I can only repeat that NONE of the martial arts shihan I came into contact with from the sixties onwards have ever shown any negative or apologetic attitudes regarding their martial arts training that could be related to the war. I can understand the Japanese people having a distaste for war, as any sensible nation would. I still cannot see it as a reason for the watering down of the martial elements in aikido. It is certainly not apparent in the other martial arts. I must agree with the thought that it is the commercialisation of the art that is to blame. Martial arts are tending to be commodities rather than ways of life.I do know of a dojo that on joining tha aiki kai, had their grades "recognised" for a fee. regards koyo rwgards koyo
So in what way is WWII to blame for the commercialization of Japanese martial arts? Japan was opened up to commercial influences and pressures long before WWII. Japan had already started on the journey of adopting a western life style long before WWII. koyo grades to me no longer have any meaning. They are almost universally without exception a tool for leveraging additional revenue from students. They essentially have nothing to do with acquired knowledge, understanding or technical ability.
aiki wolfie In todays world of 15th dans and people founding their own styles plus competition between associations grades are used to promote groups. Some teachers are promoting themselves and forming committees who then promote higher than their own grades.........All nonsense. Grades have been so corrupted as to have no meaning now. How can we compare the 9th dan that Saito Shihan achieved after a lifetime's study to some self graded 15th dan.? Again the causes are ego and money. The standard of aikido in my opinion also suffers from this. Many take a "spiritually superior attitude"and condemn the martial aspects to the detriment of the art. Making the art effective takes sincere and dedicated study demanding effort both physically and mentally.How much easier it is to claim it is a spiritual art and never have to prove it by anything other than words. Now we have "masters" teaching on youtube and promoting seventeen year olds to teacher level and encouraging them to "spread the word." regards koyo Polar Bear Pirate Brido and a few others from MAP have visited the Makotokai. They have been surprised by the welcome offered them as in polar bears words "They have been encouraged not to return" at other dojos.
The video in question can be found here: http://members.iinet.net.au/~derham/AikidoWA/downloads/Aikido_WA_(10MB).avi To be fair, he did say "In some senses, [Aikido] is no longer a martial art" (I listened to it again to be sure). However, I believe that Aikido should always remain a Martial Art.
Firstly, the question wasn’t about commercialisation per sè, I think you raised or associated that particular issue in your last post to this discussion. What was being discussed is the issue of watering down or non-martially effective study of aikido. - Is aikido a martial art. The nidai doshu confirmed his farther was never a pacifist and, if you look carefully at the texts and pictures contained within Ueshiba Morihei’s book “Budo” written in 1938, you’ll see many instances where he’s attacking whilst applying aikido. As Dr. Goldsbury has already stated, the nidai doshu changed aikido considerably which is why IMHO you’ll see marked differences in Aikikai methodology and that studied by Iwama stylists (not that I’m suggesting one is better than another) … merely pointing out there are obvious differences which support that Ueshiba K. Sensei altered the aikido studied in Shinjuku. However; Japan was prior to the end of the Second World War a very imperialistic and war like nation, believing their emperor to be a living god and the might of the Japanese as a nation. Surrender and defeat just wasn't a considered option. Even after the Meji Restoration and the abolition of the samurai class structure and rights to carry swords, Japan retained its previous essence. "Martial arts" are embodied into the very culture of Japanese society even today however, that embodiment still carries associations with an imperialistic and warring past including the nature and distaste for the atrocities committed during the last world war. I'm sure many, including the younger generations of Japanese wish to disassociate themselves from those past events but, this has little if anything to do with the commercialisation of martial arts and more to do with their present identity whilst studying budo. Commercialisation comes at the hands of people who wish to earn a living from teaching their chosen art(s) but do so by perhaps lowering the standards of the study to ensure the commercial success of their business.
Do we consider, iaido or kyudo as examples, as martial arts today ? I ask because neither system has any real fighting applicability in a modern sense, both have direct koryu origins yet neither will be used again in any combative form. Is Sumo a martial art ? Of course but like the others, is now one (or several steps depending upon your POV) way from being used within its original concept. Is Kendo a martial art ? Again most definitely yes but the discipline only bears a feint resemblance to its koryu sources. So... Is aikido a martial art ? Yes but what matters as with all martial systems; is what lays within the heart and mind of the student. The problem isn't so much the art, but us as people. Why are we so concerned with what others are doing and how they do it ? What we should be FAR MORE CONCERNED WITH is why we study and what we achieve personally from it. Food for thought I think.
