Aikido

[Ah Louis]

It is nice to know there are real arts out there.

[Greg J]

I finally had a chance to watch the video, which I found very interesting. Thanks to the OP for posting.

Personally, I have tremendous respect for Aikido, in large part because of the emphasis on cultivating one's character, the fact that harmony (which it promotes) is baked into the techniques themselves, and the beauty/ grace of the movements.

I heard an interview with Sifu Roy Harris on the Inside BJJ Podcast awhile ago. Sifu Harris was asked about the effectiveness of Aikido, and his response (I'm paraphrasing) was that the techniques are quite effective, it's the training methods that are not.

It seems to me that while some of the statements/ claims in the video are questionable (thanks WVMark for all the 411), the fundamental issue being explored in the video - can Aikido evolve in a way that makes it more relevant (i.e., applicable) without losing its spiritual essence? - is sound.

Best,
Greg

[Bodywork]

I think the "spiritual component" to aikido has been by and large a construct of the westerners who arrived in the early 70's.
It is interesting that you NEVER, hear that stuff from the prewar students of Ueshiba ( when he was actively teaching).
I think many of the *young seekers of the way*.. cough... brought allot of themselves... with them to Japan. The Japanese played off of that for the foreigners.

Thankfully, Chris Li, has been steadfastly retranslating Ueshibas speaches and writings. More and more we see the so-called, spiritual components were deeply rooted in power building methods ( well known and documented from many other sources). These were hardly spiritual when read in context to their original intent. But through the ignorance of the reader they can certainly seem a heady etherial soup.
He himself used those teachings as they were-for a foundation of:
* first building the body
* then creating mind/body awareness
* then spirit driving mind/body
This is straight out of yoga's five elements as well as other Chinese ICMA teachings.
This is why he ran in to the dojo one day with a newly found anatomy book. Enthusiastically telling people: "See! This is what I have been talking about!"
Most of his dokas are direct ripoffs of Chinese classics.
He was hardly as original as many aikido-ka thought- mostly due to their ignorance of the subject he continually pointed to. Rather, he steadfastly revealed he was yet but another academic, pointing to the works of others.

Regarding videos and teachings of modern Aikido-ka, spiritual or other wise? I would be happy to hear one of them accurately talking about what Ueshiba was actually talking about, much less demonstrate his skills -using those references.
Regards
Dan

[Ba-men]

Having worked out with many Police Officers who train in Aikido ... I'm here to come down on the side of it being very very effective "if" trained properly. But this notion apply s to any art.

"Ueshiba Sensei if I'm not mistaken faced many challengers in his pre WWII days. And if I'm not mistaken many of his disciples after WWII (to his unfavorable view) faced challenges also.

WWII (along with the occupation outlawing anything remotely Bushido) seems to have changed "Ueshiba Sensei

I like the vid... to me it says Fuck Joe Rogan and anyone who thinks like him... Practice Aikido because you like Aikido! WHY? Because in the end the "endeavor" will make you a better person!

No argument there...

[GrahamB]

Well this will annoy/delight people depending on where you make your stand:

Side by side comparison of pre and post war Aikido video:

http://youtu.be/NOd4WmdjbAI

I'll just leave this here...

[Marko]

I think it's better to say that this is a side by side comparison of Ueshiba's work with 20 years in between. As far as I understand it, he was very controlling in how he wished to present his art, while not really presenting it how it would be used (quote of his that "in a real situation, Aikido is 90% atemi (striking)" comes to mind).

What I'd love to see is a side by side comparison of Ueshiba and any of the post war masters. I think that would be more telling than comparing Ueshiba with older Ueshiba.

Cheers,
Marko

[WVMark]

I like the vid... to me it says Fuck Joe Rogan and anyone who thinks like him... Practice Aikido because you like Aikido! WHY? Because in the end the "endeavor" will make you a better person!

No argument there...

As long as everyone understands the video is for Modern Aikido, yeah. No arguments. However, they try to bring Morihei Ueshiba into the picture and, well, sorry but there's no links, ties, or path back to Morihei Ueshiba, his aiki, his spirituality, or his vision. That's the part most people fail to understand.

[WVMark]

I think it's better to say that this is a side by side comparison of Ueshiba's work with 20 years in between. As far as I understand it, he was very controlling in how he wished to present his art, while not really presenting it how it would be used (quote of his that "in a real situation, Aikido is 90% atemi (striking)" comes to mind).

