Inside Nihon Goshin Aikido ~ #51
1 June 2017
Inside this Issue:
The Summer Is Here!
Report on A Virtual Aikido Workshop ~ Is Aikido A Martial Art
Forum Was Installed =>Hacked => Uninstalled => Reinstalled
Articles of Interest
The Summer Is Here
When I was a 4th grader, I can vividly remember sitting on the curb across the street from my house the day after school got out for the summer with my other buddies while we planned our future adventures. Although "The Fight I Wish I'd Finished" was a mere 24-hour old memory ~ I had managed to focus on more pleasing things.
We had developed a grand list of "Summer To-Dos" which included daily activities like sand-lot baseball, kick the can, roll the bat, may-pop wars, catching crawdads in the creek that ran through the neighborhood, pick up soccer, improving the layout and capacity of our "He-Man-Woman-Haters Club," and trying to figure out who would be the first of our cabal to successfully skateboard down Killer Hill ~ without making the heretofore the requisite trip to the Emergency Room. That summer was especially memorable, because it was the last one like it. My family moved to a different town a few days later, and I never had a similar first day of summer experience.
Flash forward 40 years, and today is the first official day of summer for our family. As the parent tasked with "deliver children to government school for their prescribed socialist/communist indoctrination" ~ I am especially happy that my alarm did not go off at 6:45 am. Unfortunately, I woke up anyway.
With no compulsion to guide me, I broke out my Summer To Do List. Can you believe that the first thing on it was "Write Issue #51 of Inside Nihon Goshin Aikido!" You know, even at age 49, writing an article doesn't sound nearly as much fun as a May-pop War. My aikido calling ~ at times it is a grim necessity.
Onward!
My First Virtual Aikido Seminar
I recently attended a 10-Day series of Virtual Aikido Seminars hosted on the web. There were some amazingly informative sessions, but many sessions left you scratching your head. The topic of my favorite session in the series ~ and the initial reason I registered for the seminar ~ was titled "Is Aikido a Martial Art?" It featured a panel of speakers including prominent Brazilian Jujitsu Black Belt and Dan graded Aikidoka, Roy Dean as well as Combative Concepts' own Lenny Sly.
Dean and Sly would fit right in with our aikido style and focus. For us, the idea that "Aikido might 'not' be a martial art is absurd because of the way we practice and how we practice. Aikido is clearly is a martial art the way we train it. Still in other circles, this is not necessarily the case.
Speaking to those other circles, some of you are probably aware of the crisis in Aikikai's brand of Aikido ~ in which the late Stan Prannin supposed that in less than 20-years, Aikikai's Aikido might cease to be considered a martial art at all.
In an recent affirmation of aikido's apparent ineptness, an Aikikai Sensei posted a YouTube video detailing his experience as he tried to do aikido on an MMA guy in the ring. I've posted the video to the left ~ as it was an often visited subject in the seminar.
I also posted the link to the "Is Aikido A Martial Art" panel discussion in hopes that you will watch it. Of particular interest to me is the hostility many of the panelists demonstrated toward Roy Dean and Lenny Sly (especially Dean). Among the panelists, Sly and Dean are two people who clearly understand the martial nature of the art, and they have tested its street effectiveness multiple times. Rather than be praised and peppered with questions about how to ramp up aikido's lagging reputation, both Sly and Dean were generally belittled for their skills and their sensibilities throughout the entire seminar. Pay close attention to the litany of nefarious comments made by some of the other panelists. They prove their "quality" numerous times.
Here is the deal. Aikikai's membership is dropping every year. Nihon Goshin Aikido has a huge opportunity to grow as many Aikikai aikidokas will join us IF they understand that there IS an Aikido that DOES incorporate realistic uke attacks into their training pedagogy, muster sound martial responses to uke's sophisticated and intelligent attacks, and does work as a "real" martial art.
I once had a conversation about the "jab-jab-cross punch combination (eg: 1:1:2) with an Aikikai sensei. His comment was, "I have two ideas about how to handle a combination like that. My first idea is to run. The second idea is to get knocked out." The Sensei's comment was made in complete jest, but if you look at the video to the left, you can see how some very high ranking aikidoka may be left with only those two options. Videos like this makes you wonder, "Why are you even training if not to protect yourselves and those around you?"
The NGAexperience.com Forum
As you may remember a few months ago, I installed a forum on the ngaexperience.com website. I'm not sure how well it was received because almost as soon as I set it up, I realized that I couldn't log on to the forum anymore. I figured that I had forgotten my password, and never really worried about it.
Last week, I was notified by my web-hosting company that the forum had apparently been hacked. For them, it was an easy fix: "All you have to do Mr. Wilson is pay us $83, and we will remove the hack from the forum restoring your access."
I suggested an alternative remedy. "How about I click, 'Control - Alt - Delete' and Problem solved?" The sales representative sounded a little disappointed as he responded in the affirmative that my proposed solution would also work. ~ so Forum deleted.
At some point, I may reinstall the forum to the site with tighter security measures. I keep thinking there might be a use for a place where we can all shoot the breeze about aikido and all other things we find interesting. What do you think? I know we have had forums before, but do we really need one? Would we actually use one?
Articles of Interest:
The Weakness Myth: Why Failing to Train Strength Could Get You Killed
Getting Into the Middle of Destructive Things ~ The Irimi Movement
Nihon Goshin Aikido: Taking Our Training to the Street
Until next time, let's meet together on the mats, and soon.
All the Best,
Jonathan Wilson
NGAexperience.com
PS: Please forward this link to your Nihon Goshin Aikido training buddies and ask them to subscribe to our free monthly newsletter.
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A Panel is Convened Here To Discuss:
Is Aikido A Martial Art
Aikido Versus MMA
Fail Fail Fail
Without implying any disrespect.....I’m just not sure this is going to work on the street....
Chris Leventis is doing some great video demonstrations at his Aikido Academy of Self Defense in Tarpon Springs, FL
Consider this unbelievably processed Nihon Goshin Aikido trailer/ demo. Very Exciting to Watch! Kudos Sensei Leventis!
Also if you post a video, make it a point to list your youtube video under “Nihon Goshin Aikido” ~ so future students can find it when searching for aikido related material. The future of our art lays cast in our ability to market it to the public.
It’s all in the marketing.
Unless otherwise stated, the author’s views, musings, and opinions do not necessarily reflect the attitude of leadership within any of the various Nihon Goshin Aikido associations, or unaffiliated Nihon Goshin Aikido dojos.