Koyo, Koyo, Koyo, You had to start a good discussion while I was on the other side of the country, without internet access no less, tut, tut, tut. I have in front of me a copy of Blitz: Australasian Martial Arts Magazine, volume 20, issue 8. In this is an interview with Sugano (him BTW), Doshu and Yamada. The interviewer, Mike Clarke, ask Sugano Sugano's response; I think it is clear that there are those in the Aikikai who don't view Aikido as a martial art. Hence they do not focus on things like martial efficiency and practicality. Just my opinion, but I like to think the evidence supports it. Regards,
This from Saito Shihan (through stan pranin interprating for us) Our knees used to be bleeding from the suwari waza during training.I have not changes or added anything to what O Sensei taught me," (Saito shihan's aikido was VERY effective in every manner) This from Chiba shihan personally "When training in Iwama under O SEnsei I would have nightmares and think I was about to die.True martial artists shall always be in the minority" This from Tamura shihan personally "The training was so severe that we would almost faint. When O Sensei got angry he would become like a dragon. The look in his eyes was frightening." I am uncomfortable with the thought that people may approach aikido for many different reasons and therby change the art to their wishes. It comes back to my belief that you should not change the art you should hope that the art changes you. Viewing that clip again I saw nothing of practical value in the training.It looked more like ki aikido to me. regards koyo Food for thought. Why practice a martial art which has no martial content. Why change a martial art so that it has no martial content rather than study something else.
The only way to spiritual enlightenment (character development) is through hard sincere training. Without this your spirit has never been tested. Saito shihan said that O Sensei (and Saito Shihan himself) frownd upon ki no nagari flowing techniques performed by anyone under third dan. That clip shows only ki no nagari against urealistic attacks. regards koyo I have no problem if someone states that their form of aikido is not a martial art. But saying that aikido (one presumes that this means all aikido) is not a martial art is simply untrue and a reflection of their approach.
If this is true, and I don't doubt it is, I don't understand how people can dance around, claiming they are flowing with an "attack" doing aikido. It's sad really.
It is true. Saito Shihan said it to me personally. That plus the secrets of aikido are triangular not circular, He also stated that real fighting principles can be found in the weapons training. This was in answer to questions that were put through Stan Pranin. regards koyo Photo taken at the seminar
I think some care is needed in this discussion. It was phrases like 'head' or 'representative of the Aikikai in Australia' and 'claiming to speak for the Aikikai' that caught my attention. My name appears on the Aikikai website (in the Japanese section), yet I would never claim to speak for the Aikikai, nor am I a representative of the Aikikai. There are no heads of the Aikikai outside Japan nor is anyone, shihan included, a representative of the Aikikai. The Aikikai is an organization, a descendant of the Kobukai, created by O Sensei in 1940. In some respects it is similar to the Kobukai, in that many senior members in that organization practised aikibudo in many different ways. Ogmios, who trains at the Yoseikan, will surely know why, even in the Kobukan years, Mochizuki Sensei was critical of the training there and this was in O Sensei's time. Like Koyo, I trained under a wide variety of teachers, all of whom were affiliated to the Aikikai, including Shirata, Saito, Arikawa, Yamaguchi, Tada, Fujita, Yamada, Chiba, Kanai and Sekiya. I have never trained under Sugano Shihan, but meet him occasionally in Holland, where he is shihan of the aikido section of the Dutch Judo Federation. Since living in Japan, I trained more frequently with Yamaguchi and Arikawa when they were alive and now under Tada Sensei. My own teacher in Hiroshima is a very obscure 8th dan named Masakazu Kitahira, whose son, Takao Kitahira, is an MMA / K1 fighter in Australia. I first met Takao when he was a baby and I know that father and son have discussed issues of training at great length. I state all this to stress the huge variety that comes under the Aikikai umbrella and, it has to be admitted, this variety also includes practice of very dubious martial value. The All-Japan Demonstration, an Aikikai event held every year in May at the Nippon Budokan, is evidence of this and some shihans, my own teacher included, refuse to participate. Saito Sensei used to do, but usually gave a demonstration of kihon waza or jo / ken. I stated earlier that World War II and Japan's defeat played a large part in why aikido is as it is today. The issues are complex and cannot be put down simply to commercialization etc. Commercialization was a problem in martial arts long before Ueshiba's time: "There are no doubt people who think that even to be practising martial arts will not prove useful when a real need arises. As far as that is concerned, the true way of martial arts is practise them in such a way that they will be useful at any time and to teach them in such a way that they will be useful in al things." In this connection, Musashi (i.e., Miyamoto Musashi) laments the commercialization of martial arts, resulting in fragmentation of the science, with impractical elaborations based on showmanship rather than efficiency in warfare." The above two paragraphs are quoted from pp. 23 & 24 of Thomas