grandmaster Nobuo Maekawa

Gerardo Torres wrote: "Blame the teacher"? You're introducing a false dilemma here. Many of the problems some people see with modern aikido stem right from when Ueshiba was alive (he saw it and proclaimed it himself), so he'd be the one to blame if that were the goal (but what's the point of doing that now?). Some problems in aikido are endemic. The current revisionist efforts have little or nothing to do with blaming a person or group, or quitting. It's about improving and correcting the current body of knowledge so the next generation of aikidoka grows stronger, not weaker. The whole "bad student" guilt trip, "it's all there", "we already do that", etc., might be an effective strategy to preserve a cult, but given enough time it's an approach that would kill any form of Budo as each generation of "good students (blind followers)" grows weaker than the last. Even some koryu bujutsu need to continuously go back and review the source material to make sure nothing gets lost or watered down, and is not uncommon to help grow stronger practitioners through adaptation (new methods). That would imply you know about things like 6-directions, elbow power, etc. The record shows that you don't have enough understanding of those things. Therefore you can't make a value judgement on the educated ones who understand and train those things and can link them to Ueshiba's aikido. What if I wanted something in addition to what my teacher does? Can I stay and enrich my home dojo experience with training done outside? Does that make me a "bad student"? Then every single art founder and exceptional exponent was a "bad student" according to you. Logical fallacy. Logical fallacy. Logical fallacy. You keep making the same false claims (sprinkled with the usual condescending "lecturing" tone): that people are not trying hard enough ("bad students"), that they are leaving their arts, etc., based on nothing but speculation since you lack exposure to these practitioners and the material they are studying, as well as ignore direct statements to the contrary. Furthermore, you're unwilling and/or unable to discuss the possibility that the current aikido body of knowledge (all of it, all styles) is due for a revision to bring it back to its roots. I see the written and physical evidence, that's fine by me. It has nothing to do with being uchideshi or sotodeshi. Perhaps lecture less, study more is in order?

No offense dude, but you are gonna waste your time here. I predict that he is gonna read your comments, completely overlook what you're saying, maybe saya few things that will twist your words so that he can go on about his "harmony" and "you need to learn what Ueshiba said". Just a warning.

Gerardo Torres wrote: "Blame the teacher"? You're introducing a false dilemma here. Many of the problems some people see with modern aikido stem right from when Ueshiba was alive (he saw it and proclaimed it himself), so he'd be the one to blame if that were the goal (but what's the point of doing that now?). Some problems in aikido are endemic. The current revisionist efforts have little or nothing to do with blaming a person or group, or quitting. It's about improving and correcting the current body of knowledge so the next generation of aikidoka grows stronger, not weaker. The whole "bad student" guilt trip, "it's all there", "we already do that", etc., might be an effective strategy to preserve a cult, but given enough time it's an approach that would kill any form of Budo as each generation of "good students (blind followers)" grows weaker than the last. Even some koryu bujutsu need to continuously go back and review the source material to make sure nothing gets lost or watered down, and is not uncommon to help grow stronger practitioners through adaptation (new methods). That would imply you know about things like 6-directions, elbow power, etc. The record shows that you don't have enough understanding of those things. Therefore you can't make a value judgement on the educated ones who understand and train those things and can link them to Ueshiba's aikido. What if I wanted something in addition to what my teacher does? Can I stay and enrich my home dojo experience with training done outside? Does that make me a "bad student"? Then every single art founder and exceptional exponent was a "bad student" according to you. Logical fallacy. Logical fallacy. Logical fallacy. You keep making the same false claims (sprinkled with the usual condescending "lecturing" tone): that people are not trying hard enough ("bad students"), that they are leaving their arts, etc., based on nothing but speculation since you lack exposure to these practitioners and the material they are studying, as well as ignore direct statements to the contrary. Furthermore, you're unwilling and/or unable to discuss the possibility that the current aikido body of knowledge (all of it, all styles) is due for a revision to bring it back to its roots. I see the written and physical evidence, that's fine by me. It has nothing to do with being uchideshi or sotodeshi. Perhaps lecture less, study more is in order?

Alas Gerardo.
Such misunderstanding of what I said. A bad student is someone not trying hard enough? That's not my definition, must be yours. You can have your view on things that's fine by me but as usual trying to say things about me is the mark of a person who has nothing of use to say and what is said is usually backwards.

