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Thread: Let us remember him today especially

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    Default Let us remember him today especially

    I would like to share my latest post

    http://www.aikidoacademyusa.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=516

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    Hello Carina,

    Many thanks for your post.

    I think Morihei Ueshiba is an enigma. He certainly is to me. Since I began aikido in 1970, nearly all the teachers I have had were his direct students, but they all gave me different messages about the man. So, after I came to Japan, I began researching about him, but the research was different from the research carried out by Stanley Pranin. Stan and I are good friends and I think he was a pioneer -- a lonely pioneer, and he started to scratch the surface and uncover much about Morihei Ueshiba that we did not know. Stan was trying to find the roots of Ueshiba's art; I have been trying to place him in an authentic cultural context -- which is something that is rarely done, especially outside Japan.

    Apart from Stan Pranin, I would mention (with thanks) Ellis Amdur and Chris Li as serious researchers about Morihei Ueshiba and his art.

    But I agree with your sentiments.


    Best wishes,

    PAG
    Peter Goldsbury,
    Forum Administrator,
    Hiroshima, Japan

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    Thank you Prof. Goldsbury for your kind reply, telling us about your huge experience with the Founders direct students and your excellent research, which you unfortunately don't share in E-Budo, ok maybe just 10%, because you did in your above reply. I respect the work of Stanley Pranin and the other researchers you mentioned, but i have sometimes the feeling that they research only with their mind, they base themselves in cold facts, and I think, just my private thinking, so please forgive me if I say this, but researchers should also bring their heart into their work, I wonder why there is no woman researcher, or at least you didn't mention any.

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    Thanks for the mention Peter!

    Carina - I don't know of any women doing in depth research at the moment, at least not that are sharing online in English.

    Bringing one's "heart" into things is difficult in an online environment and is subject to misinterpretations that are hard to discuss without some kind of common ground (and we all know how those things tend to go south quickly!), which is why I generally try to keep it for in person encounters (sometimes one gets dragged in though ).

    Best,

    Chris

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    Hi Chris,
    Thank you for your kind reply.
    You are doing a great work in http://www.aikidosangenkai.org/blog/

    We are talking about an extraordinary human being, who cannot speak for himself anymore and because the written material is few and difficult to figure out and the spoken material is also very difficult to interpret and as Prof Goldsbury wrote above "all the teachers I have had were his direct students, but they all gave me different messages about the man" so it is impossible to really know the background without one's heart.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Carina Reinhardt View Post
    Thank you Prof. Goldsbury for your kind reply, telling us about your huge experience with the Founders direct students and your excellent research, which you unfortunately don't share in E-Budo, ok maybe just 10%, because you did in your above reply. I respect the work of Stanley Pranin and the other researchers you mentioned, but i have sometimes the feeling that they research only with their mind, they base themselves in cold facts, and I think, just my private thinking, so please forgive me if I say this, but researchers should also bring their heart into their work, I wonder why there is no woman researcher, or at least you didn't mention any.
    Hello Carina,

    I am in a something of a dilemma about publishing my research on E-Budo. I plan to revise the articles I have been writing and publish them here, but this will take time. However, the research is still going on and Jun Akiyama has kindly agreed to publish it as columns on AikiWeb. The new E-Budo has a blog function and Peter Boylan has also been publishing his posts with links to his own blogs, like you do with Francis Takahashi's material. This is all very good, but the problem for me is time.

    I have not come across any women researchers here in Japan, but there might be some in the US. I don't know. There are one or two formidable women scholars of Japanese history and I discuss the work of two in my forthcoming column.

    As for the heart, I agree with Chris Li's comments. Personally, I am becoming more and more convinced that there is much that we do not know about Morihei Ueshiba -and perhaps that we will never know. In cases like this, Japanese writers like Eiji Yoshikawa and Shiba Ryotaro use 'imaginative sympathy / empathy' to fill in the gaps with fictional accounts.

