Daito-ryu Training and Transmission

[zlarin]

Hello all,
My question today involves the differences in training among the different Daito-Ryu schools, specifically a Daibukan affiliated dojo (lineage is traced through Kenkichi Ohgami and Takuma Hisa) versus other Daito-Ryu instruction. I am soon going to begin training in a dojo with said lineage, and was just wondering what more experienced practicioners of DRAJJ would say about such a school versus others.

On a complete side note, the same dojo also has an Aikido class training there regularly, so I was considering training in Aikido also. Any thoughts?

I look forward to your responses
Best Regards,

[Nathan Scott]

Mr. Vukorepa,

These are good questions. They are also subjects that have been discussed here at length:

The Various Daito-ryu Branches (http://www.e-budo.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8943)

Aikido & Daito-ryu: Differences and Similarities?/ Rengokai (http://www.e-budo.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1948)

Aikijujutsu vs Aikido:

http://www.e-budo.com/forum/showthread.php?42130-Aikijujutsu-vs-Aikido

This whole forum is an archive of compiled threads. There are many other threads that you might find informative if you use the search function or browse through the pages. Feel free to revive an old thread if there is something you'd like to add.

Regards,

[zlarin]

Nathan,

Thank you very much for the informative threads. It seems I have a bit of studying to do.

Best Regards,

[Ames]

Just to add a quick note.

If you have never studied Aikido or DRAJJ before, I would advise against taking the two arts together. Choose one or the other. Doing both, while perhaps making your Aikido more 'combative', will negatively effect your Daito Ryu training. The body movements are diffirent in each art, and when it comes to Daito Ryu, having proper movement is key (it's not a strength based art).

I'm not sure where I stand on the whole crosstraining before shodan issue, but either way, the movements are diffirent, yet similar enough to confuse and frustrate you.

That's it. Enjoy the reading.

Chris

[Cliff Judge]

MERGED FROM ANOTHER THREAD - NS


The irony is, I suspect, is that the skill was all in the aiki, the internal training - the instructions for which don't seem to come up in the written curriculum. That's the part that must be transmitted person-to-person. Once it's inculcated, then you can take jujutsu, weapons, striking, etc. from wherever and whatever and apply those mechanical skills with aiki as the source of power.

What Sagawa talked about the most (and is all over Kimura's book) was his own solo training. That was not jujutsu.

Yeah, this is the story. Takeda received training that was deep and wide, polished himself with a long and grueling musha shugyo, and then went on the road teach an art called Daito ryu to thousands of students. When really, the true art was a secret that he taught to only a few students, and insisted that they be careful to only teach it to a very few of their students. And so today we have millions of people training in various descendants of Takeda's Daito ryu that are training in something that is empty and not the real art.

This is a horrible story. One of the worst things about it is the idea it plants in your head that you've wasted your years of training. If this is the case, nobody should bother training any aiki art.

Every art has something like aiki - inner secrets that are reserved for the soke or shihans that are given to them after years of training, not before. Most students know they will never receive those particular teachings, because they are not on track to be a successor or receive a full license. But they trust that their training is immensely valuable anyway. In the old days, you had to give your people skills that they could use to survive fights. If they died because you were withholding the secrets, you wouldn't get students anymore. So there was a built-in guarantee of integrity.

There is always this little voice in the back of your head telling you that Takeda had sort of a "there's a sucker born every minute" attitude and he was purposely selling BS. He'd get up on stage and use his aiki power to generate some technique on the spot. Then he'd rake in the money as everyone paid him three yen to learn it, then he'd laugh as he imagined them going back to their homes and practicing these useless little dances over and over again like little clockwork toys! In the meantime, he'd teach solo exercises and aiki to Ueshiba, Sagawa, Horikawa, etc, telling them that they should only pass this on to a few.

Further down the line, you get all of this bitterness, disrespect, and factionalization. You get a huge perceived value in these secrets. People trying to scheme the rights of succession away from people they've trained alongside for decades. People breaking oaths they made to teachers.

I re-read a thread on here from a decade ago where Wayne Muramoto.was talking about how Takenouchi ryu has always been taught at one dojo in Okayama prefecture, but there was a branching that allowed the art to be taught in some other dojos in Okayama, and then the Bichu den broke off and spread all around Japan and other parts of the world. By the 70s and 80s people from the Bichu den found out about the home dojo and - what did they do? Insist they were the real school and those people in Okayama were nobodys? Nope, they started building relationships with the home branch, everybody getting together to train together and share notes on what they were doing, to bring the art together and make it better.

Maybe that's just a jujutsu thing.

[Nathan Scott]

You know, Sokaku and Daito-ryu keep getting a bad rap in regards to the holding back of transmission to students. I really disagree. From my observation, Daito-ryu is hard to learn for three reasons:

1) It is hard to find legitimate orthodox instruction. Even when you do, you still have the typical issues of whether the dojo is appropriate and whether the teacher is appropriate and of good character. This issue is nobody's fault - it's just harder to find legitimate instruction in classical arts.

2) Daito-ryu is more to difficult to learn than many other arts - especially gendai arts, because it is unusually sophisticated, and contains deep teachings that take years of correct repetitive training and introspection to grasp. This requires that the student be serious minded about training and intellectual in regards to analyzing the teachings. Martial arts isn't for everyone to begin with, but Daito-ryu requires even more attention and sacrifice than most arts. This lowers the number of long-term serious students significantly, and doesn't even take in to account other elements, such as natural ability, opportunity, etc. Those that only want the quick basics of how to fight would be better off going to a krav maga dojo, or boxing. Classical arts are designed for long-term training.

