Even though I am not a direct student of Sugano Sensei, but he was our teaching committee in here Malaysia ( Malaysia Aikido Association ). I enjoy his charisma whenever I attend his seminar held here. His “Aikidoka” way of attitude imprints mostly on each and every student here, including myself. The thing about him that impresses me most, is his determination of going into dojo, stepping on the mat, after his health condition due to his amputated leg.

So to speak, I respect him and salute him with all my might. His humbleness will forever be my inspiration, in my journey towards Aikido.

P.S. Rest In Peace, Sensei.

We both started at an independent dojo in Cleveland with an instructor who trained through ASU. My friend moved to Phoenix and has received her shodan through ASU. Part of that training, however, consisted of the dojo cho regularly calling her and several other students to the back mat area for the second half of class for lectures on aikdo. I moved to Florida where I train at Florida Aikikai (as you know, a Federation dojo). Although I now appreciate the emphasis on basic technique, I found it very frustrating at first compared to my previous concept-oriented training.

I went to visit my friend and, despite her dan ranking as compared to my yukyushu-for-life limbo, I was (and I mean no disrespect here) really underwhelmed by not only her technique, but that of others at the dojo. Where was the benefit of all the dissertations?

I think one issue that this touches upon, though, is the issue of shihan worhip (as opposed to shihan respect) one sees in some branches of aikido. Or, put more narrowly, the tendency of some to develop a cult of personality with respect to their shihan to the point of denigrating not only what others have to offer, but the manner in which the information is presented by someone with a different approach. I had that strong feeling upon reading Joel Riggs piece, although will explicitly state that I do not know the man and am merely going upon the tone of his interpretation of Yamada Sensei’s seminar. But I could not shake the thought that what Riggs Sensei wanted was a shihan with the same style as Robert Nadeau Shihan (under whom Riggs Sensei trained) but with slightly different information.

Although I am happy with the Federation, one benefit to having trained independently at first is that I haver found myself more open to a variety of what others can teach me (though perhaps that is my ego speaking; alas, I cannot say). That is not to say I think it is all good. I have seen some high ranked instructors teach techniques that I, lowly perch that I may occupy, think are useless in terms of self-defense, and often just extensions of the instructor’s ego on the mat. But those relate to individual techniques or instructors, not general concepts.

Just my $0.02, for what it is worth.

Thank you for making the first comment to my blog.

Rereading my post, I see that I left out a clear statement of my thesis. My problem with Mr. Amdur’s book is the too common criticism of modern Aikido that it is watered down in comparison to pre-war Aikido. In much of the discussion, there seems to be a mythical past where real men trained seriously and that this is lost today. I think that it is more accurate to say that people who displayed real internal strength and martial prowess was rare in O Sensei’s time, just as it is rare today. I would argue that because of O Sensei’s efforts, there are more people that “get it” today than there ever were. The fact that most people who study modern Aikido don’t put in the necessary effort to achieve the potential doesn’t mean that no one does. My experience of let down when reading the chapter about misogi training probably has much to do with the fact that repeats so much of what I’ve heard from Sugano Sensei. I suppose I had the unrealistic anticipation that Ellis would say something that would change the way that I look at training instead of confirming exactly what my teachers had been saying all along.

Your point is well taken that there are many people who train in Aikido (perhaps myself included) that don’t the necessary personal investigations into the art. For them there would be much in the standard training that is “hidden” even when explicitly stated.

Edwin

The reason I mention the above is because I’ve seen the phenomenon so many times, in my experience. I’m the type of person who upon hearing something that may be relevant… I go look, just to be sure. Most people I encountered in Aikido seemed quite happy to not go look because they were certain they already had everything in their Aikido. But of course this applies to many other arts, too (not singling out Aikido for this mindset).

It’s all interesting to watch and Ellis’ wry choice of “Hidden in Plain Sight” was a good one.

FWIW

Mike Sigman