"Open letter on Daito-ryu Aikijujutsu"

[Zujitsuka]

This is an interesting piece written by an Aikido sensei that is posted on Aikidojournal.com.

Check it out.

http://65.119.177.201/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=10&t=000128

 

[Despairbear]

Interesting, but he comes a little close to a blanket statement of "my kung-fu is stronger than your kung-fu" (add bad dubbing and 1970's hair and clothing). On some points I agree, I have been to Aikido dojo's where the martial has been taken out of the martial art and I feel the art suffers for it. On the other hand Aikdo is on of the most difficult arts I have ever trained in and to become what I would consiter profecient could take 10 years. At the end of that time what you have gained is well worth the wait as you now have the power of choise when it comes to defending yourself from an attacker. At one end you can destroy them with their own energy (damn that sounds almost spiritual) and on the other end you can crontroll them without any harm to them at all. Any time you take something vital out of an art the art suffers, take a look at the "non-contact" karate, or something like tai-bo packaged as a martial art. I feel we must always rememeber that we are training in MARTIAL arts, the arts of war. They are physicaly dangerous and not very politicly correct in todays world, but theyare what they are and to change them into something safer and nicer is to destroy them.......in my opinion.



Despair Bear