3) Daito-ryu has a history of secrecy, and most orthodox branches are still conservative to varying degrees about releasing inner teachings to those not properly initiated. This means that, in some cases at least, the student knows little about the specifics of the art until they reach the appropriate level of initiation. However, they still learn the skills through correct repetitive training, but they just understand little of the structure or the art and where the teachings are going for the first few years. This means that studying Daito-ryu requires more patience than most arts, as well as trust that your instructor is of good character and is concerned about passing on the art to future generations (ie: serious students). Most students these days are not much on patience or perseverance. This issue is the result of the historical context of the art, and if the art didn't have this kind of history, then it wouldn't be as deep or sophisticated as it is. So, oh well.

**

The three reasons I list, which are of course just my opinion, are not the fault of the art, or (most) its teachers. It simply just is what it is. But it does mean that there are even less serious exponents of the art than can be found in other traditional Japanese arts right now, of which can usually be counted on one hand for each dojo.

When it comes to koryu arts, they all have levels of initiation and inner teachings. In such arts, students cannot be said to truly "understand" the art until they have received the full teachings. They may understand a lot, or most of the art, and they can certainly become powerful & skilled fighters *regardless* of whether they have received the full teachings or not. But koryu arts teach in steps, through deepening levels of initiation, unlike most gendai arts, which tend to simply teach more advanced methods based on the speed that you learn.

In Daito-ryu, aiki is an important element to improving the effectiveness and reliability of the techniques. Looking at the scrolls, the term "aiki" is not mentioned anywhere in the Hiden Mokuroku, but is mentioned starting in the scrolls that follow. So it is not correct to state that the teachings of aiki are reserved for one or two students. They are reserved for those who have already received the first level of initiation (traditionally). This also means that aiki is not even reserved as a "gokui", or, highest level of teaching. Just the second level (!) However, being exposed to aiki, and understanding what it is, or how to use it, is going to vary case by case. But even Sokaku said it was easy to steal the secrets if you knew what to look for, right? If you are a student of good character, who conducts themselves appropriately, and you study under a teacher of good character, then the only reason you won't understand or become skilled at inner teachings such as aiki (in most cases) is because of YOU!! Nobody can make a student skilled - the student must do their own work. Even in modern arts, the teacher's job is still to simply guide them along the way - not force feed them and try to do the work for them.

As I've said a few times already, Sokaku taught a lot of people throughout Japan through conducting seminars. There was no dojo to go train at. Those that wanted to continue learning had to make significant sacrifices to make it happen, much like being a study group leader today. While Sokaku, and many other classical teachers, believed that it was not good to spread the inner teachings of their art to widely, what they are really saying is to not be indiscriminate about who you teach, and to what level you teach them. Anyone who teaches "old school" (non-verbal instruction) knows that it takes A LOT of discipline to not just explain to struggling students how to do everything. In other words, it's not that you are scared others are going to learn your secrets, it's simply that there are very few students of good character who are patient, skilled, intellectually minded, and willing to make the effort necessary to learn such an art. The teacher can only guide them and hope they stick with it long enough to become an asset for the art to future generations by *learning it correctly*.

As an example, during an entrance interview, I had a new student ask me why he should believe that, of all the people who have studied the art in the past - but failed to learn the ultimate teachings or develop the ultimate skills, he would be one of the very small percentage that would (ie: how do I know I'm not just wasting my time). I told him that as long as he proved to be a person of good character, conducted himself appropriately, and put forth the effort necessary, I would do everything I could to ensure that he progressed in the art. I told him the reason the majority of people fail to reach the ultimate teachings or skills is either due to: poor character and/or behavior; insufficient efforts to learn; quitting; unqualified instruction; or choosing an instructor of poor character or skill level. It was up to him to decide if I was the right teacher for him, but if so, he needed to place some faith and trust in me to do my part. He is still training after 8 years, and has progressed at a faster speed (skill-wise and initiation wise) than the majority of students I've had to date, most of which have quit within the first year of training.

In any event, I really don't believe that Sokaku would have traveled throughout Japan, innovating a honbu/branch system that either didn't exist yet or was in the process of being developed by a handful of other teachers, if he didn't want to see the art continued. I believe he simply wanted the right people to represent the art. The fact that only a few reach the ultimate levels of any art or could skilfully apply aiki, has more to do with the lack of qualified instruction and the exceptional level of effort that is required, IMO. But aside from the first three points I listed at the beginning of this post, Daito-ryu is not all that different from any other koryu art being taught as far as transmission, and aiki in particular is not reserved for those only at the top.

Martial arts are designed to be effective and useful from the first day of practice. The longer you study, the more effective the techniques become. Hell, even in Aikido, you apply atemi as necessary at the lower levels of instruction, then discontinue using atemi once the techniques evolve to a higher level. But the techniques are still effective at both levels, right? I've had more than one former student contact me to say that a method that I teach starting from the first day of practice ended up being useful to them in a real situation. I don't think they felt cheated that they didn't stick around to receive the ultimate teachings.

