o soto gari

I was practicing this throw the other day and was struck by the thought: "O soto gari is irmi nage."

Kato Sensei demonstrating September 17, 2009-part 1

Is O-Sensei Really the Father of Modern Aikido?

Is O-Sensei Really the Father of Modern Aikido?

by Stanley Pranin

Aikido Journal #109 (Fall/Winter 1996)

"After practicing and researching aikido for a number of years I gradually arrived at a hypothesis that went against conventional wisdom and the testimonies of numerous shihan who claimed to have spent long years studying at the side of aikido founder, Morihei Ueshiba. I had over the years attended numerous seminars given in the USA by Japanese teachers and also made several trips to Japan where I had seen and trained with many of the best known teachers. My theory was simply that aikido as we know it today was not the art practiced and taught by O-Sensei, but rather any one of a number of derivative forms developed by key students who studied under the founder for relatively short periods of time. This would account for the considerable divergency in styles, the relatively small number of techniques taught, and the absence of an Omoto-like religious perspective in the modern forms of the art. This was not meant as a criticism of these “modern” forms of the art, but rather an observation based on historical research that ran contrary to common perception."

http://www.aikidojournal.com/article?articleID=34

Bruce Bookman Sensei: Shihonage

Tissier Sensei SFAP 2011

Tissier Sensei uses the sword to breakdown ikkyo at the most recent SFAP

The San Francisco Aikido Project 2011

Here are some additional links of interest:
"Bruce Bookman's response to Stan Pranin's article, 'Virtues of Aikido'"
http://blog.aikidojournal.com/blog/2011/05/17/bruce-bookmans-response-to-stan-pranins-article-virtues-of-aikido/

Video Tissier Sensei at the SF Aikido Project 2007:
Part 1: http://youtu.be/DJgRWtlHXZ0

Part 2: http://youtu.be/S-oYhwgIltA

Part 3: http://youtu.be/KtJv_6-JglI

Frank Doran Sensei on Teaching

Training Notes on Weekend Seminar with Sensei Doran at Mateel Aikido, May 28-29, 2011

This past weekend we had a very intimate seminar with Frank Doran Sensei at Mateel Aikido in Briceland, Ca. There were only 20-25 people on the mat, which allowed for a great deal of individualized attention, including a chance for me to sit down with Doran Sensei and ask him about his approach to teaching.

I asked Doran Sensei about the challenge of being a good uke, and about how much resistance is appropriate. I acknowledged that my tendency is to be overly cooperative or “collusive” in taking ukemi. I expected him to offer some general advice on the importance of a  “sincere attack” and the value of staying with the technique long enough for nage to get a true experience of kuzushi. (A brief essay that I once wrote “On Kuzushi” promted this question. At some point I hope to edit and post that essay as well.)  

However, rather than emphasizing those points, Doran Sensei emphasized the opposite. He acknowledged that as uke, you want to avoid offering a “condescending attack.” But he was much more worried about his students “fighting and wrestling” with each other on the mat.  He told me that Tohei Sensei (from whom he received shodan, nidan, and sandan) always emphasized giving “positive resistance,” and never giving “negative resistance.” By this Tohei Sensei meant, only resistance that is designed to help your partner advance in their understanding. The object is never to reverse, defeat, or otherwise demonstrate the inferiority of your partners’ technique.

He compared the uke-nage relationship to that of “two parts of one machine” – the gears aren’t grinding or colliding, they’re humming together. He also drew another analogy to two actors in a play. He said that when he calls on me to take ukemi, it is because he wants to express something through my body. If I want to help him get his point across, I need to work with him and not against him. My role is not to resist or sabotage his technique, but rather to “play my part and read my lines.” If he goes out there and starts reading his lines from Shakespeare, and I respond with lines from some other play, or simply improvise, the demonstration won’t make any sense for the people who are watching and trying to learn something.

He compared this situation to that of two people going to the gym. One has been working out for years and can bench press 300 pounds, the other brand new and can barely get up 100. It does no good to put 300 pounds on the bar and ask the beginner to lift. The beginner will simply be crushed. He will not learn anything, and will not come back to the gym. True honesty is perceiving what your partner can do, and then helping them to accomplish that. Of course to be a good uke this sense, you have to be willing to forgo an ego contest – the part of your self that wants to say: "I can do 300, and you can only do 100. I’m stronger than you are."

