they couldn't stand up again, and that it was very very difficult to make techniques work properly.
  Reply With Quote
Old 05-14-2013, 08:50 AM   #4
Demetrio Cereijo
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 2,248
Spain
Offline
Re: I agree with this.

Quote:
Cliff Judge wrote: View Post
It could just be that they wiped themselves out with warm ups and then took ukemi until they couldn't stand up again, and that it was very very difficult to make techniques work properly.
In this issue of Black Belt Magazine Mochizuki Minoru tells how training at the Kobukan was done.

See pp 34-35.
  Reply With Quote
Old 05-14-2013, 09:32 AM   #5
Chris Li
 
Chris Li's Avatar
Dojo: Aikido Sangenkai
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Join Date: Dec 2000
Posts: 3,313
United_States
Offline
Re: I agree with this.

There's probably an element of imitation here as well. Coincidentally, Kenkichi Sakakibara's dojo, where Sokaku Takeda trained, was also known as "hell dojo".

Best,

Chris

  Reply With Quote
Old 05-14-2013, 10:40 AM   #6
aiki-jujutsuka
 
aiki-jujutsuka's Avatar
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 192
Offline
Re: I agree with this.

I can identify with all those descriptions - warrior, engineer and archeologist. I want to learn a practical martial art that will enable me to protect myself, however, I don't have the desire to compete seriously in a combat sport. So while I like to think there is a warrior in me, I am not a warrior. I find satisfaction in trying to master the waza and perfect each technique as much as possible, after all they are martial arts, and I pursue budo because of its heritage and connection to the era of the Samurai. I find the history and lineage of modern Japanese budo fascinating. So I can say that my motivation for training in the martial arts is varied - I consider myself a martial artist not a fighter, but that doesn't mean I don't want to develop the necessary survival skills and instincts to defend myself in a violent confrontation. This is why I am inspired by the likes of Nishio Sensei, who sought to articulate and augment the martial integrity of Aikido. The same applies to Seagal. My current approach to training is to see the waza as vehicles through which to teach fundamental principles. The waza itself certainly contains martial application (obviously), but once the principles have been learned, they can be applied, henka style, to self-defence in a more "street" ready form.
  Reply With Quote
Old 05-14-2013, 10:40 AM   #7
jonreading
 
jonreading's Avatar
Dojo: Aikido South
Location: Johnson City, TN
Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 1,209
United_States
Offline
Re: I agree with this.

I once heard an anaology that training aikido is kinda like fishing. You go to the lake and as you look for your fishing spot, you find great spots unfishable, other fisherman in your holes, and eventually you pick a spot that you think may be good but you don't know until you stick your pole in the water. When we train, sometimes we have success and sometimes we don't. The success of our training depends on ourselves, our partners, our instructors and our environment.

It is a dojo's responsibility to raise the likelihood of successful training sessions. More students, more training times, different instructors, seminars and intensive sessions are all part of the things dojos do to maximize training potential for its students. I think it valid to question the definition of "successful" and concede that different dojos will identify different metrics for success.

As an observation, I would tend to agree that aikido dojos have moved away from a level of severity and intensity that would identify a level of competency aikin to an amateur or professional level. There are many reasons for this observation, of which I do not think it necessary to judge.

For whatever reason, I think we can draw success as a method of progress. For example, progessing a student from point A to B is a success, even if the quality of that progression is poor. For example, teaching a timid student to be more open is a kind of success even if the timid students is not "competent". I think where David was going was the observation that our metrics are slowly starting to standardize in a range that previously would have been considered "incompetent". The problem with this notion is that:
1. The metric of success is lowered.
2. The distribution of excellence marginalizes those truly excellence students to seek training elsewhere.

For me, I am trying to make sure every time I fish, it is in a spot worth fishing...

Jon Reading
  Reply With Quote
Old 05-14-2013, 01:12 PM   #8
Rob Watson
Location: CA
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 697
United_States
Offline
Re: I agree with this (warrior, engineer, archaeologist)

Hopefully ones head is no so large as to preclude the wearing of many hats.

"In my opinion, the time of spreading aikido to the world is finished; now we have to focus on quality." Yamada Yoshimitsu

Ultracrepidarianism ... don't.
  Reply With Quote
Old 05-14-2013, 01:21 PM   #9
phitruong
Dojo: Charlotte Aikikai Agatsu Dojo
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 1,944
United_States
Offline
Re: I agree with this (warrior, engineer, archaeologist)

Quote:
Robert M Watson Jr wrote: View Post
Hopefully ones head is no so large as to preclude the wearing of many hats.
if you are all three, wouldn't that make you the plumber?

"budo is putting on cold, wet, sweat stained gi with a smile and a snarl" - your truly
http://charlotteaikikai.org
  Reply With Quote
Old 05-15-2013, 08:47 AM   #10
Dave Gallagher
Dojo: Shobukan Dojo, St.Louis
Location: St.Louis
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 125
United_States
Offline
Re: I agree with this (warrior, engineer, archaeologist)

I should like to point out that I am not a, warrior, engineer or archaeologist and I have nothing against them. My original title in starting this thread was simply, "I agree with this". This title was edited by the Admin and I knew nothing about the change until I went onto this site later. Not a big deal but it makes it look like those three added words were the focus of my post and that was not my intention.

It is the duty of the strong to protect the weak.
  Reply With Quote

Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 04:16 AM.



vBulletin Copyright © 2000-2024 Jelsoft Enterprises Limited
----------
Copyright 1997-2024 AikiWeb and its Authors, All Rights Reserved.
----------
For questions and comments about this website:
Send E-mail
plainlaid-picaresque outchasing-protistan explicantia-altarage seaford-stellionate