I guess this ended up turning into a bit of a rant - sorry. It's not directed at anyone in particular, just something that's become a pet peeve I guess. :)

Regards,

[Nathan Scott]

BTW, one last thing.

While there are a lot of people in a lot of branches or arts that claim some level of connection to Daito-ryu (ie: aiki), this is a perfect example of what I was just talking about.

You've got a lot of demand for the art, but little (fully) qualified instruction in the orthodox teachings. This is because it can't be taught quickly or recklessly. As such, there are countless arts that claim to teach aiki, aikibudo, aikijujutsu, aiki no jutsu, or some brand of Daito-ryu, that cannot provide the full teachings to their students. That, I agree, is sad. Instructors of such arts should qualify their teachings appropriately, and students in turn should research their art/instructor appropriately before applying for membership. Unfortunately, neither happen enough.

It's too bad that there is so much interest in aiki and Daito-ryu, but so few people who are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to learn the art and be a part of it's preservation. It ain't just the headmaster that is responsible for the transmission of these arts. :)

Regards,

[Cliff Judge]

I agree, it seems absurd that Takeda would have kept rolls of all of his hundreds/thousands of students if he didn't want his art to be transmitted. And as a man who had been in many serious fights with skilled opponents, I cannot see why he would want his art to spread such that you would need to learn the inner secrets before it was any good.

So while I understand that Sagawa put great stock into his solo training for conditioning himself in a certain way, if that was really the key to the art, then that is what Takeda and all of his primary students would have emphasized.

The problem is - and I apologize for shooting from the hip here instead of waiting until sometime when I have my books handy - you've got these quotes from Sagawa and others (Horikawa, I think, and someone else in Pranin's book) that Takeda warned them to only teach the secrets to a select few and never in public because, to paraphrase, "they are very easy to pick up and steal."

(Actually what is kind of interesting to me - Tokimune doesn't seem to have said anything like this. And Ueshiba has a doka in "Budo Renshu" that specifically says, don't hold out for secret teachings, those will get you nowhere).

My point is, if one is starting to doubt their (usually Aikido) training, but is still a "believer" and is looking for a shortcut or a "smarter bet," there is plenty of solid, accepted evidence for them to believe they've been on the wrong track and that they need to find someone that will lay these secrets out for them or they will never get anywhere. And there are people who are prepared to sell to this market.

[Cady Goldfield]

All it takes for an art to be transmitted to the next generation, is to teach one person, maybe two or three, and instruct them to do the same. Everyone else may get varying degrees of the art's innermost skills.

This is not unique to Japanese koryu and para-koryu (I just made that up to provide a category for Daito-ryu ;) ); it's rife in the Chinese martial arts. I have heard and read it directly from inheritors of arts, themselves, that they were the appointed heir of the entire art, and that they were to select only one or two successors to receive the entire art.

Fortunately, some are much more generous with their arts than this. I think that not all art/system-holders intentionally transmit everything they can transmit to just one or two; rather, I believe that often that's just how things happen because it takes a huge amount of dedication, drive and desire to Do The Work. Even disciples may not grasp their teacher's entire system because they don't have the deep-down drive or energy.

In a sense, it's a meme that mimics the "prime directive" of life itself -- to replace oneself. That's why we have children - to pass on our innermost selves to a new generation. But some people have just one or two children. Others may have 8 (Octomom!) or more. Both have fulfilled their primal genetic obligation to transmit their DNA to future lineage holders.

[Nathan Scott]

(snip)


My point is, if one is starting to doubt their (usually Aikido) training, but is still a "believer" and is looking for a shortcut or a "smarter bet," there is plenty of solid, accepted evidence for them to believe they've been on the wrong track and that they need to find someone that will lay these secrets out for them or they will never get anywhere. And there are people who are prepared to sell to this market.

Yeah, I realize there is definitely no shortage of "instant aiki" out there. I don't study aikido as seriously as other arts I'm studying these days, but I can say that I spend a significant amount of time translating original Japanese texts into English so that I can better understand these arts. The sad thing with Aikido is that the founder wrote and spoke often about the secrets of his art, but the native Japanese (for the most part) didn't bother to research the real meaning of things they didn't understand, and those in the Western world were provided with loose translations of the material that in some places greatly missed the essence of the art. Only recently have a handful or students begun to re-translate and research the meaning of his words, almost 50 years later. Why did it take so long for someone to check the source material and research the meaning??? Again, even in Aikido it is incumbent on the student to put forth some effort to learn outside of waiting for the next instruction.

The problem is, most people are satisfied with simply knowing what the secrets are. This is an age of instant gratification, and knowing the answers satisfies curiosity, and allows practitioners to feel better about their rank/experience since they now become in a position to explain it to others. But real ability at such skills still takes a lot of effort and dedication, even if someone already explained all the secrets to you. Secondly, traditionally teachers are somewhat slow to initiate people through a deep system such as Daito-ryu for two reasons. First, the teacher & student need to develop a relationship based on trust, which takes a number of years. Anyone can be on good behavior for a few years (I've seen it many times), but eventually they will get tired of acting nice, and will show their true colors. This is something any teacher would want to know prior to trusting a student with the inner secrets. Also, knowledge (and skill) is power, and power corrupts. The biggest downfall in a "powerful" art such as Daito-ryu is that it is very easy to develop an inflated ego. The only way to prevent this is to taper the speed of initiation for some students - as necessary, based on observation - to ensure it doesn't go to their head. A few walk in the door so humble they don't require this, since they self-regulate. But many do, and once a student develops a big ego they will discontinue learning, and will "go the wrong way" with the art (sell out). As such, it is in the student's best interest to deepen their initiation into the secrets in a controlled manner to avoid this *major* pitfall. There is a reason why the art is/was taught this way.

