Talk:Aikido/Archive 1

message: I will change the first few lines on the attack section.  All that was really required to join Ueshiba M.'s dojo in the early days were letters of introduction and not all had previous martial art experience.  Those that did tended to come from Judo rather than striking arts.  Interestingly when he first started teaching it was at the Omotokyo headquarters in Ayabe - the bulk of his students had no Budo experience.  When Ueshiba began teaching it wasn't called Aikido but Daito-ryu and was not a new art.  I also removed the  "more agressive" designation for striking arts.  Irimi can be very agressive and is designated by some Aikidoists as atemi (striking) waza. Peter Rehse 01:12, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Attacks

message: What is the policy on external links?  Generally I can see broad based sites such as Aikiweb, some organizational sites, even things like the Primer, but some look like quite ordinary personal pages.  It really is not that long to worry about but hey I'm curious.Peter Rehse 07:07, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree completely with this and I will remove the link.  — Edwin Stearns | Talk 14:16, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: External Links

message: Under "Techniques," there is the line, "Aikido is considered one of the most difficult of the Japanese martial arts in which to gain proficiency since it has such great demands physically and mentally."  While I personally train Aikido and agree it's difficult, I don't think this statement can be meaningfully confirmed.  What does "proficiency" mean?  I agree it's difficult to become adept enough in Aikido to use it for self-defense, but I still think this is too vague and perhaps self-congratulatory a statement.  
No offense is intended.  If anyone disagrees, please contact me.  But I can't imagine that jujitsu, karate, or any other Japanese martial art is significantly easier to gain proficiency in.  Otherwise I'll delete the line in the near future. 
Danspalding 02:10, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that on the face of it it seems like a weird line, and doesn't seem to have adequite support.  What I have seen mentioned a couple times in Aikido books is that the mean time to get a dan-level qualification in Aikido is, on the average, longer than the time to get an equivalent qualification in TKD or most of the popular forms of karate taught in the west.  Of course, the authors of Aikido books tend to interpret that as being a side-effect of the difficulty of Aikido, but it could just be a matter of differing ideas of what constitutes a black-belt level student.  I doubt that there is much in the way of quantitative data on this subject; somehow, I don't see anyone getting a grant to study training pace in martial arts schools any time soon.  What might be worth mentioning is that there is a perception in the Aikido community (as reflected by popular authors, etc.) that Aikido training and certification occurs at a different pace than in many other martial arts.  I can certainly say that I've seen reflected on message boards and in conversation with aikidoka that such a perception exists; in particular, I think that there is a perception that because of the philosophical aspects of Aikido, there is a higher standard set for qualification at upper levels- that one must not only know the techniques, but also be a conscientous partner, a reasonabley skilled instructor when dealing with newbies, and an excellent uke for class demonstrations.  Whether this is true or not is debatable, but the existence of the perception should be possible to document.  --Clay Collier 02:44, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

text: I removed the line "Aikido is considered one of the most difficult of the Japanese martial arts in which to gain proficiency since it has such great demands physically and mentally."  For the above reasons, and because it wasn't a great fit in the "Technique" section.  I couldn't find a great place for it under "Training," either.  Looking at the Training section, I think the average reader will be impressed that Aikido is a demanding art. Danspalding 23:21, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Bias?

message: Hi.  Someone (who must not speak Chinese) suggested that the ki in aikido was the same as both the Qi in Qi Gong and the Chi in T'ai Chi Ch'uan.  This is not true (although I can understand the mistake; the Chi in T'ai Chi is actually pronounced ji -- thank you Wade Giles -- and doesn't mean the same thing at all).  I corrected this mistake.  I also edited much of what was written before for clarity and grammar.  And added a bunch of discussion on how various schools see Ki -- the old article essentially emphasized the spiritual Aikikai interpretation of Ki which is by no means the only one.
Hopefully you guys can look it over and improve it.
:The statement that Chinese chi and Japanese ki not necessarily is the same thing, has nothing to do with the etymology of the word but the meaning of it. I have it from martial artists who has trained in both Chinese and Japanese arts, and found that the teachers from the two countries did not mean quite the same thing with the word. Of course, we could argue if a reiki healers and an aikido persons concept might not be the same. Maybe there is not even two aikido persons who means the same thing, when they say the word...
: Btw, I think the ki-part of the article is greatly improved by your changes. Habj 13:59, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it's not really an issue of "Chinese chi vs. Japanese ki" as it is an issue of "Chinese ji (= chi = 極) vs. Chinese qi (= ch'i =  氣).  It is a question of etymology.  I agree that the recent edits were an improvement.  Thank you anonymous. - Nat Krause 15:09, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

