Who here has studied different branches of aikido e.g Aikikai, Iwama, Shodokan etc.... What did you find the major differences were? Was there any particular method or syllabus you preferred? I was only ever exposed to Shodokan Aikido (one good club, one bad club) and often wondered what it was like in other Aikido schools.
AAA for a year, then a ASU for a few years. They were the same to me. I tried a couple classes of Ki Society, but didn't like the class. Too much talking, not enough practice. I wasn't there long enough to appreciate any technical differences. Tried Nishio for a few months, but the training was too compliant for me, so I left. Also, the footwork was annoyingly different than what I'd done previously. It really was annoying me. Had I stayed, I would have had to relearn much of what I already knew. For the last year I've been at an independent school affiliated with the Aikikai. The chief instructor moved up the ranks under Steven Seagal (yes) before affiliating with 10th dan Shihan Seiseki Abe Sensei. His 6th dan rank came from Doshu Moriteru Ueshiba. The techniques are the same as in my old AAA and ASU dojos, but the ukemi is of a much higher level, so I have to largely relearn ukemi from scratch. My AAA school and ASU school both followed a rotating syllabus. Each week the focus would be on one thing particular (e.g. shomen defense, yokokem defense, sheonage, ikkyo, nikyo, etc.). The individual instructors of each class would decide specifically what to review. I liked the rotation. For me, anyway, it provided a context for everything we were doing, and made learning easier.
17 years in Traditional Iwama Ryu and have limited experience with in some Aikikai styles. (When I started Iwama ryu was in the Aikikai) There are probably more styles within the Aikikai than outside of it. The name Aikikai does not represent any specific style form what I have seen.
My understanding is that "Aikikai" means "Federation Aikido," as in the one organization per country that was the original representative, and connection, to the Hombu Dojo of the Doshu. For my country it's "USAF" -- United States Aikido Federation. The USAF has a specific syllabus used in all of its schools. But yes, there are sooooo many other groups with direct recognition by the Doshu, that the Federation no longer serves that original purpose of being the official representative of Aikido internationally. I'm sure I've come across at least ten other groups that are recognized by the Doshu just in Arizona and California alone. Nearly all of them, maybe all of them, were started by someone who came from the Hombu Dojo -- which means they started as Aikikai. (shrug) It's all good.
that is correct Aikikai means "Aikido association" nothing more or less. In my opinion all Aikido if practised sincerely and (most importantly) martially eventually converges, the differences seem to me to mainly be in how Aikido is taught. For example Yoshinkan has a fairly rigid teaching style, whereas the Aikikai has a more open approach.
-I currently train regularly in two styles of aikido: Yoshinkan heavily influenced from the late 1970's honbu when Kushida Sensei was working to formalize the syllabus. -A style of aikikai based from Fumio Toyoda's (AAA) instruction. Both these styles are under the same independent organization. Also, I travel about 180 days a year for work and will train at any aikido dojo I come across (always pack a dogi and white belt when traveling). Ive trained multiple times at USAF and ASU schools, trained with unaffiliated or dojo whose affiliation I didn't know, and trained at a Tomiki school a few times. More prominent places I've visited have been: Baltimore Aikikai for kagami barakai w/Mary Heiny NY Aikikai w/Yamada Sensei Plus I've trained in Germany and Bahrain (I think that's it overseas), and many states in the US. I don't think I've been to an Iwama or Yoseikan school yet. There are many differences, and I mostly wouldn't train permanently at dojo I've visited. I've found the most amount of arrogance in aikido schools (I train/visit non-aikido arts as well), but also some of the best people. Every Yoshinkan school I've been to I've gotten along great, train really hard, and almost always go out socializing after. Classes are very specifically structured, usually very physical, and everyone is energetic. This structure often lends itself to a consistency that is very nice to encounter. When training there I pretty much already know what my training partner is roughly capable of, plus they have great ukemi. USAF. Those schools have been vastly different in my experience. Usually large classes. ASU. Seems to be everywhere I go, for whatever