Italian soldiers floored by 77-year-old Japanese woman

[Vedenant]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...ese-woman.html

Now how about that!

[khatheCh]

Heh... I wouldn't feel embarrassed at all if I was beaten by such lady. Generally the oldest masters are the best ones. My own sensei was 53 old when I started and he yet can beat anyone who comes up...

Ehehe, what would we do without the abilities and wisdom of the old ones? They are the ones who build us up to be real Martial Artists, after all... and then, we ourselves can teach younger ones in the future.

When I say "younger" and "older" ones, I don't refer uniquely to age difference. Young people are unexperienced people, old people are... well, the masters!

I hope I can enjoy my future years like that lady.

---

Regards,
Katerina Ch.

[Simon Keegan]

This article was in Metro as well. She says she was taught by a "great Samurai" called Kisshomaru Ueshiba. The article didn't entirely make clear she was an Aikidoka though.

[MikeWilliams]

Cool story.

[changeling]

I trained with Kaiko Wakabayashi sensei a couple of times, and i can assure you that this 1.5mt, 50kg, 80 years lady realy has a GREAT technic.... she is very funny and, at the same time, very insightful..
She teach Kashima Shin Ryu Sogo Budo and Aikido and i must tell i realy love her ( not in THAT way, you know).

When she first stepped on the tatami she asked to the guys "Who is the bigger?", than took this 130kg man and demonstrated the principles on him...
i wanted to try the thing on me, and she realy locked me with minimum of strenght.. (there are some photos on my facebook page, i'm Loris Giopp from Italy)
:-)

[Hissho]

Honest questions:

Do folks actually equate this with "beating" these soldiers?

Is it believed there is no difference between demonstration, training, and actual fighting?

[Kendoguy9]

Hi Kit,

I know we've talked about this a lot. To some people (mostly people outside of budo, but sadly some inside as well) an 80 year old lady being able to throw around a bunch of military men in the dojo must mean she can fight as well. This just isn't the case. That doesn't mean she has nothing to offer them in their training. I've met many people who I sure wouldn't want to get my back in a fight that have taught me something about martial arts. At the same time I've met some people I would NEVER want to fight, and would love to have get my back, who I could never learn a thing from. Skill in the dojo doesn't translate to skill on the street, or on a battlefield, or behind bars, etc.

This is all hearsay but here it goes: An American budoka living in Japan was talking to a fellow expat who studied Chinese arts. This fellow was going on about how great his famous Chinese teacher was, how strong he was, how fast, how hard he could hit, etc. even at an advanced age. The budoka said this teacher was good but not that good. The other expat said the budoka should fight his teacher to see how great he really is. The budoka declined. He was in a losing situation. If he held back because of this guy's advanced age and lost he would have been beaten by an old man. If he didn't hold back he would have beat him but then all he could say was he beat up an old man. Neither one sounded very good. I'm sure there are people out there that know this story and who the people were. I didn't want to put names in to tarnish anyone's reputation.

Same deal. This old aikido sensei might be able to teach these guys a lot of useful stuff, and for her size, age and gender might be very good but at the end of the day I doubt she's much of a fighter. No I don't want to fight her to find out (see above).

[changeling]

I think that everybody on the tatami could beat Keiko Sensei in a fight... she is just an 80 year lady...but everyone on the tatami respected her and learned something from her...
I think that the Italian's Paras didn't train with her to learn how to kill or fight, but to learn how to use their strenght at the best, and not to trust too much on it.

she told me to hold her arm "like an enemy", with as much strenght as possible... the she blocked me and make me fly...
If i was a real enemy, probably i will not grab his arm, but will try to hit her...or make something else...

nontheless, i want to be as her at 80 years... i don't want to become like Fedor Emilianenko :-)

btw... the journalists are a bunch of morons... they can't distinguish someone teaching from someone's fighting...

[Andrew S]

Journalists can't spell either.

an array of martial arts disciplines including jujitsu, jojitso, kenjitso, judo, kendo and karate

[Hissho]

OK, that's good, because from the likes of forum discussions I see and even, sadly enough, Youtube videos from various systems and methods with people tripping all over themselves in a seeming competition to be sensei's most demonstrative pet, one can tend to doubt that people are employing their critical faculties in this sort of thing.

No bearing on what you might learn from someone, but too often martial artists seem to be in a rush to chase after magic, and to "find" it in this kind of thing, as it were.

It appears that we may have have turned a corner here.

[changeling]

i can assure you that the technic from this lady is real and useful, noone of us knowed her before and we were asked to make the attacks more "real" possible (i.e. if you grab his arm, grab it with the right strenght, if you punch her, punch on her nose trying to go through..)..


She teached me some insights on principles useful for every style of jujutsu/aikido... tips on the direction of strenght-application, on the use of your hara to complement the technic... things as simple as almost invisibles, but very, very useful for me.

BTW, no magic at all, simple application of biomechanic principles...

Just this.

[Hissho]

Of course.