The afterrmath of the punch in the nose. Bey Logan who was presenting the demos. Stopped the demo to explain "There are no strikes in aikido":bang::bang: Tommo probably glad it had not been him regards koyo
Koyo, Slightly off-topic, but I dont know where else to post to. I hope to visit makotokai some time before my bones give way altogether. I currently train in Tai Chi and FMA, but used to train in Aikido (Edinbugh and Glasgow with Matthew Holland) many moons ago. I have ben reading your postings with some interest intermittantly for a while. Your posts clearly express 50 years experience with great clarity and depth. I have 1 comment and 1 question for you: 1) The fully committed attacks that you talk of frequently; these seem very well suited to the medieval battlefield of Japan in full armour, but as you expressed (implicitly rather than explicitly) in another post, less suited to the average street situation (Sauchiehall St in your case, Lothian Road in my case - where I managed to avoid a nasty looking strike on saturday night with a sharp irimi/omote - and just didnt get involved in further confrontation.) From the little experience I have of FMA, this seems to open up angles not unlike street situations, but perhaps lacks the 1 cut incisive mentality and spatial awareness of randori that your Aikido clearly demonstrates from youtube. Ultimately, what I want from any Martial art is for it to offer me the best chance of saving my bacon, whatever the circumstance 2) Given your 50 years of continous Aikido (my lifetime), how do you (or one in general) manage to maintain such a level of concentrated intensity and sharpness? My bones/body/soul are ok at the mo, though it has been quite some effort to get myself into shape again. At 70+ I find it quite incredible. If I have a fraction of your spirit at 70, I will be well contented as I approach my older years.
I doubt concentrated "intensity" is what you ment since concentration need/should not be intense. Awareness and the understanding of timing distancing and unbalancing....ALL become second nature and do not take any "effort" to apply. Sharpness comes from having total mobility but using minimum movement to execute actions. The one cut mentality does not mean litteraly "one cut". It describes the spirit technique and intention working together as one to make a single effective action that MAY end the conflict but SHALL give you the immediate advantage. regards koyo Was invited out for a meal by Dan Docherty..a famous Tai Chi exponent just last weak. had a great conversation that included why we chose to train "for a lifetime". No "deep" answers just IT IS what we do. Of course we both have an inbread distaste for politics and simply train for the love of the arts.
Maybe 'constant and fluid focus' is a better description, of what I tried to impart. I may inadvettently been describing myself (as I sometimes am perhaps, a tad to 'intense.') What I am getting at, is the ability to not let your mind drift, whilst remaining calm, and capable of effective delivery , all at the same time time. In an unpleasant situation, like what happened to me on saturday night, required me to react in a nano-scond or 2, and make intelligent movement to diffuse the situation - as I was half-asleep and with a drink or 2 inside me, this was not trivial, but my heartbeat did beat faster, as my brain switched into autopilot. Sharpness, mobility and spirit are all desirable qualities. At 50, I managed it on saturday night. At 70+ (in fact any age, its jjust as the years tick by, your life-chances diminish), this may be possible but it probably depends on a) maintenance and b) biological luck. These things are not always so easy to express in words. I have to go and train now. Regards Eddy Bett
Ha Ha I get you. As far as "biological luck"..mine is based on fifty years cross training. The more you train..the "luckier" you become. regards Bill Coyle I am NOT 70....'til next month. Not that I am sensei tive about age.
Ussaly when people lie about there age when they have to write it down somewhere (like in the map profile) they tend to make it younger and not older koyo ^^.
28th May they even got the month wrong. Anyway to coin a great philosopher. IT'S NOT THE AGE ..IT'S THE MILAGE. regards koyo I worked with kids and "young adults" for around twenty years in Glasgow. Now I get adults coming up to me in the street saying "I remember you, you used to be Bill Coyle."