Personally, every time I've tried to find a better way of teaching such arts, I've come to the realization that the old way is in fact still the best. I've proven this, to myself at least, through teaching in various ways to my own students over the last 20 years. I started off teaching using a typical modern way, and have "evolved" to the old way, which is much harder to do, but produces stronger martial artists.

And finally, Cady said what I was alluding to using too many words. I believe the low numbers of those receiving the ultimate teachings and skills in arts such as this are more due to the effort required than in a teacher insisting on only teaching 1 or 2 students. I find it hard to believe that if Sokaku had 10 students who were all skilled and qualified to receive Menkyo Kaiden, that he would not issue 10 Menkyo Kaiden. The problem is, good luck finding 10 people who will commit the amount of effort necessary to get there! I maintain that the 1 or 2 comment was meant as a warning to not teach indiscriminately.

Regards,

[Cliff Judge]

Personally, every time I've tried to find a better way of teaching such arts, I've come to the realization that the old way is in fact still the best. I've proven this, to myself at least, through teaching in various ways to my own students over the last 20 years. I started off teaching using a typical modern way, and have "evolved" to the old way, which is much harder to do, but produces stronger martial artists.

It makes a lot of sense to me. I've been active with the Aikido Schools of Ueshiba for about 11 years, the method of transmission essentially involves Sensei showing you something once and then everybody works on it and tries to figure it out. If there are 60 people on the mat there will be 60 different things being worked on for that two-five minute span. You learn how to "feel" your way through things, but you are still in a lake at night trying to swim towards shore. I think there are a lot of very positive things about this method but it is not about creating a consistent type and quality of practitioner. (It is very reminiscent of stories of how Takeda taught at certain points, particularly at the Asahi dojo, though.)

A lot of people in my Aikido organization have been into Systema since Stan Pranin had those guys out to the Aiki Expos. Rather than the spontaneous kata of the ASU instructors, those folks like to create these drills that are sort of puzzles that you need to figure out how to make work yourself. So there is more "feeling your way through" and less attempting to fit a form.

I think a lot of folks in gendai budo misunderstand how deep and complex paired kata training is. If the kata is sufficiently well developed such that the senior practitioner or instructor can carefully adjust the intensity and general goals of the kata, you can get years of practice out of a single one, just continually peeling back layers, and improving basic skills.

The other thing about kata is that it really seems to be the best way to teach truly nasty, damaging techniques. This goes against current conventional wisdom - how could it possibly be good to make sure the receiver of a technique attacks in a very specific, scripted manner? A real opponent is not going to do that. But you need that so you can practice safely. if you need to learn how to apply specific pressure to a specific point after a very specific kuzushi has been established, you can't just have your uke coming in from whatever direction they want, you will never "feel your way" into the proper technique. Also, say you want to practice gouging someone's eyes, or snapping their neck. You can modify the technique such that you aren't actually maiming or killing your training partner, but you can practice visualization of what you would really be doing - but again, if you have to deal with a constantly changing attack, it is going to be much more difficult to use the visualization to install the proper technique because your body is going to be doing a variety of other things.

If you had asked me six or seven years ago if I would be preaching the superiority of paired kata training over freestyle practice I'd have looked at you funny but as I've gotten more traditional in my training I've found nothing to dislike at all. (Well, I kind of dislike some kata I have encountered in jujutsu systems where uke makes an attack and then just stands there doing nothing as you execute three or four quick techniques on them, but I might get over that...)

[Chris Li]

Yeah, this is the story. Takeda received training that was deep and wide, polished himself with a long and grueling musha shugyo, and then went on the road teach an art called Daito ryu to thousands of students. When really, the true art was a secret that he taught to only a few students, and insisted that they be careful to only teach it to a very few of their students. And so today we have millions of people training in various descendants of Takeda's Daito ryu that are training in something that is empty and not the real art.

This is a horrible story. One of the worst things about it is the idea it plants in your head that you've wasted your years of training. If this is the case, nobody should bother training any aiki art.

Every art has something like aiki - inner secrets that are reserved for the soke or shihans that are given to them after years of training, not before. Most students know they will never receive those particular teachings, because they are not on track to be a successor or receive a full license. But they trust that their training is immensely valuable anyway. In the old days, you had to give your people skills that they could use to survive fights. If they died because you were withholding the secrets, you wouldn't get students anymore. So there was a built-in guarantee of integrity.

There is always this little voice in the back of your head telling you that Takeda had sort of a "there's a sucker born every minute" attitude and he was purposely selling BS. He'd get up on stage and use his aiki power to generate some technique on the spot. Then he'd rake in the money as everyone paid him three yen to learn it, then he'd laugh as he imagined them going back to their homes and practicing these useless little dances over and over again like little clockwork toys! In the meantime, he'd teach solo exercises and aiki to Ueshiba, Sagawa, Horikawa, etc, telling them that they should only pass this on to a few.

Further down the line, you get all of this bitterness, disrespect, and factionalization. You get a huge perceived value in these secrets. People trying to scheme the rights of succession away from people they've trained alongside for decades. People breaking oaths they made to teachers.

