Ueshiba's Stories
 

Hey all , you should all take a look at this ueshiba's veridic stories , could be inspiring for you all.

http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/Aikido/StoriesFounder.html

:)

The founder of aikido and practically all of the students that were directly taught by him are quite simply put, bad asses. Just look at Saotome sensei he is an old man but still throws big kids like me around like I was a little girl’s rag doll. :)

The story that I found most interesting on the link that you provided was the last one on the page, the one about Koichi Tohei. Koichi Tohei basically fought match after match to ‘introduce’ aikido in America. Do I think that the matches lead to burn out and the eventual disagreements with the Hombu? - I have a feeling that they are at the very least part of the reason why he splintered away. Still Koichi Tohei’s matches are some of the most interesting aikido stories told.

Zoli Elo

From what I've been able to gather from people that were there at the time, the split was precipitated by different ideas about growing aikido, who they were in their respective roles (highly charismatic chief instructor vs. low key heir to the family business) all exacerbated by their interpersonal dynamic. If you do a search on "Gladstein" or something like that on the AJ or ATM sites, you'll find an article that gives the fellow's first-hand recollections of the final blow-up which occurred in Hawaii.

Best Regards,

Re: Ueshiba's Stories
 

I do not want to cast doubt on the veracity of the 'stories', but I note that they have all been quoted, or 'lifted', from copyrighted publications. The Carleton web site does not acknowledge any permission given to reproduce these extracts, yet copyrights the reproduction of these same stories. Or is it just the English translation that has been copyrighted (in the case of the material written by Gozo Shioda Sensei)?

Best regards,
_______________
P A Goldsbury,
Graduate School of Social Sciences,
Hiroshima University

Greg I do recall reading the article that you referred to. I still cannot get past the notion that the matches that Koichi Tohei was involved in lead to some of the conflicts that exacerbated his breaking way. Oh the cans of worms that I sometimes open... :)

Zoltan Elo

Speaking of matches......
 

Has anyone ever seen the " unedited" version of the documentary that was done many years ago at the AiKiKai Hombu, in Japan, by a western company, in which Tohei Sensei acceptes a friendly challenge from one of the crew members?

I have only seen the edited version, I believe. It was digitized into an mpeg that runs for about a minute and a half. The last few seconds Tohei is on the ground with this guy that seems to be wearing a judo gi - I think that Tohei is choking him out (picture quality is so low that I really cannot tell).

What happens in the unedited version?

Zoli Elo

I’ll begin by saying that I have nothing against Tohei, so please just see this as historical fact, and not malicious malcontention.

In the original televised documentary, Tohei Sensei, is chided with a friendly challenge, by one of the crew members of the western documentary camera crew.

The bulk of the match, consisted of the crewman, gorillaing Tohei, and a sloppy encounter lasts all too long. The Uke does not respond to Nage as in the consentual throwing that one is used to seeing, and after awhile, as already mentioned, Tohei ends the encounter with a Shime Waza.

The edited version, is much shorter………………………………………………………..

A couple of my instructors were there also. One said that what struck him was how K. Ueshiba kept on apologizing for Tohei afterwards, asking that people please forgive him. Another one said that as Tohei stopped right in front of him as he was walking out and said something like "You're coming with me, right?".

In any case I'm sure that the whole thing was aggravated by the fact that they were married to sisters, but I think that you have the basic thread right - they had very different (and in some ways incompatible) ideas about how they wanted to direct the growth of Aikido in the future. The irony is that Tohei could probably have left hombu but stayed under the Aikikai umbrella while still doing exactly what he's doing today, just like so many other Aikikai folks have their own widely varying styles.

Best,

Chris

In the Spirit of historical fact, please remember that the challenge in question was far from an ordinary match. According to several individuals who were present at the time, Tohei was prohibited from making any offensive movements by Ueshiba, who believed that the power of Aikido for defense would win out over any attack launched by the journalist.

Secondly, as someone who's seen the unedited version of the footage more than once, I draw a very different conclusion than you do. It looks to me as if Tohei succeeds in throwing down his attacker over and over again; then later jumps in and pulls the guy down to the ground after tiring of the game, then pinning him by extending his thumb into the front of the guy's throat (not the same thing as a choke, by the way.)