When it is possible to make ones action decisive e.g. Aikido atemi (which for me is still a deep cut to your opponent's spirit - to unbalance him/her), to gain a transient state of advantage; the one cut mentality always imparts to the opponent, that further activity on their part will have to be equally decisive i.e. you are not a fool. Wheather dealing with embra radges, weegie neds, trainspotters or worse; whatever your art (or just plain old mentality), a calm but decisive manner in all your actions, may just get you through relatively unscathed. There are some limits however. In Edinburgh, we have 1 gang of thugs who have armed themselves with a replica Uzi machine gun. As yet this has not been sighted in arguments about someones girlfriend etc on Lothian Road or Leith Walk, but I cant see irimi/atemi/taisabaki being much use unless at very close quarters, and even then its in the lap of the gods. I train in MAs partly for love, but partly to get me mentally through sticky situations (I have to encounter a lot of this and stupid politics - which I truelly despise). It is for this that I want MA training to be as effective as possible, in some shape, manner or form. Every time I go to train, I 'try' to get something out of the hour or 2 that I spend there, as I frequently travel and dont always have the opportunity to train - though the current economic mess is prolonging my stay in Auld Reekie way more than normal. I believe that there is a story of Ueshiba going to Sokaku Takeda, and being told words to the effect 'You have to learn in an instant!' and taking his money - koyo will know this story better. The same mentality and sensation that Tamura, Chiba, Saito talked about when describing their training with Ueshiba, is kind of what I was getting at with 'intensity' - I think 'immersion' is a better description i.e. being able to have absolute instantaneous concentration and adaptation. It is this kind of mentality, that just maybe, improves your chances (very slightly) in awkward unpleasant street situations - where life is chaotic and not predictable. Dan Docherty is a very inspiring TaiChi teacher. I actually hit 50 on 19/05/09.
I trained extensively with all three of the shihan you mention. ALL three said they would not "teach" me and that I should "constantly observe" then find out for myself. Typical "teaching" was your body alignment is wrong..correct it. No demonstration because I should have looked and seen it for myself then "found it" for myself. When I observed them I noticed Saito shihan's basics Chiba shihan's martial attitude and Tamura shihan's dynamic movement. I mentioned this to Sekiya shihan and he had me watch all three on video and sure enough ALL three possesed basics effectiveness and dynamic action. I was simply looking from a certain perspective. That was good but it was NOT seeing clearly. The lesson was IT IS DIFFERENT EVERY TIME. regards koyo
After reading you guys' mention of Dan Docherty I googled him and came up with this: http://www.taichichuan.co.uk/information/articles/tai_chi_gladiator.html Pretty interesting read, how accurate is it? Gotta love a Tai Chi fighter willing to go head to head with Thai Boxers.
Dan is from Glasgow and started in karate then moved on to Tai Chi. Yep he WILL fight a tiger and give it first bite. We had a few laughs about real fights and martial arts. Basically capable of going head to head with anyone yet respectfull to all. Not too keen on "tourists" who are not in it for the long hard haul. He quipped "Yes..everybody knows you ..but few have met you" meaning they don't turn up for training. regards koyo
Embra the answer is simple GO and train at Makotokai, no politics no crap and yea you have guessed it no ................AGE.
I dunno Koyo, I'll be deconstructing that discussion for YEARS and I still can't follow the argument that somehow he was obligated to pay for dinner because now I feel I owe him. The Bear.
I think the discusson ended in an overall disapointment on how posers profiteers and politicians have "spread and diluted" the martial arts to the point that ..as Chiba shihan said. "true martial artists shall always be a small minority." regards koyo In fact I remember a number of the early shihan speaking out about offering training so freely for this exact reason. I did not agree at the time but now I am not so certain.
Yeah but if your door wasn't open you wouldn't have found most of the Makotokai. And you never know who is going to be good from the start. Heck I've discounted a few of the people who walked through the door of the GCoD and a year later they still train every week and are coming on a storm. The Bear.
