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Woody
13th July 2006, 04:21
Ten of the best years of my life were spent on the beautiful island of Okinawa. I miss it soo much.

ryukyu2000
15th July 2006, 04:19
Ricky san:

What period were you there and if you trained who with?

Thanks.

Andy Morris
Delmar, NY USA

Woody
15th July 2006, 04:25
Ricky san:

What period were you there and if you trained who with?

Thanks.

Andy Morris
Delmar, NY USA
From 1988 to 1998.
I trained under Iwao Yamaguchi Sensei of Okinawa Aikikai.

Katsujinken
15th July 2006, 13:29
Rick,

I am very interested in the relationship between Aikido and Karate in Okinawa, and how the likes of Seikichi Uehara and his Motobu Udun Ti was perceieved by the Aikido community and the link between the Seitoku Higa's Bugeikan and the Aikido that is taught there. Do you have any knowledge of this?

Regards

DustyMars
13th August 2006, 00:04
Ten of the best years of my life were spent on the beautiful island of Okinawa. I miss it soo much.

Just yesterday morning while sitting at this PC and thinking about the time I spent on Okinawa I too miss it in a way. Memories of the island are now very foggy since I left there in July 1962. Wow, I can hardly count than far back! :) :rolleyes:

I did lots of Judo there and some karate too. Wonder where all my Budo friends and sensei are now. Hum, my two karate sensei have passed on.

Yeah, it is so long ago I would not even recognize it. That's the good thing about never going back to a plac, you always have the same fond memories. :p

TimJurgens
30th August 2006, 16:40
I begain Yoshinkan Aikido in Okinawa in 1994 after having been a Shorinryu Ni Dan since 1988. About half the students in the Aikido class were Karate Yudansha. When someone threw a punch it was a good idea to be able to flow with the movement. All of that experience really added to the class in my opinion. On the other hand most like myself also left after a period of time as there are only so many hours in the day and we had found our first love in an art other than Aikido. Also many people wanted the experience in Aiki to better understand their Karate and were not intending to become high ranking Aikidosei.

The classes tend to focus on what the teacher is teaching. They are aware of other groups around, in fact Senaha Sensei's main teacher is Kai Sensei who is well advanced in Goju, Judo, Iaido, Jodo, and Shodo and often mixes some Kyusho into his atemi waza. Unfortunately he was in Kyushu most of the time so I rarely was able to see him teach. Other than what Kai Sensei was doing though most Karate ka will use a soft art to better understand their bunkai and some Aikido sei will explore Karate to improve their atemi waza. Not much is done with Uchinan Di in regards to the two Aikido groups I have observed here on the island. Others may be more open to the idea of mixing but I am not aware of any.

Honestly most westeners are more open to cross training than most Japanese. Of course that is a general statement and there are exceptions to the rule but tradition and keeping things uniform have stronger reverberations here than most other places in the world.

Woody
30th August 2006, 17:29
I begain Yoshinkan Aikido in Okinawa in 1994
There was an aikido class that trained at the Okinawa Prefectural Budokan facility. Often times we would take "half" the mat space and the other aikido class would take the other "half." I'm not sure if they were Yoshinkan or not. Was that you?

TimJurgens
31st August 2006, 16:55
Yes it was.

Sometimes there was a Jujitsu club that would train in the middle as well.

Woody
31st August 2006, 17:33
What a beautiful facility the Budokan is. Have seen nothing like it since returning to America.

TimJurgens
4th September 2006, 15:56
It was gratifying to see so many different classes going on at the same time. Most places people's egos will not allow them to share a public floor like that. I have seen a guy teaching 2 people on a basket ball court run off a group of other people who wanted to train because he had the floor reserved. It has happened to me in fact. I have never begrudged somone else a spot on the floor if they want to train even if I am teaching a class. If they can do something better than me then I ask them to show it to the class. My friend Rob Rousselout can attest to that fact.

I figure we are all trying to get better each session so why would I deny someone an opportunity to improve themselves, or possibly improve me?

Woody
4th September 2006, 22:16
At one time, Okinawa Aikikai shared floor space with a ballroom dance class. :)

Victor Smith
10th September 2006, 20:25
You can return to Okinawa in a keystroke.

Check out www.OkinawaBBTV.com

It's superb.

Woody
10th September 2006, 23:56
Thanks for the link Victor! :)

ScottUK
11th September 2006, 00:27
Ah bugger. I read the title of this thread to be 'Miss Okinawa'... thought there was a beauty contest on. :)

Victor Smith
11th September 2006, 02:46
Well Scott,

If you search out OkinawaBBTV you'll see they do beach interviews with young women.

Which of course is only something Okinawans might do I guess?

Perhaps it will help tide you over.

Either that or the Okinawn Rock.

ScottUK
11th September 2006, 09:54
Hehe cheers for that.

What's Okinawa like for tourists?

(not linking beach babes with a tourist interest, though... :) )

Victor Smith
14th September 2006, 10:55
OkinawaBBtv.com is for tourists, but at the same time not.

What I see it as is a public newsletter on Okinawa.

What's happening at the fair, at the kid's recital, at the public festivals.

Sharing a view of their arts, of many sorts not just 'martial', of their recreation, and yes even the girls on the beach.

Have you found the historical material on the invasion of Okinawa?

In the USA it's the equivalent of a good regional/state public brodcasting station trying to really share the area the viewers live in.

And it's on the net, where we can go and browse at anytime.

Instead of reading about Okinawan Sumo, we can watch some matches (wish I was a lot younger, it looks like fun). And we can watch various Okinawan's performing and demonstrating karate from their perspective.

Nothing of it is fully inclusive. In karate the've been taking a movie on Matsubayshi offshoot Kashiba juku and breaking the movie down into smaller pieces, but it's detail you rarely see, whether you practice that version or not.

Most of us cannot travel there, but I really think this site shares Okinawa better than anyway I've seen.

Now bring on some Okinawan Rock - I'm not sure if it's still on there but I really like the Band "Stinky Hole".. proving where my tastes lie I guess.

Then again..