I re-read a thread on here from a decade ago where Wayne Muramoto.was talking about how Takenouchi ryu has always been taught at one dojo in Okayama prefecture, but there was a branching that allowed the art to be taught in some other dojos in Okayama, and then the Bichu den broke off and spread all around Japan and other parts of the world. By the 70s and 80s people from the Bichu den found out about the home dojo and - what did they do? Insist they were the real school and those people in Okayama were nobodys? Nope, they started building relationships with the home branch, everybody getting together to train together and share notes on what they were doing, to bring the art together and make it better.

Maybe that's just a jujutsu thing.

It could be a jujutsu thing - except nasty stories in the traditional martial arts, including jujutsu, are more common than I can count. It's a human thing, that's all.

Of course, the story may be horrible - that has nothing to do with whether or not there's any truth to it. As Cady noted, it's an old story, common all the way back to China.

IMO, if people are of the character to "scheme the rights of succession away from people they've trained alongside for decades" (and I'm not convinced that is happening anywhere) - they'd do that anyway, wouldn't they? In any case, even Morihei Ueshiba himself is not on ground that is all that firm in that respect.

Best,

Chris

[Cliff Judge]

IMO, if people are of the character to "scheme the rights of succession away from people they've trained alongside for decades" (and I'm not convinced that is happening anywhere) - they'd do that anyway, wouldn't they? In any case, even Morihei Ueshiba himself is not on ground that is all that firm in that respect.


Perhaps, but in an art where it is understood that you are going to receive "regular training" and not get the secrets unless you are chosen successor, you don't attract as many people of that character.

But I was referring to the succession controversy of mainline Daito ryu anyway. Probably overstating the issue of training alongside people.

But really, there are huge differences between making a break from a teacher and an art and moving in your own direction, or disregarding oaths that state you are not allowed to teach unless certified to do so, or claiming you are the rightful successor of some school while knowing you are not, or leaving a school and setting up your own dojo and claiming you are the one who really understands and can teach the secrets of the school you left.

Ueshiba broke with Daito ryu and his son continued the break, and the typical reason why some Aikido people hate this is because it means they are further away from those valuable secrets.

[Chris Li]

Perhaps, but in an art where it is understood that you are going to receive "regular training" and not get the secrets unless you are chosen successor, you don't attract as many people of that character.

But I was referring to the succession controversy of mainline Daito ryu anyway. Probably overstating the issue of training alongside people.

But really, there are huge differences between making a break from a teacher and an art and moving in your own direction, or disregarding oaths that state you are not allowed to teach unless certified to do so, or claiming you are the rightful successor of some school while knowing you are not, or leaving a school and setting up your own dojo and claiming you are the one who really understands and can teach the secrets of the school you left.

Ueshiba broke with Daito ryu and his son continued the break, and the typical reason why some Aikido people hate this is because it means they are further away from those valuable secrets.

Personally, I think that, secrets or no secrets, the mainline Daito-ryu splits would have happened anyway. It's a pretty typical pattern in that kind of an organization.

I'm not sure that I know any Aikido people who hate the break because they're further from the "secrets" - if that were true than they'd just switch to Daito-ryu (some people have, but not in any large numbers).

More commonly, I find that people hate to see the implication of questionable behavior in someone who has traditionally been made out to be beyond approach.

Also, many people dislike finding out that what they had always been told was a unique and original creation is somewhat less than that. That doesn't lessen the value of what it is, of course, except perhaps in perception.

FWIW...

Best,

Chris

[Cliff Judge]

Personally, I think that, secrets or no secrets, the mainline Daito-ryu splits would have happened anyway. It's a pretty typical pattern in that kind of an organization.

What do you mean by "that kind of an organization" and what are other examples you can give of this "typical pattern?"

I disagree entirely. If Daito ryu didn't have layers of secrets to Aiki and the concept that they can be transmitted from teacher to student, I don't see the succession issues as happening.



I'm not sure that I know any Aikido people who hate the break because they're further from the "secrets" - if that were true than they'd just switch to Daito-ryu (some people have, but not in any large numbers).

Seriously? I mean....seriously? To both sentences.

[Chris Li]

What do you mean by "that kind of an organization" and what are other examples you can give of this "typical pattern?"

Well, the Japanese vertical organization. It happened in Aikido too, to a lesser degree, because Kisshomaru was somewhat more established. It's pretty common in Japanese organizations when the central unifying figure disappears and there's no clear replacement.



Seriously? I mean....seriously? To both sentences.

Well, yes (I guess, but you only quoted one sentence, so I'm not clear on what you mean), what's your point?

Best,

Chris

[Cliff Judge]

Well, yes (I guess, but you only quoted one sentence, so I'm not clear on what you mean), what's your point?


Clauses, sorry. It has been a huge and powerful strain of thought in the Aikido community for years that when Ueshiba left Daito ryu, the art became watered down, not martial, a dance, etc. Even before it was mainstream knowledge that Aikido is a descendant of Daito ryu, there was much pining for the "pre-war AIkido" and "hard-style Aikido."

It is a fact that a number of Daito ryu and ex-Daito ryu instructors are making specific efforts to teach the Aikido community, and Aikido people are hopping onto planes and making these connections. This is different than folks who are switching to Daito ryu or cross-training in Daito ryu. It is weird that I am even typing this sentence.