reason. Theres some differences in these schools as well. I've like more ASU schools than USAF ones...but really its all about the dojo cho, so my experiences can be attributed to a lot of variables. It's interesting visiting dojo. Often frustrating, but I always show up in a white belt (unless its a place I regularly visit), and follow the adage "do what you see, not what you know." I've been at dojo where I get along with the dojo cho great, but have some issues with the students. I try not to allow myself to be frustrated, but I get challenged sometimes. I'm an intuitive uke and do a good job of judging levels of compliance...meaning if someone is doing crap aikido that isn't doing anything to me, I can move so that I throw myself where nage feels like he is actually doing the work. I'm just a visitor - I'm not about to get into technical aspects of aikido in someone else's house. My organization has about 20 or so dojo. Our international organization is from a Yoshinkan school, and our national organization is from a aikikai style derived from the AAA (who we belonged to prior to Toyoda Sensei's passing). After Toyoda Sensei's passing, our head instructor was seeking out a new senior instructor (I think he was a godan at the time) and met the head of our international organization. Despite being in separate styles of aikido, they decided to link up and we joined the Yoshinkan group. We kept our syllabus and theirs is completely different. We've added a few things, particularly weapons stuff, from the Yoshinkan group (they picked up weapons years ago, not all Yoshinkan schools have the same curriculum), and we have influenced them by increasing their use of kick defense (which they added to their curriculum), and hip throws. Anyone familiar with the AAA syllabus will recognize the "Five Arts" requirements in the mudansha level. Basically this results in all hand techniques become like a jiyuwaza but with the stipulation of doing five different types of techniques. So, for mudansha testing, you pretty much do whatever...heck I threw in some Daito Ryu techniques I picked up at a seminar, and I'll do the occasional judo or jujitsu technique (we'll get "yelled" at if we do too much non-aikido stuff). At my particular dojo, which uses the AAA based testing syllabus, we do close to 50% Yoshinkan influenced aikido...even at the kyu levels. We are an independent group, but maintain affiliations with Yoshinkan honbu. In fact we head to Japan about every two or three years to train with the main guys there. We don't have much affiliation with Aikikai honbu and the current doshu...but really we never did as Toyoda kind of had a back and forth relationship with them.
Thank you for this post. I've always been intrigued by Aikido but never really considered studying this martial art. However, today I was searching for something Aikido related and ran across Ki Aikido. My search continued because I was curious how many different styles of Aikido there are. Your thread tied up everything nicely for me because I was watching a video on youtube of Ki Aikido and the instructor looked amazing but a friend told me that there's not much difference between Ki and Aikido Schools of Ueshiba Aikido. Anyway, great thread. I love this website and learn something new every day.
While there's definite commonalities in ASU, I've found wide variations in their approach to technique from dojo to dojo.
Thanks afhuss. I did find a dojo with a direct link to the founder by no more then 5 people. I would like to study with that Sensei one day if we connect. And there's also a Ki Dojo nearby.
I hope you find a good home. Its very tough. Not that there aren't a plant of good dojo out there, there's just far greater poor ones.
Practised Aikido since 1975. In the early days practised both Tomiki and Traditional Aikido, back then Aikido was thin on the ground. Once I was old enough to drive I studied with Ken Broome and then Dr Lee ah Loi. I decided that practising different styles of Aikido was confusing. After all these years I still struggle when I practice other systems at seminars. I believe that the best way to progress is pick a style that works for you and work at it. I am not saying don't change in the future, but become proficient in one style. I have had students who have tried to learn two systems of Aikido at once. At lower and intermediate grades their Aikido is neither one style or another.
Not sure what branch of Aikido I train however I know the lineage, Gail Marchand (my sensei),Tamura, Daniel Martin, Raymond Bish, Toshiro Suga (he does our grading he either flies up or we fly to France) and Noro Sensei. So I think I do aikikai with a splash of Kinomichi?
