Question for Aikido buffs

**Beatdown Richie** · Posted On: 8/20/2004 1:59pm

Thank you for your impressions. Just one more thing: how much contact, in your experience, do different branches of aikido have, in your experience - visiting each other's seminars, crosstraining, acknowledging each other's ranking, that kind of thing?

**Peter H.** · Posted On: 8/20/2004 3:11pm

I encounter someone from another org or style about once every month or two. Teaching on a military base does that. It's been four months since I last attended a function done by someone outside of our org. I try to stop by another school just to see what it's like whenever I go out of town and have the time.

I can't say otherwise. I actually tried getting ranked by another org when I was debating switching. The cost was far too great for me to bother with.

**kod** · Posted On: 8/20/2004 4:57pm

Originally posted by Peter H.
There is no one teaching Aikido today that can claim they aren't a splinter. . . If you aren't refining Aikido, as he refined Aikido, then you are disrespecting his memory, IMO.

Do you recognize a difference between groups that were on good terms with ueshiba & family, and groups that literally split ties in "founding their own branch"?

**Peter H.** · Posted On: 8/20/2004 5:08pm

Originally posted by kod
Do you recognize a difference between groups that were on good terms with ueshiba & family, and groups that literally "split" ties?

Yes I do. It doesn't change anything I said. I don't think splitting on good terms/bad terms/being a relative changes anything about a group's relationship to Aikido and Ueshiba.

If it looks Aikido, talks Aikido, it's Aikido. Having Hombu Recognition, as many splinter groups do, or USAF or IAF recognition doesn't make you not a splinter or off shoot, nor does it make your Aikido more Aikido-ish.

**Te No Kage!** · Posted On: 8/23/2004 8:33pm

Being in the ASU, which was an offshoot until it was brought back into the Aikikai umbrella a few years ago, has gotten me a lot of experience with different flavors of aikido. It seems that our org. is an "anything goes" group. One of the famous sayings that I always hear is that "Uke is never wrong". I think many if not all the uchi-deshi of the Founder each had their own personal impression of aikido so they all are in fact doing the Founder's aikido just each likes to focus on certain teachings. It seems to me that my experience in Aikido has always been evolving and innovative, at least I think that's what Saotome Sensei (head of ASU) has been trying to do. I haven't even had a sensei in ASU teach the same exact way as the next, but I think the variety is good so you can learn what works best for you. Is BJJ not unlike this in some ways? Are there not many variations of an armbar?

**Beatdown Richie** · Posted On: 8/24/2004 11:19am

> Is BJJ not unlike this in some ways? Are there not many variations of an armbar?
Oh yes, but BJJ instructors are more likely to say "this is how I like to do it, So-and-so does it this way, try both" than "this is how you do an armbar correctly. Anything else is not good BJJ."