[Chris Li]

Clauses, sorry. It has been a huge and powerful strain of thought in the Aikido community for years that when Ueshiba left Daito ryu, the art became watered down, not martial, a dance, etc. Even before it was mainstream knowledge that Aikido is a descendant of Daito ryu, there was much pining for the "pre-war AIkido" and "hard-style Aikido."

It is a fact that a number of Daito ryu and ex-Daito ryu instructors are making specific efforts to teach the Aikido community, and Aikido people are hopping onto planes and making these connections. This is different than folks who are switching to Daito ryu or cross-training in Daito ryu. It is weird that I am even typing this sentence.

The people pining for "pre-war AIkido" and "hard-style Aikido." are mostly looking to follow Ueshiba, not Takeda - the proof is that there has been no mass exodus to Daito-ryu.

As to making connections with Daito-ryu and ex-Daito ryu instructors - I don't particularly see anything wrong (or even odd) about seeking other sources of technical input if you're having trouble getting something. Ueshiba did the same thing himself.

Best,

Chris

[Cliff Judge]

The people pining for "pre-war AIkido" and "hard-style Aikido." are mostly looking to follow Ueshiba, not Takeda - the proof is that there has been no mass exodus to Daito-ryu.

As to making connections with Daito-ryu and ex-Daito ryu instructors - I don't particularly see anything wrong (or even odd) about seeking other sources of technical input if you're having trouble getting something. Ueshiba did the same thing himself.

Best,

Chris

Right, because you pine for pre-war Aikido, and then you realize that pre-war Aikido was Daito ryu, and there are instructors and ex-instructors of Daito ryu available to instruct you. :cry:

[Chris Li]

Right, because you pine for pre-war Aikido, and then you realize that pre-war Aikido was Daito ryu, and there are instructors and ex-instructors of Daito ryu available to instruct you. :cry:

I'm not especially pining for pre-war Aikido, what I do is mostly influenced by Seigo Yamaguchi.

That doesn't mean that I don't take good information where I can find it.

Best,

Chris

[Cady Goldfield]

Perhaps what is being coveted is the aiki body method that informed Ueshiba's and pre-war Aikido, which he acquired from Takeda and Daito-ryu. It's not all about (or, at least, should be all about) the curriculum of techniques, which, for Takeda, M. Ueshiba, Sagawa, et al., served as vehicles for the expression of aiki power. Technique is technique, whether it's Daito-ryu jujutsu or Aikido jujutsu, and it's too easy to get distracted by technique when the focus should be on what drives technique.

[Kendoguy9]

Recently certain groups have been focusing deeply on various training methods to "super charge" their aikido or Daito-ryu. Most of these drills are either solo drills or partner drills (unique from kata practice). We've seen folks take a great deal from Chinese arts and integrate what works for them into their aikido. Now we have this distinction between technique driven aikido and solo training aikido. The same with some Daito-ryu splinter groups. One group collects kata like baseball cards another group pushes on each other and does odd exercises til blue in the face. A ryu is so much more than a series of training methods or joint locks. I feel like both camps seem to miss the forest for the trees. One of my guys just came back from Japan from a gasshuku. He is now starting to understand what being part of a ryu means and it is so much bigger than he expected the first time he asked me to train.

Just my 2 cents.

[Chris Li]

Recently certain groups have been focusing deeply on various training methods to "super charge" their aikido or Daito-ryu. Most of these drills are either solo drills or partner drills (unique from kata practice). We've seen folks take a great deal from Chinese arts and integrate what works for them into their aikido. Now we have this distinction between technique driven aikido and solo training aikido. The same with some Daito-ryu splinter groups. One group collects kata like baseball cards another group pushes on each other and does odd exercises til blue in the face. A ryu is so much more than a series of training methods or joint locks. I feel like both camps seem to miss the forest for the trees. One of my guys just came back from Japan from a gasshuku. He is now starting to understand what being part of a ryu means and it is so much bigger than he expected the first time he asked me to train.

Just my 2 cents.

Of course, Aikido is not really a Ryu in the classical sense.

It could be argued that the same holds true for Daito-ryu, although I think that many of the successors of Sokaku Takeda have tried to, basically speaking, create a Ryu based on Takeda. Some of people's opinion about that will depend on what you believe about the history of Daito-ryu.

Best,

Chris

[Nathan Scott]

[Post deleted by user]

[Chris Li]

Interestingly, Daito-ryu focuses on techniques, rather than kata. This is something that is mostly found in the oldest of the koryu arts. Of course there is a framework (kata) around these techniques, but the techniques are the actual transmission. Also, some of the oldest koryu have conditioning elements built into their kata, largely negating the need for solo training. In any event, it appears to me at least that all the answers already exist within Aikido and Daito-ryu. The problem, IMO, isn't a lack of clear structure, but rather a lack of sufficient and proper initiation into these arts.

I've trained with some of the top guns in both arts - and I disagree, but YMMV.

Best,

Chris

[Nathan Scott]

[Post deleted by user]

[Cliff Judge]

Perhaps what is being coveted is the aiki body method that informed Ueshiba's and pre-war Aikido, which he acquired from Takeda and Daito-ryu. It's not all about (or, at least, should be all about) the curriculum of techniques, which, for Takeda, M. Ueshiba, Sagawa, et al., served as vehicles for the expression of aiki power. Technique is technique, whether it's Daito-ryu jujutsu or Aikido jujutsu, and it's too easy to get distracted by technique when the focus should be on what drives technique.

