Originally posted by johenora
-----
Dear Mr. Dale Seago:
Your comments are well taken. What martial art do you practice?
Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu, for twenty years now -- I was one of the first 20 Americans to pass the 5th-dan test and be certified as an instructor, and I'm still very much a
student of Hatsumi sensei.
I do have some background in Korean arts: the first art in which I ever received a black belt (December '69) was the form of Tae Kwon Do being taught to the Korean military at the time. In the mid-'70s, I also trained in Hapkido for a while under Han, Bong Soo in southern California. I've also spent a fair amount of time on special-operations missions in Korea (late '80s) physically "comparing notes" re: Bujinkan/Korean martial arts in my free time with South Korean special forces officers I was working with.
I have no direct experience in Daito ryu (more's the pity), but I have known Don Angier for. . .must be sixteen years now. I was introduced by a police-officer friend and student of mine who knew him. Back in those days Angier sensei would fly up to San Francisco and spend a weekend training with me and my group, literally for just the cost of the plane ticket to get him here. I've trained with him a fair number of times over the years, as have a number of my students: he still comes up here now and then for seminars, and we attend when we can. Many's the time I've tried my best to punch his head off or grab him and take him down, only to find myself airborne and laughing, because I had no sensory data to give me any clue as to how I got there.
I've never made any attempt to learn his art as such. But there are so many principles in his which are also used (but manifest somewhat differently) in Hatsumi sensei's budo that I find the difference in perspective and approach helps to illuminate the principles themselves. Indeed, I owe him a considerable debt for "giving me the eyes to see" a lot of what Hatsumi sensei was doing in my early years, at a time when Hatsumi wasn't really explaining things much.
Hence my interest in this thread. If Angier sensei did not learn from Kenji Yoshida as he claims, he certainly learned something from somewhere. . .