Taijutsu of Iwama-ryu Aikido of Morihiro Saito?

I have heard alot about the weapons training of Iwama-ryu with the Aikiken and Aikijo. But can someone tell me about the actual taijutsu or unarmed techniques of Saito Sensei and Iwama-ryu? Is it a hard aggressive type of Aikido like Yoshinkan or is it more of the flowing techniques of other types of Aikido?
Thanks

[autrelle]

i would say that it is not anymore aggressive than any other style of aikido, but it is definitely stronger than most (that's only my opinion). it also (characterisically) has more exacting movement than most styles of aikido (also my opinion). i base this on the few times i have trained with an "Iwama-style" man in gainesville, and the few Iwama seminars i have had the pleasure of attending (Senseis Pat Hendricks and Stephanie Yapp). from what i gather,a more flowing style is not emphasized in the beginning for students of Iwama style.

http://www.iwama-ryu.dk/

check out this link. i have found it to be a most informative site on Iwama.

Hi all.

Well, IMHO as for taijutsu i do not believe that "Iwama style" realy exists, and by the way, Saito Sensei does not believe either. What he says, and you can see that in a lot of interviews he gave, is that he teaches Aikido exactly like he learned from O-Sensei. Now, in fact, you can see that there is a difference in the Aikido of different Sensei, for example, the Aikido of Saito Sensei and the Aikido of Kishomaru (and Moriteru) Ueshiba Sensei. But you must remember that the term "Aikikai" in reallity is kind of an "umbrella" name. If you go to Aikikai and take a class with some of the older Sensei, like Arikawa Sensei or Tada Sensei, you will see that their Aikido is very much alike Saito Sensei's Aikido. Ok, they had a common teacher (O-Sensei), you will say, but it was the same teacher Kishomaru Sensei had, and Shioda Sensei had, and Tomiki and Mochizuki, and Tohei, isn't it? So, how come, all this teachers having learned from the same man, have such different technique? I believe that the best answer to this is that O-Sensei is quoted as saying something like "do what i do in your way, don't try to do what i do my way" when he was teaching. Go figure. Ganbatte.

Toni Rodrigues

[autrelle]

uhh...whoa. i completely agree with the comments about there not being an "Iwama-style." but for some reason, a lot of people who practice Aikido as Saito Sensei teaches it refers to their practice as such. but a discussion of that doesn't really answer the original question, and it also confuses the issue a tad bit. very informative though. oh, and i posted the wrong link. here's what i meant to submit:

http://www.aikidoaus.com.au/dojo/index.htm

you can get to this page form the portal link i posted earlier, but this will save you some digging. this page is full of goodies for the curious.

truly

It must be understod that all the main styles of aikido e.g. Yoshinkan, Aikikai, Iwama, etc etc are fundamentally the same. The thing which will be diffrent is the way its taught. I feel the main diffrence with Yoshinkan Aikido is the endurance aspect. In Yoshinkan we believe its best to train as toughly as possible, so everything else in life seems easy compared to the difficulty in training. The main thing is cultivating ones spirit (never giving up) your mind controls your body not the other way round. If you want an insight into Yoshinkan Aikido read 'Angry White Pyjamas'. Always do what is right for you. I know many people in the forum disagree with the training methods of the Yoshinkan. One problem is when you get schools of Aikido which are split offs of split offs etc etc and you get a guy of 20 who is the head of his school of Aikido and undoubtedly the style gets diluted.

Matt Banks

The reason I started this thread is that I am a big fan of Sensei Seagal and his style of Aikido. I have been able to trace his hard style and use of kenjutsu back to Iwama. Sensei Seagal had many teachers but the one who influenced his Aikido the most was Hiroshi Isoyama. Isoyama Sensei began his Aikido in Iwama as a young man. His style of Aikido is very hard and he also uses weapons such as the sword.

Iwama's Taijutsu must be very direct and hard because if you have ever seen Isoyama Sensei or Seagal Sensei, they are both very direct and hard styles.

[Richard Elias]

I studied "Iwama" Aikido for some time, and we had a saying, "one blend one throw". It was very direct. We were often refered to as "hard-style Aikido".

I also got to train with Aikidoka from various other styles and I would have to say that Iwama is most like Yoshinkan, than the other "styles". In fact, on one of Saito sensei's visits he mentioned that Shioda sensei had asked him to take over the Yoshinkan when he retires, which he politely refused.

Saito and Shioda are old drinking buddies from waaaay back.