Doran Sensei also related this point about the uke-nage relationship to a larger point about teaching in general. And again he emphasized what Tohei Sensei taught him about “positive ki.” He said that Tohei Sensei was a master at always offering positive reinforcement to his students. Tohei Sensei would never say, “No, that’s wrong.” Tohei would say, “Very good, now try this.” At one point Doran Sensei asked Tohei Sensei why he was always complementing his students’ technique: “What if they make a mistake, or are doing something wrong, shouldn’t you be honest and tell them?” To this Tohei Sensei responded with something to the effect of “honesty is not crushing your partner just because you can.” Honesty is about seeing what you need to do to help your partner advance in their understanding and development, and then doing it.

If you start with a criticism, then that is all the student will hear is: “I did it wrong, I’m no good.” That will then bring up a whole complex of emotions surrounding one’s self-esteem and relationship to authority.  The student will then be so mired in that complex that they will not be open whatever else the teacher has to say. However, by using positive reinforcement, the teacher creates an opening, or invitation in the student; the student becomes receptive to the teaching.

Related to this point about how to cultivate receptivity in one’s partner, Doran Sensei emphasized the value of non-verbal communication. He explained that verbal correction tends to generate a kind of subtle resistance that can be avoided by simply using your body to non-verbally express what you have to say. He said that this was particularly true when you are a student in someone else’s class. “There is only one sensei on the mat at a time,” he said. If one student starts offering verbal correction to another in the middle of a class, it sets up a counter-productive training dynamic. Not only are the two students “discussing” the technique when they should be training (and therefore getting fewer reps), but they are also creating an invitation for a contest of wills and a contest of egos… Doran Sensei said that when he bows into someone else’s class, he never offers verbal correction of any kind. If he sees something in his partners’ waza that can be improved upon, he simply performs that part of the technique very slowly and deliberately and leaves it to his partner to find the lesson. When it is his turn to take the ukemi, Doran Sensei simply moves his body in such as was as to illustrate how the technique is supposed to work. Again, the onus is on the junior student to find the lesson.

Of course Doran Sensei said many things. If I were a better student I would be able to recount more of them, and I would be able to recount them more accurately. Nothing in the above should be regarded as a “direct quote,” they are all simply my fallible memories – conditioned my own subjective perceptions. But alas, these are the points that I take away from a wonderful weekend with a truly great teacher.    They are of tremendous value to me, and I hope that they are to others as well.

More pictures from the weekend can be found here:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150209692072351.339308.729847350&l=0ecb8a7b19

Robert Frager Shihan at Aikido of Santa Cruz, November 2011

 

Photo credit: Larry Colen

Robert Frager Shihan at Aikido of Santa Cruz, November 2011

“Kisshomaru Ueshiba’s stamp on modern aikido,” by Stanley Pranin

“Kisshomaru Ueshiba’s stamp on modern aikido,” by Stanley Pranin

Aikido Journal Online, Mar 27, 2011

"Kisshomaru worked to create an official version of aikido history, starting with his biography of his father titled “Morihei Ueshiba, Founder of Aikido” in 1977. In addition to providing a great deal of previously unpublished material on his father’s life and the early years of aikido, Kisshomaru’s work staked out the official stance of the Aikikai on a number of sensitive historical issues. These included the following:

• the influence of Sokaku Takeda and Daito-ryu Aikijujutsu on the formation of aikido
• a Morihei-centric version of the founder’s involvement in the Omoto religion
• the minimizing of the extensive connections of early aikido to right-wing political and military figures and institutions
• the obscuring of the respective roles of Morihei’s nephew Yoichiro Inoue, Kenji Tomiki and Koichi Tohei in the evolution of the art

...