Let's take eight directions shall we? I introduced the term into the thread. Others questioned what I meant. I gave some outline. They didn't understand, they didn't know about it. Thus they conclude I must mean x, y and z. No, it means they don't understand and don't want to. They hadn't learned that aspect of Aikido and by the sound of it nor have you. Or am I wrong?

My experience and judgement never fails me in practice so comparing that to your opinion, well, say no more.

Your question of what if you want something in addition to what your teacher teaches is hardly an example against what I said it just shows your misunderstanding once again. I said if the teacher doesn't teach what your looking for you are stupid staying there looking for it. Also in your example you are not blaming that teacher are you? Your merely looking for something in addition.

How does any of that equal an art founder?

I keep making claims people aren't trying hard enough? What a crazy thing to say. I claim they are leaving their arts? Another crazy thing to say. I do recall certain people making those kinds of statements but never me my friend.

I'll end as I started. Alas.

Regards.G.

Deleted

Graham, I've been reading Aikiweb for 10 years and you're easily the most intellectually dishonest poster I've encountered. You are insulting my intelligence (and that of others) so there's no point to any conversation with you.

Gerardo Torres wrote: Graham, I've been reading Aikiweb for 10 years and you're easily the most intellectually dishonest poster I've encountered. You are insulting my intelligence (and that of others) so there's no point to any conversation with you.

Intellectually dishonest. That sounds good. As I've said before I'm not an intellectual. I'm just one of those dumb ones who can do what they say.

Enjoy your intellect.

I insult no one. I know nothing about you thus I state nothing about you or insult you. I address views not people. Maybe that's not intellectual, if so then I'm glad it isn't.

I can just imagine an army of intellectuals on the battle field. A scary thought. ha, ha.

Regards.G.

Dan Harden wrote: Deleted

Hi Dan. Just saw you wrote and deleted. I assume it was following my post. Feel free to comment, i'm not offended. In fact I look forward to the day we agree on something.

If it wasn't to do with it then I still look forward to that day.

Regards.G.

Robin Boyd wrote: It's true that it's uke's responsibility to protect themselves, but I think it's also sensei's responsibility to give uke the tools to protect themselves.

I agree... In my work, I tell people it's their responsibility to steer the boat and keep safe, and it's my responsibility to make sure they know how...

On the mats (not at work) it's my responsibility to look after myself, it's also my partner's responsibility to look after him/herself, and it's each of our responsibility to quickly become aware of the partner's limitations so we don't harm them during training.

It's the sensei's responsibility to guide our development of those skills.

Cheers,
Walter

Graham Christian wrote: Hi Dan. Just saw you wrote and deleted. I assume it was following my post. Feel free to comment, i'm not offended. In fact I look forward to the day we agree on something. If it wasn't to do with it then I still look forward to that day. Regards.G.

I don't care if you are offended or not. You're not worth talking to.
Leave me alone.
Dan

Graham Christian wrote: Let's take eight directions shall we? I introduced the term into the thread. Others questioned what I meant. I gave some outline. They didn't understand, they didn't know about it. Thus they conclude I must mean x, y and z.

As I recall from the post "Moving with your center" plenty of people understood what you meant by eight directions.

If you want an example of being dishonest in your posting you could examine your suggestion that you were presenting information that confounded everyone when, in fact, it's easily verifiable that such confusion was not actually manifested in reality in the manner you suggest.

It could be considered quite insulting to suggest people do not understand a concept when it's clearly not the case.

A better approach might be to discuss the topic at hand rather than people's (apparent) inability to comprehend.

Just popped in to say hello and couldn't resist sticking my oar in (smiley face makes everything ok...)

Rich Hobbs wrote: As I recall from the post "Moving with your center" plenty of people understood what you meant by eight directions. If you want an example of being dishonest in your posting you could examine your suggestion that you were presenting information that confounded everyone when, in fact, it's easily verifiable that such confusion was not actually manifested in reality in the manner you suggest. It could be considered quite insulting to suggest people do not understand a concept when it's clearly not the case. A better approach might be to discuss the topic at hand rather than people's (apparent) inability to comprehend. Just popped in to say hello and couldn't resist sticking my oar in (smiley face makes everything ok...)