text: OK, then there are two separate issues... Habj 15:25, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Ki

message: Is the link to Hara correct?  The page seems unrelated.  Can someone write a different page about Hara?
:it is another meaning of the word. What do to do with the redirect? /Habj
::Looks like the existing Hara page is the Indian Hara which redirected to another page.  What we need here is a page for the Japanese Hara.
I have created a Hara page for the Japanese Hara called Hara (Fu), following the pattern of a previously existing page called Tanden (Dantian). The problem has arisen, due to the use of these two words interchangably and as synonyms, even though they have different meanings. Hara seems more to refer to a body part, the belly, while Tanden is more etheral a concept, being the centre of power and centre of gravity (assuming the stance is correct, of course). A Chinese friend who speaks both Mandarin and Japanese showed me that the characters are one and the same in both languages. I have resolved all links, ie Aikido - this page, to the new page. The old Hara page still exists, as it is a disambiguation page. I have made a link in it to the 2 new pages, as the terms are often used interchangably. As well, the old and incorrect Hara (Dantian) page should be deleted. I have removed all text from it and unlinked it, so I presume that it is gone. 
While I was at it, I also corrected the links to Qigong and Tai Chi Chuan at the top of the section. whiskers (talk) 07:14, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Hara

message: I am myself quite ambivalent about this idea.  What would you think about adding a list of aikido techniques/attacks here?  Perhaps on a single page, with short definitions of, say, irimi-nage, ikkyo/ikkajo, kaiten-nage, etc.  I think this would provide useful information, but at the same time it might be overly ambitious, especially when stylistic differences come into play.  (Are we really qualified to describe the fundamental, trans-stylistic essence of, say, yonkyo?)  I'd like some feedback before I make such a move.
:I think that this is a bad idea. Not only are there technical differences, but there are terminology differences. The ikkyo-ikkajo issues is only the beginning; what many teachers call irimi-nage is called kokyu-nage in Ki Society. Even within the Aikikai, there are divergent naming conventions. Furthermore, I don't think that an encyclopedia article should try to be a technical manual. It would be fine to have pictures of some techniques as examples with the naming convention used by the person doing the demonstration, but any attempt to give a NPOV technical description would be doomed to failure.
Edwinstearns 15:40, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm the original poster; I didn't have a user name at the time.  I think you're correct on this matter; it would be horribly difficult, and of questionable utility.  I think I'll add a few aikiweb links instead, for the curious reader.  Thanks for your sensible commentary.  --GenkiNeko 20:05, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Technical Summaries? 

message: I deleted the description of ASU because:
# It has already been listed under Aikikai, and
# The description was longer and more detailed than the other style descriptions.
I think that we should be carefull that this page doesn't become a series of promotions for induvidual styles. This will only result edit wars as some people will always feel that their style has been slighted in some way. Let's try to keep the internal political fights of Aikido off this encyclopedic page and on the forums where they belong. Edwinstearns 14:24, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: That's reasonable.  I am just concerned about people making characterizations like "style A is stronger than other styles" or "style B has more sophisticated weapons training".  Very few people have enough exposure to various styles to make objective judgements about the differences between styles.  Often there are greater differences within organizations than between organizations.  As a compromise, we could start a new list of orginizations under the Aikikai umbrella with descriptions focused on objective facts, like leadership, date of founding and organizing principles. Edwinstearns 13:52, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  ASU 

message: An automated Wikipedia link suggester has some possible wiki link suggestions for the Aikido article, and they have been placed on this page for your convenience.Tip: Some people find it helpful if these suggestions are shown on this talk page, rather than on another page. To do this, just add  to this page. — LinkBot 10:10, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[User:LinkBot/suggestions/Aikido|Link suggestions]] 

message: In some lines of aikido, all techniques can be performed with a sword as well as unarmed.
:I'd like to know a style where this is really the case (I mean "all" is a quite strong proposition). Otherwise this sentence should be removed or re-formulated. --217.72.214.39 21:00, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I can see that it was removed, and I think that was good. It is true about Shoji Nishio's system, which is technically a bit different to other schools of aikido I know of. The sentence can now be found on the page about this teacher. Habj 18:30, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  All techniques can be performed with sword? 

