Interesting Daito Ryu Demo from Hawaii

[Andy_S]

Interesting demo from Hawaii - and done by a relatively youthful chap, rather than a stiff old buffer in his 80s, as seems to be the case with much of the Daito I see.

Best striking I have seen from any Aiki man, employing some nice vertical mobility; also some rather nasty looking finishers. There were also some odd and interesting breakfalls at the start - though the parts where he walks in a circle with his uke hanging off him before dumping him, I frankly don't get: What is the reason behind this? And more critically, what is to stop the uke from simply letting go?

Anyway, here it is. Would be intersted in comments from Aiki peeps (Middleway, Interloper, Bodywork et al):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT1aNmSb ... re=related

Another question:
Given that this was shot in the 1990s, why is the vid quality more reminiscent of the 1930s?

[asiawide]

IMHO, most finishers are designed to be done with a short sword. Or it's just for simply capturing(包縛) the opponent without hurting.

[Bodywork]

It isn't Daito Ryu.
And for the record: "Daito ryu Aikijujutsu, Shorinjin, Saito ryu, ninjutsu!" is so bizzare I don't even care to begin.
You might as put up sign that says you teach "Hungar taiji type, aikido ryu...the avatar airbender way." I'd take you just as seriously as the first guy
He does look very athletic and jumpy though!
Dan

[middleway]

It isn't Daito Ryu

What dan said.

FWIW there is allot of what my teacher used to call 'dirty judo' out there. A mix of very basic aikido, jujutsu, karate and judo all learnt too a extremely rudimentary level and taught under some bizzare name by self proclaimed 8th dans as 'Aiki jitsu' or whatever. Usually its not worth paying too much attention too.

cheers
Chris

[alexsuffolk]

hi Chris and Dan

have just been given a huge book called er....Hapkido....claims their founder lived for decades with DR founder in the mountains of Japan, then returned to Korea with the transmission of the whole system.

Is this right>? HKD = Daito Ryu ??

thanks

Alex

[middleway]

Hey Alex,

According to the founder of Hapkido Choi Young-Sul, thats correct yes! lol. reality is most probably very different however. The version of events presented from the Hapkido camp about what he got and how long he was with Takeda Sokaku, but more importantly in what capacity, is extremely dubious.

Certainly if he was with Sokaku it would have been as a servant or slave ... as Koreans were seen in Japan at the time .... and hearing the stories of how much of a hard ass old school Samurai Sokaku was, the likely hood of him teaching a servant is fairly miniscule. In fact Takeda's own son, Tokimune Takeda, stated that he never new of anyone fitting Chois description in the Takeda household let alone his father teaching the guy for any length of time.

To me Hapkido has a mix of some JuJutsu that Choi picked up (probably from being around such a superlative MAist if he was) and some Korean Karate. The body method does not seem to be Daito Ryu's however IMO. It is certainly unlikely he got the system of Aiki from Takeda.

Best regards
Chris

[ashe]

You might as put up sign that says you teach "Hungar taiji type, aikido ryu...the avatar airbender way."

[Interloper]

This chap is a master at throwing himself. He doesn't even need a nage/tori! Out of curiosity, I looked up the website mentioning his teacher (Hidetoshi Mitsuoka). It says that Mitsuoka is a master of:

Han Shi I Chuan
Tai Ki Ken
Dragon Gate Chi Kung
Baguazhang
Daito Ryu Aikijujutsu Roppo Kai
Saigo ha

A snippet from the site claims:
This teacher is a mad genius. I have never seen anyone so talented before. An excellent teacher. Currently, he is a closed door disciple of the Han family in china. He teaches at 4 corners of Japan. His 4 books are sold out in Japan.
His organization is called Internal Martial Arts research Institute and I am currently the Director of baguazhang.

I taught Daito Ryu Aikijujutsu, mikkyo, internal palm, taiji, bagua (hakke-sho) Dragon Gate chi kung and I chuan (Tai ki ken) for him since 1993.

[Andy_S]

All:

RE: Aikijutsu:

Ah, well that answers the question!

Alex:

RE: Choi and Takeda
This is a vexed subject. First, some general facts:
The Koreans HATE the Japanese: This is why TKD (and, indeed, many Hapkido masters) will not admit any Jap influence on their arts, and make up totally fictional "lineages." (Two popular Hapkido offshoots, Kuk Sool Won and Hwarang Do have done this) This prejudice continues to this day, as strong (perhaps stronger) than ever.
Many conservative Japs also look down on the Koreans as brutal, garlic-eating yokels lacking an cultural refinement, and grossly inferior to the divine sons of Nippon. I may be wrong, but I think much of this prejudice has died out in Japan today.
Hapkido is clearly a blend of an aiki-jutsu/ju-jutsu type art and Korean kicking. Choi was not a kicker: he bought the locking, throwing, etc, to Korea; the bootwork was added on by locals in the late 50s or 60s.

So: Why would Choi claim to have learned a Jap MA when he could have done what most Koreans MArtists do and lie, saying:
I learned it in China
I learned it from an ancient Korean MA text I found in a library
I learned it from a secret Korean master or monk in the mountains
I learned it from my family, who kept this secret ancient Korean MA?