Ha, ha. Nice try Rich. Obviously i'm not talking about anyone who did understand am I. Those who dismissed it, contradicted it, changed it to six directions etc and lack of spherical dimention obviously didn't understand.

Regards.G.

Maybe a person who is consistently misunderstood by so many has a basic communication problem...just a suggestion....

Janet Rosen wrote: Maybe a person who is consistently misunderstood by so many has a basic communication problem...just a suggestion....

Maybe so. I doubt it though. They just can't accept certain opinions of mine. Even worse that I may know more than them on certain points. Heaven forbid.

Maybe a person or group of persons who continuously attack lack a certain something.

But he who attacks has already lost.

This is a place for giving views is it not? You can challenge a view, share a view, contest a view, many things.

Or you can attack the person with the view or twist what they are saying. Mmm not too bright.

Still, I can still communicate to those people and remain calm or humorous for the most part but sorry I can't do their thinking for them.

Regards G.

Graham Christian wrote: My experience and judgement never fails me in practice...

Hugh Beyer wrote:

Your point is?

Hi Everybody,

my name's Daniel Kati. I regularly train under Maekawa Nobuo sensei, so you can call me a tree-hugger fantasy cultist

I first met sensei in 2007, on his first seminar in Hungary. We didn't know much about him. At that time we mostly practiced big circle aikido, so we were really surprised how he was able to throw everybody easily with small, yet dinamic movements. We were not his students, still it worked on all of us.
He made a very deep impression on us, not only for his technical, but also for his personal qualities. He was very humble and straightforward, and he was teaching in a clear, understandable way. A few of us decided to train using his method, and started to regularly inviting him. This continues till today, sensei just left Hungary two weeks ago.

When those videos were placed on Youtube, we were very surprised, as we never experienced something like this with sensei. He did strange things using his small, soft, almost unpercieveable movements, but we never remained immobile after he stopped to work on us.

Please let me share my thoughts on the videos based on what I've learned from Maekawa sensei during the last 5 years:

1, Maekawa sensei has a small association in Brasil. As you can see on the clips, the record was taken in a large training hall, on a huge open seminar with more then 100 attendees from different aikido organizations. The people on the video who are becoming statues are not his students. Some of them are Yoshinkan, some of them from other organizations. So you cannot say that those are his followers trained to freeze.

2, A lot of people here mentioned in their posts that those people got frozen only because they believe they got frozen, that this is only like an illusion they believe in. I think they are perfectly right. Sensei very often emphasized, that it is important to "take partner's mind", and how to move the body in a way that is not percievable by the partner. However, this is like hypnosis. Some people are not really sensitive to that, while some people are very-very easy to be hypnotized.

Are those people over-sensitive? Yes. Did sensei trained them to be like that? No. Did they want to become like statues? Who knows?

Actually, he never tought ukemi or how we should react to any technique. He never blamed the uke if the connection was occasionly lost after the attack. Instead, he always emphasised that it's tori's task to keep the contact, not uke's.

It was also mentioned, that most soft-style instructors are going back to hard waza when they face a challenge. I also tried to withstand and test sensei's technique during the second time he was in Hungary. I failed. However, let's say this doesn't count, as I'm a tree-hugger fantasy cultist. Let me recount two occasions I witnessed.
Once sensei asked for an ushiro attack during a seminar demonstration. He usually works from ushiro ryotedori, so this is most probably what he expected. Instead of that, the uke got him in ushiro hagaijime (bearhug from behind), and lifted him up in the air. Sensei immediately made a small body movement which brought the uke to the floor.
Another time he was grabbed hard by a very strong outsider, who was very sceptic. It was hanmi handachi, and the attack was ryotedori. I saw that sensei didn't do the technique he was demonstrating, but he did a different one instead. But he didn't try the original technique at all.
During the years, I never saw him bringing somebody down using pain or a hit in the face. He always used aiki, let it be stiff people with hard attacks, girls with extremely soft attacks, people who didn't do any martial arts before, less trained people, well trained people. It is true, that sometimes he used bigger, more visible movements and sometimes smaller, quicker, almost unpercievable ones. But he prefers smaller movements on stronger, trained people who attack quickly.