During the last decade or so of his life, Kisshomaru created conditions whereby political rebels who had sided with Koichi Tohei on his split from the Aikikai could return to the good graces of the mother organization. His attitude of forgiveness where deep-seated wounds lingered will no doubt accrue to his credit on analysis by future aikido historians. Kisshomaru also had the foresight to accept various independent and desenfranchised federations into the Aikikai fold, in those instances where their size and cohesiveness met the necessary criteria."

http://blog.aikidojournal.com/blog/2011/03/27/kisshomaru-ueshibas-stamp-on-modern-aikido-by-stanley-pranin/

Interview with Koichi Tohei

Interview with Koichi Tohei (2): Mind-Body Unification (Shin Shin Toitsu) and Ueshiba Sensei

by Stanley Pranin

Aikido Journal #109 (Fall/Winter 1996)

He also used to say fantastic things like, “The gods became like smoke and entered my body,” and “In all the world, past and present, even among saints and wise men, there has never been anyone who could understand what I say, and even I myself, though I am saying it, do not understand.” Now how in the world were we supposed to make anything of talk like that!?
...




I never paid as much attention to what Sensei said as to what he did. You could ask him all the questions you wanted and never understand his answers. He would just show you and say something to the effect of “It’s done like this.”

http://www.aikidojournal.com/article?articleID=127

Shomenuchi shihonage: Nishio

Nishio Aikido - Vol. 3 - Part 1/4

Shomenuchi shihonage: Yamada Sensei

Aikido Sensei Yoshimitsu Yamada Shihan - 2005 Chile, Santiago - Shomenuchi shihonage

Koichi Tohei Sensei passes at age 91

http://blog.aikidojournal.com/blog/2011/05/19/koichi-tohei-sensei-passes-at-age-91/

Kevin Choate Sensei: Chain Theory.mov

Pranin Sensei on the Legacy of Koichi Tohei Sensei

Koichi Tohei: Ongaeshi - Repayment of Kindness


by Stanley Pranin


Aikido Journal #110 (1996)

http://www.aikidojournal.com/article?articleID=35

Micheline Tissier in Joensuu 2005

7 Suburi by Morihiro Saito Sensei

Morihiro Saito Sensei: kumi tachi 1-3

Miles Kessler Sensei: ki musubi no tachi

Morihiro Saito Sensei 31 kumi jo part 1

Glen Kimoto Sensei in a Bokken demo

Glen Kimoto Sensei in a Live Blade demo

Glen Kimoto Sensei of Aikido of Santa Cruz. There's not a training day that goes by that I don't hear Glen Sensei's words echoing in my head. I've had a lot of great teachers over the years, and it's been several years since I've been a member of Aikido of Santa Cruz, but Glen Sensei has probably had more influence over my training than anyone else.

Morihiro Saito Sensei Jo 31 Mov.

A very clear demo of Jo 31 by the numbers.

Aikido Morihiro Saito Sensei 31 jo kata & kumijo

The soundtrack is bad but the demo is great.

ikeda Aikido Summer Camp in the Rockies 2007

Ikeda Sensei will be at Aikido of Tamalpais this weekend

Kayla Feder and Pat Hendricks Senseis' Pawma demo

An amazing demo by Feder Sensei and Hendricks Sensei:


There is so much to admire in this demo, but one technical aspect that I really appreciate Henrdicks Sensei's throw at 1:52. It's not a move that I see very often, but it seems to be something of a signature of both Feder and Hendricks Senseis. I am wondering if its something they learned from Saito Sensei. In any case, it's one that I'd like to explore.

Here's an important peice of Aikido history in northern California:

Wendy Palmer sensei speaks about the early days of Aikido of Tamalpais

Interview made on May 2, 2006 with Michelle Keip
Transcribed by Michelle, David and Rory Keip
Photographs by Kat Fitzgerald and Jan Watson (www.Jan-ewatson.com)


I particularly like this part of the interview on the benefit of diversity in the dojo:

"People have often said that training at Tam is like training at a seminar because your training partners feel so different - different styles of ukemi, different ways of attacking, different ways of throwing. I think Tam's history has been tremendously enriched by the influence of all these different teachers coming from different places, and also by the many students who come with different approaches to the art. The feeling at Tam has always been that everyone can train the way they are.


