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chrismoses
3rd April 2001, 22:53
I was wondering what the practitioners on the list feel about incorporation of Daito Ryu techniques into general Aikido? I know some people claim that there really is no difference between the arts yet others really feel that they are very much separate. I admit that my understanding of the Daito Ryu curriculum is quite limited, videos and books, yet what I have seen is very familiar if not identical to much of the Aikido I have practiced. For example, several years ago at a seminar with one of O-Sensei's uchi deshi we got to do a number of 'special' techniques, some of which involved pinning without the hands. I hadn't seen them before or since until watching a Daito Ryu demonstration video. At the time of the seminar we were told that these techniques were shown by O-Sensei but that they were not practiced very frequently, even while O-Sensei was alive. I guess my question boils down to this, since O-Sensei was an instructor in the Daito Ryu there is a good chance that he performed most of the Daito Ryu curriculum at some point in his teaching career, are there any techniques within the Daito Ryu that are not Aikido if performed by Aikidoka? I can understand that if O-Sensei had codified the techniques of Aikido you could easily say, "Well it's not on the list." But my understanding is that he was rather vague and that most of the names of techniques and structure of the curriculum as we know it was done by his senior students/ instructors. I would also be interested in the opinions of any Daito Ryu practitioners out there. What do you think of Aikidoka doing traditionally Daito Ryu techniques?

Looking forward to your responses...

kukai
4th April 2001, 14:53
Hi Christian

To see the connection, look for pre-WW II Aikibudo.

Sven Salumets

Scott
10th April 2001, 06:11
Christian,

I have studied (under qualified intstuction) both Hombu Aikido and Daito-ryu. I have greatly enjoyed both. I would train in both if I had the time. Since my time is limited I have chosen to focus on Aikido. While my training in Daito-ryu was not extensive, I found that many of the even the most basic techniques are much to dangerous for street use. Most of the throws involved high falls which means an inexperienced aggressor would end up on his head and either crack his skull, break his neck or both. I found in Daito-ryu much that could be used in a practical sense as well, but more of Aikido seemed to me to be of practical use, or at least require less modification for practical use. I do wish I had time to train in both though.

Sincerely,

Scott
10th April 2001, 06:25
Since much of the foundation of Aikido is Daito-ryu the techniques are very similar. You might say that Aikido is a gentler form of Daito-ryu for the reason noted in my previous post.

As far as an Aikidoka taking a Daito-ryu technique and making it an Aikido technique, I don't see a problem with it. A Daito-ryu practitioner could do the same in the opposite direction as well. The difference it seems to me would be in the manner and stlye of execution. Aikido is by design a gentler stlye designed to make the techniques more accessable to the general public. It takes quite a strong will to endure the Daito-ryu training I have experienced. The falls are harder and the techniques are more painful. As a quailification, Daito-ryu does not have to be trained as hard as I have experienced. The limits of the older and more frail students were respected, but the younger and more fit students trained in harder more pain inducing manner.

One of O Sensei's first dojos was not nicknamed, "The Hell Dojo" for nothing.

Sincerely,

TIM BURTON
11th April 2001, 09:18
My limited understanding of the Daitoryu system is that it comprises of three ways of applying technique. These are termed Daitoryu Jujutsu, Daitoryu Aiki Jujutsu and Daitoryu Aiki No Jutsu. The first uses Atemi in the main to achieve the desired result and its controls are forcefully applied. The second employs Atemi with Aiki timing and its controls are more complicated. The third utilises Aiki timing and is a higher level of skill than the other two.
Ueshiba’s style seems to have followed the same evolution from Daitoryu to Aikibudo to Aikido with the founder striving for Aiki No Jutsu techniques in the personal development of his system.
Examples of these three types of response would be;
Jujutsu.
Kime no kata Idori technique three Suri Age.
Here the thrust is deflected and a kick delivered followed by a pull down and a pin reinforced by the knee.
Aiki Jujutsu.
Koryu Dai San Suwari waza technique three Kote gaeshi.
Here the thrust is avoided and an atemi made towards the face before throwing with the wrist turn and applying a control.
Aiki No Jutsu.
Koryu Dai San suwari waza technique one Oshi taoshi.
Here the attack is blended with and the strike redirected straight into the pin.
As to Daitoryu techniques that are not Aikido, we must first consider what Aikido is trying to achieve, if we regress back towards Daitoryu jujutsu is it still Aikido?