What amazes me is that he is always able to percieve what is the perfect, working technique for an attack. I've never seen him trying something on somebody that doesn't have any effect.

I really admire sensei and feel lucky to be able to train with him. If you have any further questions on him, please feel free to ask.

Daniel Kati wrote: Hi Everybody, my name's Daniel Kati. I regularly train under Maekawa Nobuo sensei I first met sensei in 2007, on his first seminar in Hungary. .

Hi,
can you explain us what you learned on a the technical side in those 5 yrs.
Just curious,
Eddy

Not that my opinion matters, but I'd be happy to attend his seminars given a chance. He is not alone doing this, and since I don't think these people have ever met...

What I'd like to see is 5-10 years down the road, the people laughing at these teachers today, change their view of their own volition. it's happened before.

But by all means, expose them as charlatans if you can.

Ahmad Abas wrote: Not that my opinion matters, but I'd be happy to attend his seminars given a chance. He is not alone doing this, and since I don't think these people have ever met... What I'd like to see is 5-10 years down the road, the people laughing at these teachers today, change their view of their own volition. it's happened before. But by all means, expose them as charlatans if you can.

Dear Ahmad,

I see your sensei, Imanul Hakim has a similar style:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffaDom0NQ74

I personally like the movements of your sensei, it's very fluid, soft, he keeps a good position

and has a good control of the uke. I'm almost sure that he learned Daito ryu as well.

Maekawa sensei is making seminars in Korea, and sometimes in Okinawa as well. Those are the

nearest places to Malaysia where you are able to meet him. You need to search for Meikakukai if you are looking for contact information.

Eddy Wolput wrote: Hi, can you explain us what you learned on a the technical side in those 5 yrs. Just curious, Eddy

There are a lot of things I don't yet understand from his teachings. I will try to explain what I think, but it my understanding may be incorrect. However, I will do my best. Basically, the training style may be very much like that of Okamoto Seigo. Most techniques are done in seiza, and the two basic principles behind all techniques are aiki age and aiki sage. You can find plenty of clips about those two principles and their training methods on Youtube.
The first important goal of the training is to build an "aiki body", a solid, yet soft body structure which is able to accept incoming energy and return it into the attacker using a circular motion. We start to practice both people sitting in seiza, practicing ryotedori aiki age and ryotedori aiki sage. Then we switch to hanmi handachi, doing various unbalancing excercises using circular motions, then we do the same in standing position, without steps. Then we start to make techinques with steps, sometimes adding jujutsu elements. At this stage the techniques are like those you know from aikido, with principles added you learnt in the previous stages. It's like growing up as a child. First you learn to sit, then you learn to stand, and only after that you learn to walk. It's a very natural process, and I think it's also very effective.
During training it is always emphasized to move in a way that is difficult to percieve by the attacker. We should try to avoid to move the point of contact at the first stage of the technique, but move our bodies behind our around the contact point. The more basic movements consist of bigger movements, and while you progress those become smaller and smaller and quicker and quicker. There are also teachings regarding breathing. At a very high level those circular movements become so small that they are almost point-like, and not really possible to see, but still have the same effect.
There is also a play with the timing, depending in which phase of the attack the contact is made.
Performed on a high level, it may look like magic or fake, but those are actually very consciously and accurately performed movements with very good timing. Because it is very difficult to the uke to percieve what is actually done to him, the results can sometimes be very extreme, as if you don't know what's done on you, you cannot take proper ukemi or continue attacking.

You can see a sample of the techniques he teaches on our homepage:
http://www.aikido-meikakukai.hu/media/videos.php

Daniel Kati wrote: Dear Ahmad, I see your sensei, Imanul Hakim has a similar style: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffaDom0NQ74

Just wondering - is imanul Hakim a student of Yoshinobu Takeda?

Alex

Alex Megann wrote: Just wondering - is imanul Hakim a student of Yoshinobu Takeda? Alex

Alex, Takeda Sensei is one of my sensei's teacher yes.

Daniel, gee that's the first time someone actually googled my Sensei off me. Well Japan is not really a hop skip away from my place but I'll be there this September, although I don't think I'll get the chance to attend his seminar in Okinawa then. That's fine really, maybe I'll meet a senior student of his by chance instead...