What I'd love to see is a side by side comparison of Ueshiba and any of the post war masters. I think that would be more telling than comparing Ueshiba with older Ueshiba.

Cheers,
Marko

Ueshiba pre-war and Ueshiba post-war ... not too much difference. Daito ryu techniques. Daito ryu aiki. As with his peers (Sagawa, Horikawa, etc), Ueshiba kept changing his body via aiki training. And yes, what he showed to the public was his vision of aikido ... not what he could do with it.

As for comparisons of post war students? There's video out there of them. Aikiweb has articles (that Ellis Amdur started) about them. There are still students out there who were around during the sixties in Japan ... although they're quickly dwindling. Stan Pranin has a lot of stuff that's all on one DVD. There's far more stuff out there for post war than pre-war or even on Daito ryu. And a bunch of material that no one's talked about ... like all those Chinese Classic books Ueshiba read AND made notes in. Wouldn't that be interesting?

[Ian]

Well this will annoy/delight people depending on where you make your stand:

Side by side comparison of pre and post war Aikido video:

http://youtu.be/NOd4WmdjbAI

I'll just leave this here...

Pre or post-war, it doesn't matter...

3:34
4:25

WTF IS THIS SHIT?

[dspyrido]

Well this will annoy/delight people depending on where you make your stand:

Side by side comparison of pre and post war Aikido video:

http://youtu.be/NOd4WmdjbAI

I'll just leave this here...

Pre or post-war, it doesn't matter...

3:34
4:25

WTF IS THIS SHIT?

What NLP aspires to be.

[littlepanda]

Pre or post-war, it doesn't matter...

3:34
4:25

WTF IS THIS SHIT?

that's *aiki*, not aikido!!

[Ba-men]

Well this will annoy/delight people depending on where you make your stand:

Side by side comparison of pre and post war Aikido video:

http://youtu.be/NOd4WmdjbAI

I'll just leave this here...

Pre or post-war, it doesn't matter...

3:34
4:25

WTF IS THIS SHIT?

Dead training left over for the Daito-ryu influence.

As my understanding goes. This type of training (i.e. anything where one or both are in a kneeling position) is prevalent in many classical bushido arts... all comes down from the Edo period. Where samurai were not allowed to stand in any court where the lord was present. The only person allowed to stand was the lord himself and his bodyguards/household. If you stood in his presence it was a sign of great disrespect( or a sure sign of an assassination attempt)

Bushido arts at that time did training that dealt with that court (social ) environment.

We don't recognize its value because it really doesn't have any in our modern era. Not unless we start getting forced to kneel in public and sporting events

[emptycloud]

words from the old man himself....(lost in translation no doubt)....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTQ9CuD7gDw

Yours

Rich

[Rabbit]

I think the "spiritual component" to aikido has been by and large a construct of the westerners who arrived in the early 70's.
It is interesting that you NEVER, hear that stuff from the prewar students of Ueshiba ( when he was actively teaching).
I think many of the *young seekers of the way*.. cough... brought allot of themselves... with them to Japan. The Japanese played off of that for the foreigners.

Thankfully, Chris Li, has been steadfastly retranslating Ueshibas speaches and writings. More and more we see the so-called, spiritual components were deeply rooted in power building methods ( well known and documented from many other sources). These were hardly spiritual when read in context to their original intent. But through the ignorance of the reader they can certainly seem a heady etherial soup.
He himself used those teachings as they were-for a foundation of:
* first building the body
* then creating mind/body awareness
* then spirit driving mind/body
This is straight out of yoga's five elements as well as other Chinese ICMA teachings.
This is why he ran in to the dojo one day with a newly found anatomy book. Enthusiastically telling people: "See! This is what I have been talking about!"
Most of his dokas are direct ripoffs of Chinese classics.
He was hardly as original as many aikido-ka thought- mostly due to their ignorance of the subject he continually pointed to. Rather, he steadfastly revealed he was yet but another academic, pointing to the works of others.

Regarding videos and teachings of modern Aikido-ka, spiritual or other wise? I would be happy to hear one of them accurately talking about what Ueshiba was actually talking about, much less demonstrate his skills -using those references.
Regards
Dan

Really?

