@Trancecoach

Then we have a similar heritage. I study under Gaku Homma sensei, who was at Iwama very close to the same time that Bob Frager was there.

Also interesting, Frager is a friend of Stanley Pranin who came and gave a private lecture at my dojo last year, about the early history of Ōsensei. So if we're playing "Six Degrees of Morihei Ueshiba", I think we're 2 degrees twice over.

8th dan, Bob Frager...

Like a sensei!

That's pretty impressively rare. Who's your sensei?

My Aikido sensei studied under the founder of Aikido in Japan in the 1960s.

There are varying levels of trust. I trust the drivers around me to not do anything too stupid. I trust that the money I earn will buy me food and clothing (and beer!).

More importantly, I trust the people I go snowboarding with that they'll dig me out of an avalanche, and the people I train with in Aikido that they can receive a technique safely and the senseis who demonstrate a technique on me that they won't do any permanent damage.

Most importantly, I trust my wife.... with everything.

Being Sensei's sparring partner sucked 100 years ago too.

✋ He's using the force of Randall James Hamilton Zwinge ✋

One of those skeptics should have countered his instructions and shown sensei the, Out-of-Nowhere-Bitch-Slap technique

That day will come, definitely. How soon it comes is up to you.

I know people in their forties who are stiff as bricks, yet my 65 year old Sensei can do the splits and put his whole torso on the ground.

I refuse to be old!
/stands up and tweaks back....

If the liberal dream of seizing all the wealth of the rich came true (minus, I'm sure, Hollywood weirdos) they'd loot about 250 billion, enough to fund our entire precious thugverment for 10-12 days.

The Right needs to step aside like an aikido sensei and just let the taxocrats raise taxes as high as they want, that way the left can OWN the turbo-boost they give to the Depression they're already creating,

Man, I wish I had been inspired like that when I went to my first Jiu Jitsu class. Instead, the Sensei just threw me into the mix with everybody else and basically told me to follow their lead; no special instructions or attention. At the end of the class I felt like I had wasted my time, and I never went back.

Some day, maybe I'll try something like that again. But probably not.

@RedSky

There is an old legend about a Sensei who provides instruction to his students for free. As the months go by, the students start to feel guilty for not compensating their instructor, so they offer to pay him. When approached, the Sensei replies, "If I were to charge you, you couldn't afford me".

Teaching is a calling. No one goes into teaching to become rich, they do it because they believe it provides a valuable social service. When you throw 'merit pay' into the equation, it changes this dynamic. It cheapens the interaction. Whatever pittance that would be offered would be insulting compared to the amount of time and effort teachers spend on and off campus.

If you are doing it right, there should be a sense among schools, teachers and students that they are all in it together as a team, all striving to be the best they can be and cheering their peers to do the same. There would be nothing worse for this kind of camaraderie than to throw a roll of quarters on the ground and ask them to fight over it. In the private sector, where value is measured in dollars, fighting over loose change is part of the game, but to introduce this kind of game theory into what should be a supportive and nurturing environment couldn't be more wrong headed. When Coke and Pepsi fight, the consumer wins; when students, teachers, schools and districts start duking it out, we all lose (and corporations win says issy astutely). You can't solve social problems with market solutions.

Competition is not part of the soul of education. Sure, you find competitive elements in sports, arts competitions, science team, etc., but the point of education is not to 'win'. The point of education is to learn, and more specifically, to 'learn how to learn'. Tests are about winning and losing and do nothing to promote critical thinking or a greater understanding of the world we live in. Sure, you need tests to gauge progress, but when you make testing the center piece of the educational experience, you fail in the bigger picture.

Education should be about critical thinking, about asking questions and about preparing students to be intelligent and thoughtful adults, who will hopefully one day make this world a better place. To fill their heads (or their teacher's heads) with the motivating factors of greed, selfishness and fear is no way to make this world a better place.

berticus turned me on to a great book that is helping me to understand this debate better (among other things). It's not a book about education or politics per se. It's about the psychology that governs our decisions and interactions. The book is called 'Predictably Irrational' by Dan Ariely. You'd like it.

I've done a lot of teaching in many different contexts; one-on-one instruction, coaching small groups and directing big ones. When you do a good job, it is its own rewards, when you do a bad job, it is its own punishment. No amount of money in the world can give you the feeling of changing someones life for the better, and no amount of salary in the world can spare you the shame of failing a student.

It frustrates me that people want to force education into the shallow mold of markets. We've been at it for a decade now and our educational system is still in shambles. Heck, market solutions have fucked up nearly every aspect of our country, from jobs to banks to mortgage fraud to war to poverty. Enough is enough.

Strange to come across this video though because I just got back from a weekend Aikido seminar out of town.

I'm not a big believer in Ki. To me it's all about body mechanics rather than some undefinable energy. I've been to a few Maruyama Sensei seminars (Kokikai) and he's all about Ki but it just came across to me like a marketing trick designed to appeal to Americans. I even uked for Maruyama Sensei through an entire seminar and truthfully, I played along with all his Ki power demonstrations (hell, he's 8th Dan) but I fealt like I could have pushed him over at any time.

Anyway, although Seagal Sensei obviously develops a lot of power from his center, I can't help but feel that his sheer mass plays a big part in his Aikido. That and his "Sensei Power", that intangible mystical force that made me pretend I couldn't push over an 80 year old man in front of his own students.

Oh that's possible. I don't know when my sensei trained with Steven, but know for sure he trained under Ueshiba (my sensei, not Steven).

Honestly, I think Steven's contributions to martial arts has more to do with his outsized ego than his ability. Many of the practitioners in my dojo are probably just as skilled, if not more so, than Steven, but they simply don't have his charisma.

I don't think his size is really at cause for his power, however. In aikido, size can serve as a detriment if it is not embodied within the hara -- the center -- and moves with the hips, as in any athletic endeavor.

And as someone who has experienced the kind of qi he references here, the energy is in no way mystical. It is a real phenomenon with actual effects on the mat.

>> ^TheFreak:

>> ^Trancecoach:
My Aikido sensei, an 8th Dan, trained under the founder of Aikido with Steven. when you learn to embody the principles, the art is quite beautiful
His demo starts around 1:15 in this video.

Morehei Ueshiba died in 1969. Steven Seagal went to Japan in 1974. So Seagal never learned Aikido from the founder.
His accomplishments in Aikido are still impressive though. Undoubtedly the biggest influence in popularizing the martial art in the US.
And to elevate one of Westy's points, I suspect he gets more power from being 6'4" than he gets from any form of mystical, universal energy.

>> ^Trancecoach:
My Aikido sensei, an 8th Dan, trained under the founder of Aikido with Steven. when you learn to embody the principles, the art is quite beautiful
His demo starts around 1:15 in this video.


Morehei Ueshiba died in 1969. Steven Seagal went to Japan in 1974. So Seagal never learned Aikido from the founder.

His accomplishments in Aikido are still impressive though. Undoubtedly the biggest influence in popularizing the martial art in the US.

And to elevate one of Westy's points, I suspect he gets more power from being 6'4" than he gets from any form of mystical, universal energy.

My Aikido sensei, an 8th Dan, trained under the founder of Aikido with Steven. when you learn to embody the principles, the art is quite beautiful

His demo starts around 1:15 in this video.