Furthermore, it might be tempting to cast dispersions on Tohei's abilities as an Aikidoka after watching the film (especially if one is expecting disembodied Ki to make an appearance), but given the circumstances, I'm not sure what more you could expect from anyone in that same situation: Tohei effectively dispatches his opponent, he stays within the rules set by Ueshiba (for the most part)--despite being put on the spot to take the challenge without much warning, and those who were present continued afterwards to tell stories of his greatness and to take pride in the fact that he trained them in Aikido as the then acting Chief Instructor of Hombu.

More importantly, how many other major figures in Aikido received both the 10th Dan from Ueshiba and put their credibility on the line time and time again by taking challengers, both in a formal and informal capacity? I'm coming up with none. Maybe someone's slipped my mind. Tohei was chosen to take on the journalist for a reason, just as he was chosen to disseminate Aikido to the U.S., despite the often greater size and strength of Americans, versus your average Japanese citizen of the time. So, either Koichi Tohei is pretty damn good at Aikido, or Morihei Ueshiba has pretty poor judgement.

Never said he wasn't, "pretty damn good.":smilejapa

Well, no offense to you, Steven, but from time to time in forums like this, someone will make much of the contents of that particular video clip, especially since the pool of individuals frequenting boards like this who have actually been on the receiving end of Tohei's technique is very small. And I feel that the "much" is largely misunderstood and overblown.

The problem is that although the footage is widely circulated via Aiki News, the context of the challenge and the rules governing Tohei's response are not widely known. Otherwise, I wouldn't take the time to post, I'd just go back to reading.

Let's draw an analogy: suppose the stories surrounding Royce Gracie's abilities were legendary, but largely undocumented by footage that was available to the casually inquiring public. Now, suppose that someone releases a film of Royce's match with the once viewed as "second-rate" Jiujitsu competitor, Wallid Ismael. We see Royce get choked unconcious, lose the match, and then all of the other rumors about his extraordinary skills are ignored, on the basis that they must be an exaggeration.

Now, the analogy here between Tohei and Gracie is not a perfect one, as Tohei did indisputably win the match that took place in the old American documentary, whereas, Royce clearly lost his bout with Ismael. Nevertheless, one can see how neither party demonstrated their best work in these situations, that are now frozen in time for the world to evaluate ad nauseum.

In the case of Tohei, I've seen him do better, but it's impossible to gauge the effect of the limits placed upon him by the context of the contest in question. Given that at one time Tohei successfully fielded a challenge against seven Yudansha-level Judoka, attacking him simultaneously, upon his arrival in the States (all of whom were bigger than him, so the story goes), and that this was also captured on film, but has not been acquired (to my knowledge) by Aiki News for public distribution, nevermind the fact that he was such a prominent figure in the inception and dissemination of Aikido, I'm merely suggesting we should give him the benefit of the doubt.

And that, assuming that we have no other experience with Tohei's competency in Aikido, which is not the case with me at least. I don't know if it describes your situation, although, I suspect you've never met Koichi Tohei in person, much less been thrown by him. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

In that time K.Tohei was 8th dan and most powerfull aikidoka after M.Ueshiba.
American journalist, was an amateur judoka, not even 6th kyu.

Giving such big difference of training level, one can expect, that Tohei sensei will throw him with one finger (as he did during his many demo with his ukes ;)
Instead, we could see sort of american wrestling, but on amateur level :laugh:

I wonder, how K.Tohei could perform against someone on his (8th dan)level, ie: Kimura sensei from Kodokan Judo :saw:

Mr. Bostwick,

When mentioning shobu, it is immanent, that both the more colorful as well as the ones we would like to forget, will be brought up.

As to if I ever saw Tohei Sensei in person, yes I have.

I saw him at a NY AiKiKai function with Yamada Sensei, many years ago.

Once again, I did not intend the mentioning as a slur against Shin Shin Toitsu, The Ki Society, or Tohei Sensei.

I am not an AiKiDoKa, per say, so my view is historical, not political.

As to his greatness, I never doubted his technical ability.

No one achieved the level of the Meijin Ueishiba.

Although in my opinion, Shioda Sensei, came close.

Forgive the misspelling of the Uyeshiba name.:smilejapa