Agreed but I have also seen people walk through the door. Decide it is too demanding. Find something more to their liking and fifteen years later.. are still dancing around. And now it is becoming the norm .It is becoming the public face of martial arts. Particularly Aikido and Tai Chi. I think that is what Dan and I were talking about. Hence Dan wondering why I was not bitter and still enthusiastic about training. regards koyo I think that your "being encouraged not to return" says it all
I dont know Dan particularly well, but I can say he has some kind of knack with motivating beginners i.e. it is possible to progress fairly quickly with Dan, if you have some spirit- and TaiChi is not a simple art to learn - if your interest is genuinely as a martial art. I have heard some Aikidoka say in the past that it is possible to reduce it to Ikkyo, IrimiNage, ShihoNage and KokyoNage. To make aikido efective in the realworld, I think there is an element of truth in this (you still need all the conecpts that koyo writes about as well - or otherwise its meaningless), but I dont think its so easy to reduce TaiChi in the same way - its just too big (that I can see right now.) Aikido emanated from Ueshiba (who led a very unique life), and has diversified into several strands, but as far as I can see there is basically only the core Aikikai that can last (albeit with politics/factions/differences etc). From Youtube you can see that Tohei was brilliant, but its difficult to see any contemporary Ki stylists with a fraction of what he had. TaiChi has much more diverse roots and has almost certainly been exposed to much more political distortion (e.g. Communism, the Cultural Revolution and others i.e. real world politics) through time (centuries) and space (China/Hong Kong/ Taiwan - before westernisation.) Both TaiChi (my certainty in this is not so great - I dont have the milage) and Aikido (for sure) have suffered from a gradual dumbing down. This is partly due to insurance concerns (which should not be dismissed lightly) and also partly due to commercialisation of martial arts in general i.e. the McDojo/Franchising aspect. However both arts are complicated by the addition of 'internal' qualities ('ki' - if you want - or spirit/misogi breathing etc.) This makes it difficult to observe what is involved - unless exposed to siginficant and meaningful immersion. In this internet day and age it is possible to view much Aikido and TaiChi on youtube, but I find it difficult to find really good examples that I could show to a complete beginner and say 'thats what its about'. Both arts require that the student can 'see' what is happening in the context of the action - this is difficult for newbs - and for experienced practitioners - who can easily suffer from 'blindness'/fools gold. The best Taichi for me is Chen Tin Hung in [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqKHOg9DZfU&feature=PlayList&p=BE17608A8AABB167&index=1&playnext=2&playnext_from=PL"]YouTube - Practical Tai Chi Chuan - Grandmaster Cheng Tin-hung[/ame] There is an elemet of 1960's movie-fu and shot cutting in it, but you can see the solidity of his postures, the sheer energy dispatch, timing, concentration of spirit, the chinese equivalents of 'maai' and 'zanshin' - in every sinew of his being. For me the best classic Aikodo seems to consistently show Shioda i.e. you know it will work for real (though I am not sure if I would like to be taking ukemi from him for long periods!) There is also this one which explains Randori very well - like you could explain to a first-timer [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq9u0IXE3ao&feature=PlayList&p=7C38D58E679F766C&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=57"]YouTube - Advanced Aikido: Principles of Motion : Aikido Randori Arm Deflections: Part 1[/ame] - this is not unlike how Dan exlains TaiChi concepts - i.e. not mystical. There is also a very good one with Tamura executing randori, though the film quality is not briliant. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-Gow3_tHWo"]YouTube - Nobuyoshi Tamura Sihan Randori[/ame] I got unlucky with Aikido with very bad upper back trouble in 1986, and stopped martial arts until I gradually got my back into shape (over 20 years) and my extreme interim gypsy existence lessened a touch. Fortunately, I was not as unlucky as George Girvan who I recall as a very good Aikido teacher i.e. Im in pretty good shape now. I occassionally check out some Aikido classes - as I like to review basics in everything - as its where I started. Along with TaiChi, I also train in FMA (various interpretations of Escrima/Arnis/Kali) which is the most efficient and compact system that I have yet encountered. All of these depend somewhat on location/time and to some extent stoopid political gubbinz (which unfortunately cannot be completely ignored.) I have read that the Fillipino systems are less 'Martial Art' and more 'Tribal Art'. Certainly if look in youtube under kali/arnis/escrima, you easily see a lot of very effective combat technique with a lot of skill - and some dross it has to be said. The Phillipines are an almost ungovernable diversity of islands/cultures/peoples/arts, that seems to have spawned instantly effective undiluted martial arts - there is a vicious multi-headed war in Mindinao for a start i.e. Phillipine society is highly fractious. Contemporary Chinese and Japanese societies are much more organised and controlling. Every art has its particular strengths. The articulation and coordination of all these arts are extremly diificult to a) acquire b) to maintain and C) meaningfully weld together i.e.e that you can instaneously use when nescessary, as best you can. However, unlike when I was younger, I am a lot more patient now.
I will be blunt and say the first video is all that I dislike about aikido demonstrations with long winded explanation and compliant ukes. With absolutely no "sense of danger". And a complete absense of basic principles:bang: Tamura shihan's video must be looked at by one with aikido experience to see what he is doing. The power of his technique HAS to be felt. I realise that I tend to be overly critical of many youtube demos. So I have given the Bear a DVD of a demo I presented. He has said he shall post it here on MAP. So as they say I may have let my mouth get my ass in trouble. When he posts it I shall be ready for the flack. regards koyo
Well koyo all your talk about how you have to FEEL aikido has certainly made me curius. Someday i hope to meet / visit a aikido dojo where an aikido practionar is willing to kick my but . At the end of the day everyone agrees (or well they should) that aikido is probaly the coolest looking MA out there .
WE are ALWAYS kicking each others butt in the Makotokai...Looking cool?? I can't see me EVER managing that:hat: regards koyo
