shawnsegler wrote:Don't get me started...he's not here and that's fine by me.
Not desiring rage is no endorsement...and certainly nothing meant friendly.
That has nothing to do with young Graham. He's welcome to do what he will, I just hope that he uses protection and doesn't get his heart broken.
S
Sigh...
You can be polite and I respect that, but Sigman has used his groups and forum for character assassination of many teachers over the years. Offering damning and unsupported statements about many teachers that could be successfully litigated were people disposed to do so. He doesn't realise his own forum members send those comments to the teachers themselves as they think Mike's forum being used for that is repugnant. He has publicly threatened to sue me and anyone who hosted me over what he claims is proprietary information (which he otherwise agrees and argues constantly....is taught everywhere). It's all very weird. I sent him, (and following my lawyers advice) the teachers who hosted me, a response from my attorney (who specializes and litigates copywrite and trademark law), telling him we will subpoena everything he has ever written or filmed and the content of his entire forum, to compare it to the public record written, spoken or in video, of known teaching models and then compare it to mine and see what is in fact, proprietary, then counter sue for damages. I told him if he wanted to fuck with me, things would get very serious, very fast.
The results? Let's just say the professional community did not like reading his public threats of litigation. Several teachers turned their backs to him.
I have shared his correspondence with me, with some very highly ranked traditional teachers who were shocked. Mike's private rhetoric, is like reading an angry high school boy's thoughts: lashing out indiscriminately with strings of expletives, insults, childish taunts, and threats amidst what I can only describe as what feels like a sort of paranoid construct in which he lives. It stands in sharp contrast to what he publicly presents
Mike has never understood the wisdom in supporting others efforts, and the essential core of his very own, well known public argument; THAT THIS STUFF IS EVERYWHERE IN THE ASIAN ARTS.
He somehow thinks he owns it.
Amidst the thousands of teachers world wide teaching various internal components, of varying skill levels, Mike's claim to an aikido Shihan that
"Only four or five people in the world know what I know! And they are all in China!" stands for itself, as a desperate a bid for attention and acknowledgement. Beyond the very bizarre nature of the statement. The statement itself defies it's own merits as a claim.
Anyhooo....
That Graham supports that kind of person, says something about, Graham. He is just another student, being used by him to start drama. I called it instantly and I was correct. They follow him for a while till they realize the limits of what he knows and what many already see. Which most eventually do. His circles never last, people leave or are thrown out for disagreeing and he restarts. It's very weird to watch.
Personally, I don't care what he does. I've seen him move. As I stated. You couldn't pay me to move like him I teach against his movement, and he argues I don't know what I am doing. So, his claims that I am copying him is all rather strange and bizarre and ironically, absurd. He is traoped within his own twisted, paranoid vision.
Oh well.