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Hello Mr. Taylor,
Welcome to the forum!
I'm glad you chose to de-cloak and participate in discussions. I find your presence here to be an asset, since otherwise we are limited to discussing your organization - of which we are not members - between ourselves. I am also relieved to hear that you are satsified with the quality of training at the Seishin Abashiri dojo.
Nothing will be resolved from emotional outbursts and name calling, so I am quite happy to approach the topic logically, factually and fairly.
Out of curiousity, may I ask who your instructor was under Yonezawa Sensei? Was it under the Bokuyokan, or earlier?So I feel compelled as a creditability issue, to share with you that my previous teacher for over 10 years, prior to joining the school was a Sandan under the late Katsumi Yonzawa Sensei.
While we're at it, how do you find your training under Yonezawa S. system compares to your training now?
This is a tough subject to discuss. While I don't personally know whether the Seishin members are highly skilled or not, I would say that it is likewise not fair to assume that they *are* highly skilled.While both are very important and show acheivment, to rule out the fact that senior students of the former Daitokan, whomever they might be, would not have a legitimate level of techincal ability, is unreasonable to me. Especially when many of the senior students, including those of the "Seishinkai Group", were direct and daily attending students of the late Tokimune Takeda Sensei for periods of 30-40 years.
I instruct at the headquarters of two of the syles that I train in, and it has been an interesting experience. The members of our Honbu largely are not aware of the skill level of our headmaster, or what a rare opportunity it is to train under him directly. As such, there are quite a number of mediocre-skilled students who come to class, put in their time and don't make the extra effort and sacrifice to really excel in the systems. To some degree they take the instructor for granted since he is there five days a week. Some students have come from other places specifically to train under our headmaster, and they are the exceptions, but most students are local and this was simply the closest dojo to where they live.
Conversely, our headmaster runs two world-wide organizations, full of members who compete for his time and attention. They do not see him often, and as such are very hungry for knowledge. Soke is treated with much respect and enthusiasm when he travels, and as a result puts alot more energy into teaching them. Also, having limited exposure to him, he tends to give them alot of valuable "homework" to work on inbetween visits.
My point being that it has been my experience and observation that it is quite possible to have students with daily contact with the headmaster of the style who do not become highly skilled, while others not at the honbu may be able to progress at a relatively surprising pace. To many Japanese, Daito ryu is many of hundreds of ryu-ha that are taught around Japan. Many students are usually either young, and not terribly committed, or salarymen that don't have the time, inclination or energy to train seriously.
Daito ryu was not nearly as "famous" then as it is now, and the Daitokan was a somewhat modest wooden building in the back yard of the instructor's house.
Also, it is well worth noting that Takeda Sokaku S. performed the vast majority of his teaching through limited seminar-style opportunities. Many of the highly skilled instructors of Daito ryu managed to learn this way, seeing a technique demonstrated once and not receiving much if any corrections from the instructor. It has been documented that this is how Ueshiba Sensei and most others learned.
While Kondo Sensei is a busy man, and lives quite far away from the Daitokan, I don't think it's fair to question his ability based on this fact alone considering that most senior exponents learned in the same fashion - and he was clearly favored and awarded the only Menkyo Kaiden by the Daitokan's own headmaster.
I ask you this - why did Takeda T. Soke not choose to issue higher certfication to his own, daily students of 30-40 years. What about Kyoju Dairi? Why trust administrative duties to someone so far away when he's got long time direct senior students locally?
I also find it interesting that the Seishin seniors and Mr. Kobayashi are quick to defend the honor and memory of their teacher, but they don't seem to mind boldly implying that Kondo Sensei purchased his Menkyo Kaiden from Takeda T. Soke (this based primarily on discussions on the daito-ryu.com BBS).
These are a few points to consider.
For the record, I'm not saying Kondo S. or Kato/Sano S. are more or less skilled. I have not seen any of the Seishin tapes yet. Mr. Taylor could very well be right. I for one remain open until I've at least viewed some video.
I think we all agree on this. Personally, it is my hope to reach some kind of understanding or conclusion through this public "trial". Like I said, all this did not happen all that long ago.As for me, I wish both groups would or could find a way to re-unite, because we in Daito-ryu are all losing out in someway.
There is some truth to that, but I have had alot of luck evaluating the skill of someone by watching video. I've seen Kondo S. in his oroduced instructional videos, and I've seen video of him live during demonstrations. You can see if the uke's are flying around on their own, and if the instructor is applying techniques in a bio-mechanically sound fashion or if it is a bit rough around the edges.Personally, I don't believe that one can say based on video tapes that either my teachers, or Mr. Kondo's group, are more superior. There are all sorts of photographic procedures and staging that can enhance the quality of a particular production. I like to think of video footage as a representation of certain techniques, rather than a judging instrument for the quality or caliber of a particular pactinioner or group.
The Seishin videos are produced, which means they have had the opportunity to edit and put their best foot forward. However, while I'd like to see any video of them, I'd really like to see the demonstrating.
Evaluation of this kind is subjective, but far from valueless.
May I suggest that you approach your instructors about uploading a few mpegs for the world to see? It might go a long ways towards educating the public as to their skill, and it would bring traffic to the web page.
Anyway, the main issue politically has little to do with "who is better". But I don't think we can assume that one is better or worse based off the amount of daily exposure to the headmaster. while this is a logical theory, and two students of equal drive under these opposing training opportunities would definitely have vastly different skill levels in the end, I have seen evidence in more than one case to indicate that this is not always true in reality.
Respectfully,
[Edited by Nathan Scott on 12-11-2000 at 08:34 PM]
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