Frankly, there is no reason for Choi to have claimed a Jap lineage if there was not one. Now, his claim to have been an adopted son of Takeda - and Takeda being a hardcore Jap nationalist of the old school - rings hollow, but this is most likely cos he did not want to admit to being a mere servant in his household.

I am pretty sure Choi learned a Jap MA. And if he did not learn from Takeda, why say he did? AFAIK, Takeda was not particularly famed in the 1940s and 1950s - there were many more high profile Judo and Karate peeps, as well as the god-like Uyeshiba coming to prominence at that time.

IMHO, Choi learned some form of Aikijutsu, probably Daito - though not directly at Takeda's feet. As Chris says, if he did learn from Takeda, it was probably in a Yang Lu-chan type way: ie looking through cracks, practicing manically with the other servents, and then (perhaps) coming to the attention of the teacher and being given some stuff - probably away from the other students, who would, hence, not be familiar with his skill or even existance. Did he have the highest form of it? Almost certainly not, but one can see from modern Hapkido that there is some excellent technqiue in there. Shenfa? No. Anyway, Choi then claimed to be closer to Takeda (head of system) than he actually was. However, conservative Japs could not bear to think that their divine MA was passed on in a bastardized form to a mere Korean - hence the denials.

FWIW, a Korean MArtist said to me a few years ago that Hapkido is 'low level' MA and Aikido is 'high level' MA. The problem is, many people get stuck with the sweaty, energetic 'low level' material of Hapkido, while many Aikdio people never have any realistic combative ability at all, they are too concerned with doing wonderful, flowing, Uyeshiba-type things.

FWIW #2: A number of Hapkido masters today downplay or deny any Jap connection at all, preferring to state that it originates as per the above - ie (Korean) monks, (Korean) mountains and (Korean) mystery. There was even a very public slanging match about Hapkido's origins in a major Korean newspaper about a decade ago. Presumably everyone - ie Jap and Korean chauvinists - are happy with this situation.

But the truth? A different matter, for sure.

[Interloper]

Andy,
It was once true that Koreans hated the Japanese, but that generation is dying out, and the younger Koreans do not have the same resentment. To them, the occupation is something their grandparents and great-grandparents dealt with. Most Korean martial artists don't mention earlier Japanese influences more out of national pride. They'd rather think of their arts as their own invention than one introduced by another culture.

BTW, I realize that you mean no offense in using the term "Jap" for Japanese, and that it's commonly used in Great Britain without the intent to insult, but in much of the world it is considered a pejorative and some people here, on this internationally-accessed board, might be sensitive to that.

As for Choi and any exposure to JIMA, there are people who swear up and down that they have felt or seen or heard of high level hapkido people who have aiki. Whether they truly do, and whether they learned it via Choi or went out and acquired it from another source, I couldn't say. But, I have seen old films of Choi giving demonstrations, as an old man, and I didn't see any signs or even the tiniest glimmer of internal body methods in anything he did, or in any of his ukes responses. I have also seen some of the guys in this country who are supposed to be of direct lineage from Choi and to have the whole hapkido package, but they had nothing resembling IMA either.

[edededed]

Are you sure? Where did you get that feeling from? Yeah, some people are getting okay with Japan now, but I think that saying that there is no resentment now is going a bit far, donchathink?

[Interloper]

I said that younger Koreans don't have the same resentment, not that there is no resentment. But as the generations progress, that resentment will become hazier; it's the ones who experienced the privations of the occupation -- and their immediate descendents, who grew up observing the effect it had on their elder generation -- who were obviously the most affected by it. But the intensity of resentment is not as strong in those who did not themselves endure it or witness its impact on loved ones who endured it. That will continue to dissipate in ensuing generations. It's already visible now.

Just saying. I'd think that in any society, there are those who forgive but don't forget, and those who neither forgive nor forget no matter how many generations pass. There are plenty of households in the Deep South of the U.S. that still fly the Confederate flag, and would never trust a "Yankee" (anyone from north of the old Mason-Dixon line). And the civil war here has been over since 1865! But, for the most part if a Northerner goes to the South, he'd be hard-pressed to find any seething rage against the Union in the majority of Southerners.

By the same token, Jews and Germany have friendly relations now. Who'd ever imagine that, when the Nazi Third Reich ended only in 1945, the same year the Japanese occupation of Korea ended? And was what the Nazis did to the Jews (and Roma, and other "undesireables") less than what Japan did to Korea?

Life goes on, as it must. Circumstances change, the generations change over, and people recognize that.

[edededed]

I hope so.

For various reasons, though, Japanese-Korean (and Japanese-Chinese) relations don't seem quite as friendly as Jewish-German relations, although the timeline is similar - reluctance to admit mistakes or change ones mindset, ultranationalism, and other stupidity probably contribute to that. Time is a healer, but sometimes other things are needed/wished for as well.

[Interloper]

I agree.

[C.J.Wang]

I remember reading a piece of writing on Hapkido history by Choi's long-term student in which he clearly points out the lack of evidence regarding the link between Hapkido and Daito Ryu.