I may have the oppertunity coming up to check out a shudokan aikido place in my town. It's full time with lessons on every day save sunday. I'm from a bujinkan background mostly, and also train hung ga (and a bit of capoiera as and when I can for fun.) I hear the opinion that Bujinkan translates well into Aikido, so could this be recommended? Here's the club http://www.shudokanpreston.co.uk/
If your goal is enjoyment then turn up and try it out. If you enjoy it then it works well with you bujinkan
The coaches look good, the art is technical and includes sparring, the dojo is full time, go and check it out!
The first line on the page I read "What we offer at Shudokan Black Belt Academy". Perhaps I'm being overly harsh. But that rings the alarm bells right away. And it gets worse. They have junior black belts and testimonials. As a matter of principle I've never agreed with juniors being handed a black belt. While within Aikido it means you're ready to begin training properly and not "expert". "Expert" is the public perception and it certainly seems this club are playing on that misinformed perception. I suppose the web sites saving grace is the claim they teach Yoshinkan Aikido. Which has had many good things said about it. But why then are they not simply Yoshinkan Aikido? Are there politics at play here? Approach with caution would be my advice. Don't sign anything you don't have to sign. Sorry I'm just paranoid and a wee bit OCD.
Oh don't worry, you should see how it was when I was looking at a kung fu school recently, needed to know all the ins and outs before starting haha. I can relate to the paraonia bit, last thing I want is to be part of a belt mill. I will check it out on a trial, but decide after a bit if I want to continue
That's what put me off first going to the class I'm at now "Rick Youngs black belt Academy". Don't listen to him OP!
yeah, those not in the MA world have this idea that black belts are superhuman... or totally useless. Academy sound's proffessional and important
I try to never judge a dojo by their website. Many of the best places I've trained have terrible, or no, websites. Plus I've seen plenty of trusted friends, who I train with regularly and respect both their teaching and skill, have some eye-rolling, and groan worthy stuff on their webpages. Usually you see that at full-time schools as they are trying to make a profit to keep the doors open (vice a part-time school where most instructors teach for free, or still pay monthly dues and teach, and the head instructor has a job outside of the martial arts world). To the OP; My experiences with bujinkan is as a variety of martial arts, with a basic common foundation, fought with little depth. Taking an aikido class would be like picking one of those aspects of your Buj training and diving into it in more depth....I mean, if its a good aikido school. There are plenty of poor aikido schools, so you may not learn anything new at all...but hopefully it will have some value for you.
tried the club. Felt odd that the instructor wouldn't actually tell me, or his seniour students, what anyone was doing wrong. Also, was rude about my previous sensei, calling his teaching 'a load of rubbish' and that I 'couldn't be good fighter if I didn't train aikido'.... then asked me immediatly to pay 50 pound a month membership fees... wasn't impressed to be honest
Holy crap run away from that place. I wish he taught near me in the US, I'd definitely like to visit that place.