Cleary's The Japanese Art of Warfare, published by Shambala in 1991. I think the problem originates in the tensions inherent in the Japanese iemoto system, according to which the leadership of the art usually passes down through one family. The head of the art does NOT have to be the most technically expert, though this is not always made explicitly clear. The headship of the Aikikai eventually passed to Kisshomaru Ueshiba, after Ueshiba had made great efforts to find a student in the Kobukan who would marry into the Ueshiba family. Notice that this was the iemoto method of transferring the headship of the art. During the later years of the Kobukan, Morihei Ueshiba taught at various military schools and in 1942, the year that the art received the name of aikido, he retreated to Iwama and trained in obscurity for the next 13 years. He left Kisshomaru in charge of the Kobukan dojo and ordered him to keep it running, with his life if necessary. After the war, Morihei never attempted to take back formal control of the Tokyo Hombu from Kisshomaru and it was left to Kisshomaru to undertake the task of resurrecting aikido from the ashes of World War II. The old Kobukan Dojo was inevitably associated with prewar militarism and it was left to Kisshomaru and his associates like Kisaburo Osawa and Shigenobu Okumura to give aikido a new spiritual direction. Expansion of aikido overseas was also one very effective way of showing that the old prewar era had effectively changed, but the expansion inevitably had negative consequences. I could go on, but should stop here, with apologies for such a long post. PS. We should not be too worried by triangles vs. circles. Here is another quote, this time from p.155 of Stanley Pranin's Aikido Masters (the interviewee is Rinjiro Shirata Sensei): "Sensei's techniques were always changing. Techniques which had their origin in Daito-ryu were transformed into aiki and as he trained himself gradually his techniques changed as well...Sensei sometimes said to me, 'Shirata, my techniques have changed. Look!' So I watched him. They had become circular in a way completely different from the earlier techniques. Doshu Kisshomaru systematized and perfected those techniques."
O'Sensei's techniques may have changed. Not because he changed Aikido, but because he changed. Kancho Mochizuki talked about the goal of Budo being awareness. He said O'Sensei had a super human awareness, and it was this awareness that enable him to use simple techniques to defeat his opponents. From 1942 to 1969, O'Sensei taught Aikido at the Iwama dojo. The way he taught new students did not change in all that time. This teaching structure was continued by Saito Sensei. Like Koyo recalled, Saito Sensei said O'Sensei would scold anyone below 3rd dan trying ki no nagari. Sure O'Sensei would go to the Aikikai and give seminars to the seniors, hence expect them to do ki no nagari. But it appears to me that these people would then go "Ah, Aikido is [only] ki no nagari." This completely neglects the years of kihon required to develop that level, and things like atemi and kiai. Hence we get the modern stereotype of the Aikikai. Of all the footage I have seen of Kisshomaru I can only agree with this stereotype. This is reinforced by may experience with the Aikikai, and with the head of the Aikikai here in Australia, Sugano. Regards, I put this after my “regards” so you don’t have to read it. I like to use an analogy. If you take a primary school student who has learnt how to draw a graph from a table, and you even teach them how to take the difference between the values, and tell them this is call the “derivative”, that in no way makes them able to solve a differential equation. Give them their “x” years of high school maths, and then drop them into the appropriate university calculus course/unit, then they will not only know how to do it, they will understand what they are doing.
If Aiki-kai isn't controlling the quality of the gradings handed out under it's system then the organisation is failing. If a 6th dan can take repeated strikes to the face from and ungraded student because they don't know to defend the centreline there is something seriously wrong.
Everything written or attributed to O Sensei is of course open to interpretation. I tend to attempt to understand such things to the limit of my ability on the mat. Enten jizai is the concept that attack and defence are one. At a basic level of study this means that we must be able to execute a technique without leaving any openings for counters or strikes against us. This is where I have found the triangular entry and execution against kuzushi to be far more effective in every way than the large circulat movements seen in many dojos. As bear has posted fundamental PRINCIPLES are disappearing from the art. If you can appreciate the true value of the art from the bottom of your heart then everything you do or say shall be done in a modest sincere manner. I feel that too many instructors are content to "give them what they want" rather than what they need. Modern teachers have a moral duty to teach the art as undiluted as possible based on their instruction from the original shihan. ALL of the original shihan were taught SOLID powerful and effective aikido. The aikido that many attempt to teach perhaps basing it on films they have seen of O Sensei is of no value at all to anyone who has not spent decades developing the powerful basic principles of the art. None of the original shihan ever attempted to display aikido in the same manner as we see O SEnsei in his later life. regards koyo To my mind O Sensei saying how circular his art HAD BECOME suggests after decades of solid training.