message: Isn't that section on the book a bit over the top? If we include that, IMO we should mention a similar number of European aikido people and there are many books that could be mentioned. To me it seems we are shifting the weight of the article a bit to something less necessary. Habj 12:45, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The book gives a background of how Aikido came to the United States and how it changed and evolved from its Japanese roots. I liked the way the editors divided the people into 3 groups following the evolution of Aikido in the U.S. I am also interested in other parts of the world as well.  Please list other Aikidoka if they have made contributions to Aikido as well as similiar books which would be good references.  I also moved the List to new page.  Petersam 20:25, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  A section "Literature" is fine with me, although I can think of some books more obvious to mention (Aikido and the harmonic sphere, Saito's books, osenseis books). A section about the history of aikido in the US would be fine; sections about the history in Europe, Australia etc. also. In this context I guess mentioning the book as a source would be the way to go. Habj 01:12, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Book "Aikido in America" and mentioning of aikido people

message: I removed Nishio aikido from the styles section, since Nishio was a part of the Aikikai. Technically he had a very unique style, but we have to distunguish between organisastions and technical styles; a list like this has to be of organisations, or it is impossible what teachers have a style unique enough to be mentioned. 
I do not know if Tissier has his own organisation or not, but until I have facts that this is the case I would like to remove Tissier Aikido from the list also. I'll wait a bit, though. /Habj 08:49, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Styles: Nishio and Tissier Aikido 

message: That's a nikyo in the photo, not ikkyo!
:I agree that the picture is probably nikyo and is now correctly captioned, but I would point out that there is very little consistancy in the naming of techniques and it is possible that the instructor demonstarting called it ikkyo.  — Edwin Stearns | Talk 18:52, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes; in Yoshokai, that would be called ikkajo. --GenkiNeko 15:17, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image correction 

message: :"Aikikai Founded by Ueshiba Kissomaru, is the the largest aikido organisation is the, and is lead by family of the founder."
I don't see how this can be true.  O-Sensei was alive at the time of founding and was the head of the orginization until he died.  While it may be true that his son was instrumental in Aikikai's formation and that O-Sensei had little interest in orginizational issues, it seems to me to be misleading to say that he didn't found the orginization.  I will change this unless someone can cite a source one way or the other.
-- — Edwin Stearns | Talk 19:03, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who founded Aikikai 

message: I noticed that someone changed 'nage' to 'tori' at one point in the article.  I've heard a number of different terms for the two partners involved in practicing together; 'uke' seems to be pretty standard, but for the other partner I've heard 'nage', 'tori', and something that sounds like 'shay'.  Are these varient readings of the same kanji, or terms that are used in different aikido schools?  Nage is standard in Aikikai schools, as far as I can tell.  Should there be some effort to pick a standard set of terms and give the others as alternates? --Clay Collier 01:10, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I changed the edit back to 'nage' because that is the term that is being used elsewhere in the article.  'Nage', 'tori' and 'shi'te' are all used in various branches of Aikido.  I agree that nage is the most common term in Aikikai circles but in the recent english translation of one of the books written by Moriteru Ueshiba, current Doshu of Aikikai, the term tori is used. The current defacto policy of this article is to use nage everywhere and to mention that other terms are sometimes used.  I would be in favor of removing all technical terms as there is no terminology that all Aikido practitioners agree with (with the possible exeption of shihonage) and because people who have come to the article with no Aikido experience won't understand the terminology anyway.  My understanding is that Morihei Ueshiba didn't specify any of the terminology, but rather his students invented them, which has led to the current state of confusion.  If this is true, there is not 'correct' term to use.  — Edwin Stearns | Talk 20:11, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Partner Terminology

message: No I'm not one of them,(hehe),  but I've just finished a major overhaul of the Shizuo Imaizumi article and I need someone more knowledgeable than me to check it out, especially the part about Shin Budo Kai itself. I have a feeling I haven't captured what Shin Budo Kai really is about in that paragraph in the Shizuo-article. Oh, I could also use some help with judging grammar, (english isn't my first language to begin with) wikification, NPOV and so on..  Any help would be..(will be?) apreciated. :)
*edit*
I used the sources for the article described in "reference materials". Again if anyone feel it is not accurate feel free to tell me so.
Fred26 12:33, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Any Shin Budo Kai followers here?