Having a basic criteria for kyu tests was a challenge in the later years at Tam. George, Richard and I weren't attending each other's classes that much any more. We had our own lives and we started evolving differently in our own bodies. So when students took kyu tests, for example, they had to make a decision how to do ikkyo. As teachers, each of us did ikkyo differently. The joke was that they might do iriminage for me, ikkyo for George and shihonage for Richard. Sometimes students would say, "This is the third way I've been shown to do this technique, which is the right way?" and we'd always say, "There is no right way. You need to learn all three."

I think for beginning students it was more challenging to train at Tam because there was no right way to do it. I used to say that in the end this would make them much more flexible, and be better aikido students. It would help them be able to go to a seminar and learn and absorb from any teacher that they wanted to. So we really had a very wide variety of - I'll call it styles, I really don't like the word - different ways of doing Aikido at the dojo. I think it's been a great gift to most of the students that they have more flexibility and can absorb from different teachers."

http://www.bujindesign.com/featured_articles/2006_11_article_1.html

Christian Tissier Shihan, Dartford Feb 2011

Aikido The Way of Harmony Part 2

Here is a brilliant clip from a 1988 documentary on Aikido. It includes incredible footage of Doran Sensei as a very man. In the interview Doran Sensei states that he had been training for 21 years, which would mean that the footage was taken in 1980.

Bruce Bookman Sensei:

"The striking attacks in aikido such as shomeuchi, yokomenuchi and tsuki come from Japanese sword traditions. These types of attacks are classical in nature and when practiced with commitment and intent build strong conditioning, timing, responsiveness and most importantly enhance the kokyu-ryoku, the vital life force energy of both uke and nage. It is a good idea to train one's skills at these attacks, however, it's important to keep in mind that the classical aikido attacks have been adapted from swordsmanship and reflect an ancient paradigm of the samurai who fought on the battlefields of feudal Japan. How they trained and fought were influenced by bushido, the ancient Japanese code of chivalry. The type of attack that one may encounter today, in a dark alley is very different. This leaves the aikido practitioner the task of spontaneously adapting their classical training to the situation at hand. It is of course possible but it takes a very talented person to be able to connect the dots in the heat of the moment."

"Bruce Bookman's response to Stan Pranin's article"
http://www.aikidojournal.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=87464#87464

“Even Frankenstein can do Randori,” by Charles Warren
http://www.aikidojournal.com/blog/2010/12/01/even-frankenstein-can-do-randori-by-charles-warren/

Paul Rest with Eddie Frager Sensei

Eddie Frager – A Martial Artist Making a Difference

Paul Rest interviews Eddie Frager Sensei:

“Aikido is, at it's base a physical art, and as a young man the physical side was most important to me.  The physical side of the artis still very important to me - when I teach we do 5 minutes of  warm-ups and 55 minutes of Aikido, with very little talking.  However, just as importantly, Aikido is also about how one moves through the world, how one deals with personal relationships and community."

http://www.examiner.com/martial-arts-in-san-francisco/eddie-frager-a-martial-artist-making-a-difference

Perceptions And Deceptions, by by Stanley Pranin

"The emphases of the various groups run the gamut from the physical and self-defense oriented all the way to the “spiritually” inclined styles for whom technique is of secondary importance. Despite these remarkable differences, I have often encountered a common characteristic in the mentality of the practitioners of these diverse persuasions. I will refer to it as the “true believer” syndrome." 

"Perceptions And Deceptions," by by Stanley Pranin
Aiki News #89 (Fall 1991)
http://www.aikidojournal.com/article?articleID=605

Seigo Yamaguchi A seminar in Paris,1987 profile 山口清吾師範

Seigo Yamaguchi, "A Seminar in Paris"

Tissier Shihan at Aikidobridge 2009

Tissier Shihan at Aikido Bridge 2009

Aikido Christian Tissier - Stage de Pâques 2010 HD

Christian Tissier 2007 part 1

Christian Tissier 2007 Part 2

Christian Tissier 2007 Part 3

Tissier Sensei at Suginami

Kazuo Chiba Sensei (part 2)

Kazuo Chiba Sensei (part 1)

Kazuo Chiba - Madrid, 1975