PRehse
11th April 2001, 14:38
Tim;

You mention Kenji Tomiki's kata in your examples. This is a good example in other ways also. His initial training with Ueshiba was Daito-ryu (1926) and he was already a formidable martial artist (Judo). Ueshiba through the Aikikai developed his spiritual path influenced by the Omotokyo religion but Tomiki firmly placed his Aikido in the context of historical Japanese budo. Contextually Tomiki received his Menkyo Kaiden/8th Dan from Ueshiba before the name change to Aikido (1942). If one reads some of the underlying philosophy of Judo's Kano one has a greater understanding of where Tomiki saw things in this regard. As such Shodokan is a gendai budo and is much more accessible then pre-war Aikido and Daito-ryu even though, even then, the latter two are considered gendai budo.

I have observed Daito-ryu training in Japan and studied some of the techniques via Alain Floquet's grouping here in the real world. There is strong similarity between Shodokan and the Daito-ryu in both the kata and the type of training. However, the most brutal training I saw was with certain Shodokan students, well beyond anything I could or would take. In this case it was something one does not normally see and therefore I suspect the reason I did not see the same with Daito-ryu was a matter of timing and possibly privacy.

I would venture to say that Kenji Tomiki's Aikido (Shodokan) sits somewhere in the middle between what became the Aikikai and it's Daito-ryu roots and that Daito-ryu itself has evolved in roughly the same direction.



Originally posted by TIM BURTON

Aiki No Jutsu.
Koryu Dai San suwari waza technique one Oshi taoshi.
Here the attack is blended with and the strike redirected straight into the pin.
As to Daitoryu techniques that are not Aikido, we must first consider what Aikido is trying to achieve, if we regress back towards Daitoryu jujutsu is it still Aikido?

George Ledyard
19th April 2001, 14:56
Originally posted by chrismoses
I was wondering what the practitioners on the list feel about incorporation of Daito Ryu techniques into general Aikido? I know some people claim that there really is no difference between the arts yet others really feel that they are very much separate. I admit that my understanding of the Daito Ryu curriculum is quite limited, videos and books, yet what I have seen is very familiar if not identical to much of the Aikido I have practiced. For example, several years ago at a seminar with one of O-Sensei's uchi deshi we got to do a number of 'special' techniques, some of which involved pinning without the hands. I hadn't seen them before or since until watching a Daito Ryu demonstration video. At the time of the seminar we were told that these techniques were shown by O-Sensei but that they were not practiced very frequently, even while O-Sensei was alive. I guess my question boils down to this, since O-Sensei was an instructor in the Daito Ryu there is a good chance that he performed most of the Daito Ryu curriculum at some point in his teaching career, are there any techniques within the Daito Ryu that are not Aikido if performed by Aikidoka? I can understand that if O-Sensei had codified the techniques of Aikido you could easily say, "Well it's not on the list." But my understanding is that he was rather vague and that most of the names of techniques and structure of the curriculum as we know it was done by his senior students/ instructors. I would also be interested in the opinions of any Daito Ryu practitioners out there. What do you think of Aikidoka doing traditionally Daito Ryu techniques?

Looking forward to your responses...

It is important for Aikido people to recognize what O-Sensei passed along to his students. When O-Sensei was actively teaching the art to the uchideshi that he expected to be able to go world wide and represent the art he taught a very wide ranging set of techniques. By the time he was teaching post WW2 he did not in general teach technique per se but rather focused on principles. The deshi saw agreat number of things done that came out of O-Sensei's past training but were never systematically incorporated into what we see as Aikido proper.

The Aikido Kihon waza were representaive of those portions of the art that O-sensei was wiling to have shown publicly and that he felt comfortable with having taught to the large mass of Aikido students. The professionals in training got much more. But some have chosen to stick with the basics and do not teach these other techniques, even to their senior students. Other people, like Saotome Sensei, have worried that people don't understand what Aikido really is from a martial standpoint and they do attempt to pass on these things within the Aikido framework.

Even Saotome sensei has a class of techniques which he simply doesn't teach except one on one. The real combat techniques he reserves for professionals who might really have a legitimate need to know them ie military personnel etc. Aikido people in general are largely unaware of this side of the art because they have inherited what was taught to the wider public and may have had no exposure to that side of the training.

It would be impossible to say about most techniques that they are Daito Ryu and not Aikido. Virtually any Daito Ryu technique can be incorporated in the Aikido context. It is the overall approach to training and not the individual techniques themselves that really distinguishes the two arts.