It has been quite a long time since I have been here on E-Budo. Kind of a ghost town, no?
What is the current state of E-Budo these days?
Printable View
It has been quite a long time since I have been here on E-Budo. Kind of a ghost town, no?
What is the current state of E-Budo these days?
Hey Jason,
Welcome back!
Yep, it is pretty much a ghost town these days. Everything has gone to Facebook and Instagram.
Here's the current state ... John got tired of dealing with it, and was just going to let it go. A number of us decided that there was too much good information floating around in the old threads to just let it die, so we bought the site and moved it to a new host. The current site owners are Cady Goldfield, Ken Goldstein (Ken-Hawaii), Peter Goldsbury, Anders Pettersson, and myself.
There are still a few folks that cruise through semi-regularly, but not a whole lot of conversation any more.
Greetings Jason. It's good to see that you're still alive and kicking.
Hello Mr Chambers,
Welcome again to E-Budo. Paul pretty well summed up the current state of E-Budo and also the sentiments of the group that own the site. I have thousands of Facebook 'friends' but I use that site only to offer birthday greetings and the very occasional chat. I have a whole lot of stuff on AikiWeb and I know Jun Akiyama quite well. I should revise what I have written over there and when I do, it will also appear here. I also plan to review Peter Boylan's new book, as a blog. It is really a matter of finding the time to do all this. It is ironic, really, since I retired as a professor nearly ten years ago!
Best wishes,
PAG
Hi Jason!
Ghost town... yes and no. Most of the venerable budo masters have gone away, but their archived threads and posts are here, which is why some of us felt it was important to keep the site going. There is some genuine gold there. We do get new members from various levels of experience and training, but as was pointed out, Facebook and Instagram, Twitter and the like have superceded the "traditional" internet forums as venues for chatting. However, some things do persist... I still get occasional e-mail digests from Iaido-L, the old list serve group from the 90s!
Hey!
How is it going?
Still a few discussions going on. Lots of good info here.
I have to agree with the previous posters.
Everybody seems to have their own style specific, and even dojo specific, sites of various kinds now so traffic has slowed down.
Also think we are in another "bust" period as it were with the martial arts in general. They tend to go through these "boom or bust" periods with some regularity.
Or bulls and bears if you prefer. :) (should be a "smile" here.)
Which also has some effect on traffic.
Hi,
Those of you who saved this site deserve a great deal of appreciation and certainly since it is your you rightly make the rules but I have to disagree.
I know the last time this topic came up I promised to post more but shortly after I had cataracts and my writing became essentially on the level of an illiterate.
Do you need budo masters? (And how many years does Prof. Goldsbury have in the dojo along with incredible academic credentials? What is left to be a master?) The best days of e-budo could be forward not behind. If we make a serious effort to answer every question posted here people will start posting more and the site will grow. I know the last several of my questions have gotten no reply. Surely someone here has an opinion on whether Konishi, Mabuni, Ueshiba Seiryu is something you have or haven't seen aikidoka do (not Uechi Ryu Seiryu)? Does anyone think the open hand up and down movement look like a Ikkyo or looks nothing like an Ikkyo because.....
The old Kung Fu series was on rerun TV over the weekend and I think this thought from Master Po spells out my thoughts on e-budo.
"To dwell on the past robs the present. To ignore the past robs the future."
If cannot get any responses to questions because I have offended someone here I do apologize.
Thanks for listening,
Len McCoy
That's a valid point, Len. Back then, we looked to the "venerables" who had been in the arts 30, 40 years or more, as they were walking archives for the histories of their lineages, inner-circle intelligence, and, the benefits of their decades of training wisdom. But now a lot of us also have been training and exploring for 30, 40 years and more, and perhaps many don't even realize that the mantle has been transferred to them, and that they are now the institutional memory. ;)
If you think this forum is slow then try E-Judo. I think Judo is a dead activity in this country. Not sure why because I haven practiced it in 30 years and not in the loop. All the years I did practice it was growing like crazy. Well, we do get old.
It seems like so much of my early memories of Okinawa are fading away and the old arts I learned are disappearing as well. I left Okinawa in July 1962 and lost contract with most of my sensei and friends there. In those days there was no Internet so communicating with anyone there was next to impossible, except perhaps one should go there. That too was next to impossible for me until decades later when I could afford it. My Matsubayashi-ryu sensei, Shoshin Nagamine passed away in 1997 and his son who lived in the USA, Takayoshi, came back to take over the dojo when he father was too ill to run things. Then in 2012 Takayoshi passed away leaving the dojo without the traditional linage so it closed in December 2013 after more than 60 years in operation. I wish I could discuss Matsubayashi-ryu more but it has been just too long ago since I practiced it. Much of my memory of it is foggy at best and only a few videos help me remember it. Getting old does that stuff. It's storming out so I have to go!
Jeff, you may be one of the few people around who represent the institutional memory for traditional judo of your day. I think a lot of us would enjoy reading some of your stories and insights.
We still have some traditional judo dojo where I live. And, the neo-classical art I study draws heavily from Kosen judo for its ne waza. These arts are not dead, they just adapt to the times.
Well, I wish I could claim such a status but my memory is fading quickly. My Judo days ended in the late 1980’s but my interest in Martial Arts still keeps me coming on Internet to read what little discussions exist. It seems like a fogy dream now thinking back to my younger days when we were serious about Judo. While we practiced traditional aspects of the art we never the less enjoyed shiai and at times would walk off the tatami bleeding and hurting just trying to get in shape to compete. Learning techniques and making our technique better was more important than winning some contest. When I thought my technique was getting better I watched two sandans shiai in batsugan for yodan and that was 55 years ago and still vivid in my memory. Now that was technique. Something like that always sets one back in his or her place. Even after attaining yodan I don’t think I could duplicate the pure Judo those guys demonstrated. Oh well, that is why we practiced.
Shiai Judo can only be done while we are young enough to keep up with it. After awhile we have to either quite or go back to basics. Seems like that is more fun anyway.
Hello,
Thank you, Mr. Beish, for your reminder that there used to be a time without internet. I am just translating a newspaper article written by a karate teacher from Okinawa which was published in the 1960ies. And indeed, a newspaper article was certainly one of the few ways for a karate practitioner in order to communicate his opinion and general information on karate to a wider audience at that time. Maybe because of this medium he even had to think twice before submitting his text to the publisher.
Regards,
Henning Wittwer
If you think your memory is fading quickly, all the more reason to share some of the ones that are most important to you. Some of us are quite serious about our arts, and at least for me, because judo is a part of what I study, the history and anecdotes of people who were hardcore back in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s are very relevant.