Tohei Koichi and his "Rendez-vous With Adventure"

[Cady Goldfield]

Here's a link to an excellent piece by Ellis Amdur, deconstructing and debunking some of the semi-myths and legends surrounding Tohei Koichi's demonstrations with multiple attackers, a very large judoka and others, which were captured in some well-worn film clips. In addition to the historic commentary, there are some interesting notes regarding the range of Tohei's internal skills and his fighting skills. There are some matters there that could be a whole 'nuther discussion.

Bon appétit.

http://www.guillaumeerard.com/aikido...with-adventure

[Hissho]

Link not seeming to work?

http://www.guillaumeerard.com/aikido...with-adventure

Fascinating. Dunno if I agree in total - how much Judo had Tohei done?

Excellent point about power not being fighting. The same is replayed time and again with powerful non-combat athletes in combat sports: while they may be a handful, lack of skill is not made up for with power and they eventually lose steam, succumbing to superior skill. The entire idea of jujutsu (NOT aiki, but just plain ol' good jujutsu...) is to control power with skill. An absolutely provable point. Confusion occurs not only in the aiki/jujutsu realm, but in the power training/fighting world, and even the police world. More than one cop has gotten his ass handed to him in a fight and decided the remedy is to "spend more time in the gym" and to "get stronger," neither of which addresses the actual problem: an inability to fight or skillfully control people.

When said folks run into people that are either stronger, or more technically skilled, or impervious to pain compliance, they are in the same boat they started. They have to fall back on brute strength, cheap shots, and foul tactics with mixed results.

Ideally something like aiki-jujutsu would combine these two things. And of course balance the training time between them.

[Cady Goldfield]

Thanks RE: the link, Kit. I've fixed it.