[BC]

I have never had the privilege of seeing Saito Sensei's aikido, but I have trained with students of Rinjiro Shirata Sensei (Yamagata Ken). From what I understand, Shirata Sensei and Saito Sensei formed an organization in Japan for their respective dojos. Shirata Sensei's style also seemed "hard," so I was wondering if anyone would be comfortable stating whether they think Shirata Sensei's and Saito Sensei's styles were similar or different. Regards.

I read these words all the time in posts "hard-style Aikido", but I have yet to get a real description of what people really, technically mean. Regarding Mr. Hoffner's post, I don't see any difference between what Segal sensei and many others are doing. Perhaps on screen, Segal's is "sensationalized" for your movie viewing pleasure, but I seem to be missing the "hard style" part....

Would one of you please elaborate on this for me as I don't get out much.......

btw...I'm a student of "Aikikai style" whatever that means.

-DCP Mongo

[Ron Tisdale]

I don't like the term "hard" either. John Stevens once described Yoshinkan as a diamond to me; sharp, precise, bright. Hard seems very vague.

Things that I see in common between students of Shioda S., Saito S., and Shirata S.;

Well defined style of movement (especially for the basic movements that make up a technique).

Sharp, precise movement more than flowing movement (not that there is no flow to their technique, just that the movements seem more delineated than other styles I have seen).

Strong entering (irimi) componant, even with number 2 or ura/tenkan movements.

More active in "taking uke's balance". Uke off balance at the moment of contact.

My thoughts on it, anyway...

Ron Tisdale

[astudent]

my experience with "iwama-style" or sometimes refered to as "takemusu" is that it is very direct and precise. this is also the only "style" i've trained.
i have been to a couple of seminars with saito sensei and my teacher is a direct student(tatoian sensei) of saito sensei and both their techniques are very precise and direct. the movements are not very "elaborate" and don't seem to have the flowing dance quality that i have seen of other styles. emphasis is on basic techniques. we do the basic techniques over and over again and we often start from a static position. this is where you learn proper form and movement and develop power.
i don't know if "iwama style" is soft or hard. i have heard of some people complain that iwama-ryu is too aggressive, maybe that's just because they trained with people from my dojo, but when a technique is done properly it feels very smooth and fluid and to some degree soft, whether your uke or nage. as uke our bodies move not because it's painful but because our bodies seem to want to move in that direction.
as far as weapons training, aikijo and aikiken supplement the taijutsu and vice versa. many of the movements are the same.

I feel that Stanley Pranin is one of the foremost people of knowledge on Aikido history. He has stated that the reason that there is so much difference between Aikido technique of the many different Aikidoka is that most of them spent VERY LITTLE TIME with O'sensei. The people that did tend to have more of the Aiki Jujutsu flavor to their style.

Now, this makes me wonder about Kisshomaro Ueshiba and why his Aikido was very soft and flowing rather than sharp and precise like Yoshinkan or Iwama? I mean, you would think that he spent alot of time with his father training in Aiki Budo as well as Aikido. This is the one thing that perplexes me to this day. Mr. Pranin has never been able to explain this to my liking. I agree with him on the rest of the students of O'sensei but O'sensei's own son would have spent alot of time with his father, you would think.

Anyone else have a comment on this?

[astudent]

my understanding is that O'sensei spent most of his final years in iwama. while his son was in japan at hombu dojo. saito sensei spent more time with O'sensei before he died then kisshomaro. and i think part of why there are so many different styles is because aikido keeps evolving and what someone took away and learned from it had a lot to do with when they studied with O'sensei.

I have trained Takemusu (Iwama) aikido for the last 6 years. As a beginner, I am not qualified to pontificate on any possible differences between "styles" so I won't. I will pass on two pieces of information, however: the first, at the last Easter seminar in Sydney, April 2000, Saito Sensei distributed an extract from a (the?) Japanese language Aikido newspaper, an article with an English translation, stating that the past Doshuu announced that as the Founder's art took a long time to attain, he changed aspects of techniques. This English translation, I can not read Japanese, indicated that the style taught at Hombu is different from what the Founder taught. It also stated that Saito Sensei teaches the art as the Founder taught it. I can provide a copy of this to those that request it via my email.
The second piece of information relates to the question of hard or soft style. My teacher informs me that the reason Iwama style is considered static or "hard" is that it is not until 3rd dan that ki no nagare is emphasised more than previously. Until then, kihon focuses on developing the body and learning to control the centre from strong grabs.
These two issues are probably not separate.
Best regards

[autrelle]

i would like a copy of that reading if you have it in it's entirety.

autrelle@excite.com