    Best wishes,
    Peter Goldsbury,
    Forum Administrator,
    Hiroshima, Japan

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    Hello Prof. Goldsbury


    That is very good news, I'm looking forward to read your interesting articles here in E-Budo. I also understand your lack of time.


    I still didn't see the blog function of the new E-Budo, maybe I don't know how to use it, only Mr Goldstein published Tuttle Publishing Book Reviews in the blogs part of E-Budo. I just posted the link to AAUSA under Aikido. Peter Boylan does the same, he simply copies the link to his own blog. It would be an improvement for E-Budo to have a part for blogs, so I could publish here directly and upload the photos like I publish in my blogs Entrenando Aikido and Wir trainieren Aikido, I asked Cady last year about that and she told me that it would take time.


    That is a nice description 'imaginative sympathy / empathy' for what I wanted to say with researching with one's heart. I understand your agreeing with Chris Li's comments, I think few men would understand my point of view, but we are not talking about exact science, so we cannot base the research in facts difficult to interpret and stories of people who knew the founder and each one saying different things about him.

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    Carina --

    One thing to consider is that women are a comparatively recent phenomenon in judo and aikido. As far as I know, Fujiko Tamura Gardner was one of the first American women to achieve yudansha status in Japan. Mrs. Gardner started aikido in Japan in 1966, while her husband was a civilian employee of the US Army stationed in Japan. Growing up, her brothers had all been judoka, and as a teen, she had wanted to learn judo. But her parents weren't having that. Fast forward a couple decades, and in Japan with her husband and children? Mom and the aunties were a long way away, and down to the dojo she went. Isoyama scratched his head, said what the heck, and there she was, studying aikido in Tokyo. http://www.tacomaaikidoclub.com/subpage.html

    Another thing to consider is that deshi status means you become part of a bachelor subculture. Until recently, there weren't many women who wanted to devote themselves to a bachelor subculture for a decade or so.

    Finally, if you are looking or a place to publish original academic research in Spanish, Portuguese, or English, consider Revista de Artes Marciales Asiáticas, http://revpubli.unileon.es/ojs/index...rtesmarciales/

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    Hello Joe,

    Thank you for your interesting story about Fujiko Tamura Gardner, I like it.
    Joe I don't do serious research, I like to read it, if it is interesting, but I do my blogs as a hobby, if you like things I wrote, not only about aikido, but about plants and animals of my island, I shared them all in aikido Academy USA, most of them under Open Topics, maybe they are not for E-budo, but sometimes if I think one could be interesting like the memory of the Founder I share a link here.
    Today I published an imaginary story of my memories, as I didn't think it could be that interesting I didn't even translate it in english, so it is only in spanish and german.

    Thank you very much anyway

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    This is partly relevant to Joe's post. All through my aikido 'life' I have encountered women students, in the UK, in the USA, and in Japan. The numbers were fewer than for male students, but in my dojo in Higashi-Hiroshima the balance is pretty well even. In the university sports clubs there are some women students, but sometimes they are 'managers'. However, this was not the case in the aikido club. In the dojo in Hiroshima City, also, the balance is pretty well even and there are one or two whole families training.

    One of the most interesting things about Morihei Ueshiba is the fact that he is invoked in support of widely different cultural traditions. So my first teacher presented him as an ardent supporter of Shinto, but my second teacher placed great stress on Zen Buddhism and I think Stan Pranin has published a book on the subject. Neither is strictly true. Ueshiba was brought up in Shingon Buddhism, but then he embraced the new Omoto religion and remained a 'believer' until he died. So it was to resolve the contradictions in what my teachers told me that I decided to study by myself. And I had the advantage of living in the country and having a job that allowed much time for aikido training and research in Japanese language and culture. One of my greatest regrets is that I never learned Chinese -- and it is a bit late to start now.
    Peter Goldsbury,
    Forum Administrator,
    Hiroshima, Japan

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    Quote Originally Posted by P Goldsbury View Post
    This is partly relevant to Joe's post. All through my aikido 'life' I have encountered women students, in the UK, in the USA, and in Japan. The numbers were fewer than for male students, but in my dojo in Higashi-Hiroshima the balance is pretty well even. In the university sports clubs there are some women students, but sometimes they are 'managers'. However, this was not the case in the aikido club. In the dojo in Hiroshima City, also, the balance is pretty well even and there are one or two whole families training.
    I went to Seminars of Tissier Shihan and the balance was even between male and female attendants. Unfortunately in Spain there are still more male students than female. I trained in dojos where I was the only woman.