The techniques served as vehicles for teaching and transmitting the "aiki body method." But of course the "aiki body method" wasn't the real point either, the point was to be a different kind of person.

[Cady Goldfield]

I can't think of any human institution or organization that has not split off into myriad branches over time. That's just human nature. If it weren't we wouldn't need more than one school, nation, branch, or church of anything. Sooner or later, someone is going to have a different take on what he or she was taught, and will take it in another direction. Why would Daito-ryu be any different?

[Chris Li]

The techniques served as vehicles for teaching and transmitting the "aiki body method." But of course the "aiki body method" wasn't the real point either, the point was to be a different kind of person.

The question is whether or not they are effective vehicles for getting where you want to go - wherever that is. Sagawa said they weren't - oddly (or perhaps not) Ueshiba said the same thing.

Best,

Chris

[Cliff Judge]

The question is whether or not they are effective vehicles for getting where you want to go - wherever that is. Sagawa said they weren't - oddly (or perhaps not) Ueshiba said the same thing.

Best,

Chris

And obviously neither of them left anything behind that was any more effective for teaching and transmitting.

I don't think this "getting where you want to go" concept is a useful mindset for budo training. I suspect people's inability to drop that idea is the root of the real problems with the Aiki arts.

[Chris Li]

And obviously neither of them left anything behind that was any more effective for teaching and transmitting.

I don't think this "getting where you want to go" concept is a useful mindset for budo training. I suspect people's inability to drop that idea is the root of the real problems with the Aiki arts.

Not so obviously - as noted in the discussions occurring over the last fifteen years or so (which I'm not going to repeat here).

By "getting where you want to go" I mean that everybody has some kind of purpose to what they're doing, or they wouldn't be doing it. Even "sitting just to sit" is a goal.

Best,

Chris

[Cliff Judge]

Not so obviously - as noted in the discussions occurring over the last fifteen years or so (which I'm not going to repeat here).

This discussions about how much more effective Aikido is for teaching and transmitting Aiki skills than Daito ryu? Or the ones about how many students of Sagawa attained or surpassed his level of skill? :)



By "getting where you want to go" I mean that everybody has some kind of purpose to what they're doing, or they wouldn't be doing it. Even "sitting just to sit" is a goal.


I don't have any mouth to put my money at yet, but my basic orientation is that this type of thinking is definitely the problem. We should compare notes in a couple of decades....

[Kendoguy9]

The question is whether or not they are effective vehicles for getting where you want to go - wherever that is. Sagawa said they weren't - oddly (or perhaps not) Ueshiba said the same thing.

Best,

Chris

And yet every Daito-ryu branch including aikido has pretty much the same kata (ikkyo, nikyo, sankyo, kotegaeshi, shihonage, etc). There might be some shift and drift from what Sokakau sensei taught but they're still there. Sagawa and Ueshiba both retained those same kata that don't get you anywhere. It just doesn't add up. Maybe I'm just content with where the kata have taken me and how, so far (knock on wood), they've served me very well for my work. YMMV.

[Chris Li]

And yet every Daito-ryu branch including aikido has pretty much the same kata (ikkyo, nikyo, sankyo, kotegaeshi, shihonage, etc). There might be some shift and drift from what Sokakau sensei taught but they're still there. Sagawa and Ueshiba both retained those same kata that don't get you anywhere. It just doesn't add up. Maybe I'm just content with where the kata have taken me and how, so far (knock on wood), they've served me very well for my work. YMMV.

Nothing wrong with Kata, I love it - OTOH, that doesn't mean that it's the best answer for every problem, it's not a case of either/or.

Mori touched on it a bit in this article (http://www.aikidosangenkai.org/blog/hakaru-mori-aiki-tenouchi/).

Best,

Chris

[muden]

Nothing wrong with Kata, I love it - OTOH, that doesn't mean that it's the best answer for every problem, it's not a case of either/or.

Mori touched on it a bit in this article (http://www.aikidosangenkai.org/blog/hakaru-mori-aiki-tenouchi/).

Best,

Chris


Nothing wrong with Kata, I love it - OTOH, that doesn't mean that it's the best answer for every problem, it's not a case of either/or.

Mori touched on it a bit in this article (http://www.aikidosangenkai.org/blog/hakaru-mori-aiki-tenouchi/).

Best,

Chris

Just some comments from my own personal experience:

Aikido and Daito Ryu are utterly different in methodology, although they superficially share some of the same techniques. I didn't realise how different they were until I trained in some aikido upon returning from Japan.

To put it simply; Aikido is a body of techniques in search of a unifying principle. Different senior Aikidoka develop their own unifying set of principles. Hence you can refer to "Tada"s Aikido", "Saotome's Aikido" etc. Tada Shihan has stated that when he dies, his aikido will die with him.It is up to the practicioner to fill the vessel. Some practicioners (such as Shioda Gozo) Based much of their unifying principles on Daito Ryu, hence the close likeness of some styles. However, this depends on the teacher/head of the organisation.