Hi folks, hope you dont mind me jumping in here. ive been out for a while and just reading the letters. love this thread, koyo you and the others have done really well to keep this going. im really enjoying the thoughts here good and bad here. if you dont mind ill pick up on a few points made and try to add my opinion and experiance. The main topic going on here is about alot of "aikido" schools having very ineffective attacks, this is a great place to start. I have to be in complete agreement with koyo, dont know if its the fact we both seem to believe strongly in the difference between traditional(dento) aikido and so-called modern aikido. One of the big problems in alot of aikido is the role of uke in alot of schools. Ive found alot of schools that i have visited have had uke doing far to much work. putting far far to much thought into uke doing all the blending, they have to follow the movement of tori too much. things like "oh dont let go" and do be too heavy" "you have to run around after him" then what you see is something more of a dance than a martial system. Saito sensei said to me that In Iwama, tori does all or most of the blending, especially in kihon and uke should be there to just attack strong, its up to tori to blend with the attack. but from what ive seen in schools (and alot of this is not about being aikikai or not) alot of its the opposite, i fell out with one aikikai guy who came to my club once because of this problem, it was like he was only interested in running around and falling down, no idea of an effective attack, not even interested in attacking strong, all he was interested in was how many ukemi he could take and how gracefull his falls where, ive found a lot of these guys are attacking to take ukemi not attacking to try and knock me out. so well before you engage your tech you can feel them ready to fly of your arm, instead of staying within the tech to find my weakness. then when its his turn to be tori, its like a big sensitivity test, no idea of tanren training at all. no idea on kokyu. So when i sugested to this guy that instead of putting all his effort into how lovely and gracefully his ukemi looked or how light he felt he could do a tech(never in my club) if he put a little of that effort into studying good attck and making the tech effective, his response was astonishing, he said its not all about good tech. then started saying how my ukemi is not very gracefull. trust me it aint. but i have interest in looking good. In Iwama there ukemi is very different than in tokyo. its hard and ukes are very very heavy, there is very little high falls, as saito sensei said they are no good for class, only for crowd please'rs at seminars or demos. and attacks must be strong and effective. if anyone takes ukemi to quickly in iwama they get it so tight from sensei. he thinks is very weak training, not tanren training. he expects you to stay in the tech and take all the pain and manipulation, in throws you dont take ukemi you are given it, so if there is no real power in each throw uke goes no where or reverse's the tech. You guys where also talking about gradings and how they have been made worthless. this is very true, far far too much has been placed on the importance of a grade, including by the japanese, god dont they love money.lol Osensei never graded students from what i was told, most masters where like this. it was never about the grade, only about showing up and training hard every day, giving yourself to your sensei and trusting him. then you would be rewarded with a grade when sensei thought it was ok. Saito sensei still follows this as did his father with longterm sotodeshi and longterm uchideshi. as he knows what they can do by watching everyday. but now its about alot of diferent reasons, some good for the club and student and other reasons are bad. That video that was just posted is a very bad example of martial arts, this is the most typical example people are exposed to when the see aikido. it makes my blood boil at times. perfect example of weak attacks and uke doing all the work, all the attacks where terrible. The staement from sugano sensei is a joke in my opinion. ive trained under him once in oz and yamada. never liked either, i though i thought yamada had good strong tech but felt he never shared any thoughts on it. felt the seminars where a waste of cash as they never taught anything, instead for 6-7 hours they showed about 8 techs once or twice then left everone to train for ages and it was just an ukemi workout, most of the time i trained with followers of these guys it was so the same as my message above about weak attacks and all throwing themselves well before i had engaged the tech. i did not know whats was going on, i knew my tech was not that magical. how can some one throw themselves away from a tech when its not even finished, what if my tech was poor? how would they know? Koyo is spot on with his statement about training in iwama, san dan above for kinonagare movements. although reaching sandan in those days was a lot quicker (and harder) as they where on the mat every morning and night. and no gradings only awards. Its never changed in Iwama from what ive heard from all the longterm students who have had connection since the 70s with iwama although now sensei does try to put in one kinonagare techs into a few classes a week now. the problem with kihon is people either dont do it or some do and loose the concept of awase so they become very static in there tech. ive seen many iwama schools that are the opp of certain (lets say doshu/softer styles) schools where instead of having weak basics because the only work on kinonagre moves, they have very weak awase and kinonagare as they make ther kihon so static and dont think about blending during them. Blending is the one constant that must exist in aikido i feel, even when doing free movement aikido and crosstraining, sparring. Hope you dont mind me just sharimg my thoughts on some. its such along thread it was difficult to know how to jump in and no be hre writing for ever there is so much. For your knowledge (if your interested) ill give you a bio on my MA experiance ive been practicing Ma for 18 years, the last 12 been with aikido only, and the rest was in Tkd and kickboxing .my Aikido teacher is Hitohiro Saito, where i have spent over a year living and training under him in both the old dojo(Osensei's) and his amazing new tanrekan dojo. I train and teach at my club in edinburgh. my view on aikido is that when practiced properly and really studied it is as effective a fighting system as any system, mainly due to the fact it can be mixed with any system for cross training and is great to bring into sparring, in fact i really think to take aikido to its highest most effective level it must be challenged, it must be proved against and with other systems. thanks folks sorry for the terrible spelling and grammer i type to quick for my own good hope its not to boring a read