    Quote Originally Posted by P Goldsbury View Post
    One of the most interesting things about Morihei Ueshiba is the fact that he is invoked in support of widely different cultural traditions. So my first teacher presented him as an ardent supporter of Shinto, but my second teacher placed great stress on Zen Buddhism and I think Stan Pranin has published a book on the subject. Neither is strictly true. Ueshiba was brought up in Shingon Buddhism, but then he embraced the new Omoto religion and remained a 'believer' until he died. So it was to resolve the contradictions in what my teachers told me that I decided to study by myself. And I had the advantage of living in the country and having a job that allowed much time for aikido training and research in Japanese language and culture. One of my greatest regrets is that I never learned Chinese -- and it is a bit late to start now.
    Thank you for sharing this Prof. Goldsbury and it is never too late to learn anything, just the opposite it is very healthy to learn a new language

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    Carina --

    Lots of people publish their imaginary histories of martial arts. Hagiographies are everywhere. And, as a rule, hagiographies sell pretty well.

    Peter --

    I know there are lots of women in aikido (far more than in, say, Kyokushin Kai karate), but there aren't that many *senior* practitioners. Kendo, naginata-do, on the other hand, have quite a few. Judo and taekwondo are getting there, too. There is much one can dislike about Olympic sport, but one cannot deny that it has done a lot for women's sport. For those who don't know, for a sport to remain in or be considered for the Olympics, there must be both men's and women's divisions. This is significant because at a national level, it's much cheaper and easier to develop a serious candidate for a women's medal in Olympic archery, judo, boxing, or taekwondo than it is to develop an equally serious candidate for a women's medal in gymnastics or a men's medal in basketball. To give just one example, without the Olympic incentive, I'm certain that we wouldn't have seen women's boxing in places such as Jordan for a while yet. http://www.thenational.ae/news/world...he-boxing-ring

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    Quote Originally Posted by Joseph Svinth View Post
    Carina --

    Lots of people publish their imaginary histories of martial arts. Hagiographies are everywhere. And, as a rule, hagiographies sell pretty well.
    Hi Joe,

    Not everything is money, what I earn is enough for the life I'm living, I'm happy with it.

    I thought to share my articles here to give more life to this forum, I do not write to make money. I am very grateful to Takahashi Shihan for letting me share my articles on his website. Besides the most valuable thing we have is our time and the best we can do with it, is to share it with our loved ones.

    Besides I have the camera always ready, so I share my best pictures on my blog and they decorate my articles, which even they are about animals, most are related to aikido, for example: Mai or Ma ai or The turtledove who wanted to be white

    have a nice day

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    Hello Carina,

    I don't think Joe was thinking about you when he wrote about hagiography. At least, that is not how I read the post. I have many saints' biographies in my life and the martial arts seems to lend itself to biographies about the valiant and daring deeds done by the founders and masters of such martial arts.

    Since you mentioned blogs, Anders and I have been thinking again about a system for E-Budo. It is in place, but needs some admin work.


    Best wishes,

    PAG
    Peter Goldsbury,
    Forum Administrator,
    Hiroshima, Japan

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    Thank you Prof. Goldsbury for clarifying Joe's reply, I didn't know what hagiography was, searched in the translator and thought that it had maybe more meanings.

    As for the blogs, whenever you like, we can continue like now, I share the links to the articles I publish in AAUSA when I think they may interest E-Budo readers, and if there are people who would like to read more, they can find all my articles in the mentioned web.

    Have a nice day!

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