The students might not have been spiritual or influenced by spirituality but Ueshiba certainly was. Its very well documented and a great source of tension between him and his teacher who was more focused on fighting ability alone

[WVMark]

I think the "spiritual component" to aikido has been by and large a construct of the westerners who arrived in the early 70's.
It is interesting that you NEVER, hear that stuff from the prewar students of Ueshiba ( when he was actively teaching).
I think many of the *young seekers of the way*.. cough... brought allot of themselves... with them to Japan. The Japanese played off of that for the foreigners.

Thankfully, Chris Li, has been steadfastly retranslating Ueshibas speaches and writings. More and more we see the so-called, spiritual components were deeply rooted in power building methods ( well known and documented from many other sources). These were hardly spiritual when read in context to their original intent. But through the ignorance of the reader they can certainly seem a heady etherial soup.
He himself used those teachings as they were-for a foundation of:
* first building the body
* then creating mind/body awareness
* then spirit driving mind/body
This is straight out of yoga's five elements as well as other Chinese ICMA teachings.
This is why he ran in to the dojo one day with a newly found anatomy book. Enthusiastically telling people: "See! This is what I have been talking about!"
Most of his dokas are direct ripoffs of Chinese classics.
He was hardly as original as many aikido-ka thought- mostly due to their ignorance of the subject he continually pointed to. Rather, he steadfastly revealed he was yet but another academic, pointing to the works of others.

Regarding videos and teachings of modern Aikido-ka, spiritual or other wise? I would be happy to hear one of them accurately talking about what Ueshiba was actually talking about, much less demonstrate his skills -using those references.
Regards
Dan

Really?

The students might not have been spiritual or influenced by spirituality but Ueshiba certainly was. Its very well documented and a great source of tension between him and his teacher who was more focused on fighting ability alone

I disagree. From what I've researched, that's not the case. If you have well documented sources, can you please post them?

From Stan Pranin's extensive research full of interviews, the key point that comes up regarding the rift that occurred between Ueshiba and Takeda (his teacher) was about ... money.

Then, we can go back to the time prior to Ueshiba teaching the pre-war students. 1922 when Ueshiba was still learning from Takeda. Ueshiba was also learning from Deguchi, the spiritualist. Ueshiba, Takeda, and Deguchi were all together in the same place. The main relevance here (there are others but not pertinent to this specific topic) is that Takeda changed the name of his art. Daito ryu received an addition to its title. Takeda added "aiki". Why? Aiki is so astounding that even Deguchi saw its importance and suggested to Ueshiba that they add aiki to the name Daito ryu. Ueshiba is hesitant but Takeda seems to accept the suggestion and does change the name of his art. Even after the name change, Ueshiba still doesn't want to use the name aiki. (1) At Deguchi's insistence and over Ueshiba's objections, Takeda changes the name of his art. If there had been so much tension between Takeda and Deguchi (the source of Ueshiba's spirituality), knowing that Takeda was a very hard stubborn man, and that Takeda kept the secret of aiki very close, the research really doesn't point to Ueshiba's spirituality as the source of tension between them.

Then there are the tales of Takeda delving into mystical, spiritual things.

FWIW and IMO, if you look at Takeda and how very controlled he kept the secret of aiki, I think that was the basis for the tension between him and Ueshiba. Takeda, out of the thousands he taught, only taught a very few aiki. Even Sagawa's father pleaded Takeda to teach him aiki, not techniques (2). Then, when Ueshiba starts teaching Daito ryu, what happens? Ueshiba teaches aiki to: Shirata, Tomiki, Shioda, Mochizuki, Hisa, Inoue, etc. Remember, Ueshiba is handing out Daito ryu certificates to his students. I think Takeda got angry that Ueshiba was giving out the secrets to his art to so many people. I think Takeda made a "public" issue out of the money, but really the personal issue was teaching aiki. Takeda told his students not to teach the secret of aiki but to one or two only.


(1) 9. Aikido Masters Prewar Students of Morihei Ueshiba, Interview with Noriaki Inoue

(2) Transparent Power. "The elder Sagawa, who sometimes had a fiery temper, would take what he learned from Takeda and try it out on strong and mean-looking construction workers he came across. He quickly realized that if you lacked the sort of aiki that Sokaku Takeda possessed, none of the techniques would work against a persistent opponent. So Sagawa's father said to Takeda, "I'm already so old, I think it would be better if you'd teach me Aiki instead of techniques."