Daito Ryu, on the other hand, has a rigorous kata based system. You absorb the unifying principles of the Ryu (Which are often classed under the term "Aiki") through trying to reproduce the techniques of your senior/instructor as closely as possible. What you are doing is basically rearranging your "psychophysical organisation" so that the Ryu is manifest within you. It is not "your" interpretation of the ryu. In fact, it's not really up for debate.In a way, it's almost like you become a different person. Or to put it another way, some aspects of one's movement and behaviour/reactions etc are refined over others. Donn Draeger's book on classical Budo and Pascal Kreiger's work "the way of the stick" are the two best works in English on this kind of training IMO.

This is also why you need to train using specific ma-ai attcks etc.that seem unrealistic. Additionally, you also develop this from receiving techniques from your teacher. This also is "Katageiko": you must attack/grab strike etc in a very particular way depending on the technique. Repeatedly, right down to very detailed subtle points.

"Katageiko" is subtly different from training in formal Kata. It is repeating a technique down to the smallest detail as correctly as possible. Kata is a much more explicitly formalised. So, doing a technique can be Katageiko. I would imagine that Sokaku taught mainly through Katageiko,at least to his senior students. This is one reason why he taught very small groups. It's also the format that he learned the "o-shiki-uchi" techniques that formed the basis for DR.

What's important to note is that this type of training is very rarely explicitly verbal, especially in the beginning. There are many reasons for this, which I won't go into, but you must unpack the principles of the Ryu through intensive practice ( often through Katageiko), observation and thinking. Once you "get" some of the principles in yourself, so to speak, a lot of strange, seemingly unrelated points of the ryu make sense. Additionally, it is easier to understand what other practicioners of the Ryu are doing. For example, Guillaume Erard's website has videos of two different Daito Ryu Shihan teaching. Even though they are from a different "faction" than the one I learned, I can see some key points in their teachngs. The same with Mori's articles and Masaru Takahashi's articles on Chris Li's website.

I think one of the reasons why non practicioners think that DR is all over the place is that some factions demonstrate Ju-jutsu, some aikijujutsu, some aiki no jutsu. Although they do indeed SEEM different , IME the underlying principle run through all applications. It's there in the techniques, but you have to uncover them. Although he doesn't explicitly say so, this is what Mori is teaching. It is classic aikijujutsu, hence his emphasis on both the joint techniques and the aiki techniques at the same time. If you don't get these underlying principles, then the techniques have no unifying principle.

Perhaps the different factions of DR should be seen like the different schools of Itto Ryu. Some are more similar than others: some have simply adopted the name for prestige, but those who have lineage back share a unifying basic worldview.

BTW, I make no claims to expertise in DR whatsoever. However, I have trained long enough and to a level to see some commonalites.

[Cliff Judge]

Just some comments from my own personal experience:

Aikido and Daito Ryu are utterly different in methodology, although they superficially share some of the same techniques. I didn't realise how different they were until I trained in some aikido upon returning from Japan.

To put it simply; Aikido is a body of techniques in search of a unifying principle. Different senior Aikidoka develop their own unifying set of principles. Hence you can refer to "Tada"s Aikido", "Saotome's Aikido" etc. Tada Shihan has stated that when he dies, his aikido will die with him.It is up to the practicioner to fill the vessel. Some practicioners (such as Shioda Gozo) Based much of their unifying principles on Daito Ryu, hence the close likeness of some styles. However, this depends on the teacher/head of the organisation.

I would actually say that Aikido is a body of unifying principals in search of technique. That's my experience as a student of Saotome Sensei anyway. The fact that different senior Aikidoka develop their own Aikido has more to do with the organizational structure...in other words, you see the same thing in Daito ryu, but the top people in the various groups don't have any need to acknowledge that anybody else is doing Daito ryu, and nobody but the topmost people have the responsibility of embodying the art.

But it seems to me that technique is much looser in Aikido, whereas the higher-level principals are discussed much more...in fact the higher-level principals are used to sell the art (sold me anyway). And the higher-level principals are really very similar across the various Aikido groups.



Daito Ryu, on the other hand, has a rigorous kata based system. You absorb the unifying principles of the Ryu (Which are often classed under the term "Aiki") through trying to reproduce the techniques of your senior/instructor as closely as possible. What you are doing is basically rearranging your "psychophysical organisation" so that the Ryu is manifest within you. It is not "your" interpretation of the ryu. In fact, it's not really up for debate.In a way, it's almost like you become a different person. Or to put it another way, some aspects of one's movement and behaviour/reactions etc are refined over others. Donn Draeger's book on classical Budo and Pascal Kreiger's work "the way of the stick" are the two best works in English on this kind of training IMO.

This. This is what I was talking about in two previous posts about being goal-based or results-based in your training. You eventually have to let that go and just get with the program - a well-maintained koryu system will get you where you need to go, you can't know where that is before you get there.

I found what you had to say about katageiko very interesting, I had not encountered that term before.



Perhaps the different factions of DR should be seen like the different schools of Itto Ryu. Some are more similar than others: some have simply adopted the name for prestige, but those who have lineage back share a unifying basic worldview.

It could be simpler than that....maybe it is more a case where a patriarch of repute granted full license to several different students, and each simply embodied the art a little differently. Yagyu Shinkage ryu has a couple of different lines that have branched 2-4 generations back that do things very differently, for example. Plenty of unrelated arts claiming to be Yagyu also. However, in Daito ryu there is the idea that Takeda actually taught each of his main students a bit differently.

[Nathan Scott]

[Post deleted by user]