Judo for the whole world

This is what happens when money and fame get to the heads of certain women in the fashion industry—total nonsense, honestly. 😈 😬

bluemason3 said:This is what happens when money and fame get to the heads of certain women in the fashion industry—total nonsense, honestly. 😈 😬

So, what's your beef? 🙂
Knitting is basically aikido, if you think about it. 😬

quietpilot87 said:So, what's your beef? 🙂
Knitting is basically aikido, if you think about it. 😬

Man, what a load of nonsense... actually, whatever. 😁

Edit: Honestly, I’d love to take all these "fluffy-do-whatever-they-want" world warriors and drop them into a real, old-school battlefield from before the Tokugav era... you know, the kind with sliced guts, spilled intestines, severed limbs, and blood everywhere. Just total carnage and the stench of death. Maybe then they could get spiritual and knit their little aikido patterns. 😈

jademarlin26 makes some excellent points here 👍

But if I had to sum it up, aikido is all about freedom. That’s why my dear Banderas Ueshiba didn't feel the need to pin down a single definition.

Paul Campbell3 said:So, you think Tohei couldn't stomach being taught by someone lower in rank than him? 😕

Look, even if that were true, neither Tohei nor anyone else actually grasped the core essence of what Uyeshiba was teaching. If they had, they wouldn't have messed it up so badly (don't get defensive, Paul Campbell3, I'm just repeating what's been said).🙂

First off, to start practicing aikido, you don't need to understand a single thing about his cosmology or the deep philosophy behind it.

But, if you want to live aikido and truly grasp it the way Uyeshiba intended, then sure—that's necessary. But again, it’s not strictly required, haha! 🙂

Tradition, technique, and methodology are one thing, but the spirit and the very essence of existence? That's something else entirely.

Aikido is just one way to express and achieve that, but it isn't the only way. 🙂

The universal spirit of love and its manifestations (like moving meditation—which is what aikido, or any martial art at its purest, really is... honestly, even chopping onions could be 😁 ) doesn't depend on a specific school, a teacher, a certain day, or tradition. That's just my take on it.

The universal spirit of aikido is singular. It isn't "owned" by any organization, any single instructor, or any specific school.

Techniques, the passing down of tradition, teaching styles—those are different matters altogether, and we can argue about those, but personally, I'd rather talk about fighters than this stuff here. 😉

🤣 🤣 actually, I think you've got it backwards!

Jesse Allen2 said:jademarlin26 makes some excellent points here 👍

But if I had to sum it up, aikido is all about freedom. That’s why my dear Banderas Ueshiba didn't feel the need to pin down a single definition.

Hmm... if that's the case, why bother showing up to practice and learning techniques in the first place? 😁

bluemason3 said:Man, what a load of nonsense... actually, whatever. 😁

Edit: Honestly, I’d love to take all these "fluffy-do-whatever-they-want" world warriors and drop them into a real, old-school battlefield from before the Tokugav era... you know, the kind with sliced guts, spilled intestines, severed limbs, and blood everywhere. Just total carnage and the stench of death. Maybe then they could get spiritual and knit their little aikido patterns. 😈

Man, there are plenty of samurai out there for that sort of thing. 😁
And you really think there aren't enough people ready to charge headfirst into a meat grinder tomorrow? Especially in this country.

Jesse Allen2 said:🤣 🤣 actually, I think you've got it backwards!

Who? You? 😲😁😍🤷😳

bluemason3 said:Hmm... if that's the case, why bother showing up to practice and learning techniques in the first place? 😁

You learn them so you can eventually use them instinctively. It’s just like when you're a kid learning the alphabet—you spend all afternoon filling up notebook pages with nothing but the letter A, then B, and so on, until it just sticks!

Paul Campbell3 said:So, you think Tohei couldn't stomach being taught by someone lower in rank than him? 😕

Look, even if that were true, neither Tohei nor anyone else actually grasped the core essence of what Uyeshiba was teaching. If they had, they wouldn't have messed it up so badly (don't get defensive, Paul Campbell3, I'm just repeating what's been said).🙂

First off, to start practicing aikido, you don't need to understand a single thing about his cosmology or the deep philosophy behind it.

But, if you want to live aikido and truly grasp it the way Uyeshiba intended, then sure—that's necessary. But again, it’s not strictly required, haha! 🙂

Tradition, technique, and methodology are one thing, but the spirit and the very essence of existence? That's something else entirely.

Aikido is just one way to express and achieve that, but it isn't the only way. 🙂

The universal spirit of love and its manifestations (like moving meditation—which is what aikido, or any martial art at its purest, really is... honestly, even chopping onions could be 😁 ) doesn't depend on a specific school, a teacher, a certain day, or tradition. That's just my take on it.

The universal spirit of aikido is singular. It isn't "owned" by any organization, any single instructor, or any specific school.

Techniques, the passing down of tradition, teaching styles—those are different matters altogether, and we can argue about those, but personally, I'd rather talk about fighters than this stuff here. 😉

Why did I get my wires crossed?
Because to even begin something, you need at least a baseline level of understanding. Moving toward a goal without any comprehension is like having sex without any emotion—which is really just a linguistic paradox, isn't it? 😛
On the flip side, once you truly *understand* aikido, you don't need to "understand" anything anymore, especially not how Uyeshiba interpreted it. So, as I said, I mixed up the order, but hey, it happens. 😁

Jesse Allen2, some people just dive in headfirst before they even realize what's happening—then others actually wrap their heads around it before making a move. 🙂
We aren't cut from the same cloth.

Robin Rodriguez5 said:Good grief.🙄
Tohei was the premier Ueshiba-esque student and, as far as I know, the only one Ueshiba personally awarded a 10th Dan. After Ueshiba passed away, the leadership of Judo shifted toward his son for traditional reasons (even though he held a lower rank than Tohei). Since Tohei refused to take instruction from someone ranked below him, he "created" his own style, which leaned much harder into the spiritual side and dialed back the combat aspect. Look, after Ueshiba died, Tohei was the most senior living master of Judo on the planet. If anyone was meant to carry the torch, it was him. Calling him a cult leader is tragicomic—who exactly did he split from? Someone who was significantly less skilled than he was?

History is full of examples where a skill, faith, or body of knowledge is passed down to a son, regardless of whether his rank justifies it. We see similar dynamics in many major religions.

There is no need for sarcasm; forming sects is perfectly standard in Japan. The debate over which group holds more weight was settled long ago in the aikido discussions, and I believe everything worth saying has already been said.

Jesse Allen2 said:You learn them so you can eventually use them instinctively. It’s just like when you're a kid learning the alphabet—you spend all afternoon filling up notebook pages with nothing but the letter A, then B, and so on, until it just sticks!

So, it's pretty clear there's an actual learning process involved. There's a specific methodology at play, even if every aikido organization does things a little differently. Everything is defined for a reason, which means 😁

Jesse Allen2 said:Why did I get my wires crossed?
Because to even begin something, you need at least a baseline level of understanding. Moving toward a goal without any comprehension is like having sex without any emotion—which is really just a linguistic paradox, isn't it? 😛
On the flip side, once you truly *understand* aikido, you don't need to "understand" anything anymore, especially not how Uyeshiba interpreted it. So, as I said, I mixed up the order, but hey, it happens. 😁

That's why I asked who mixed up the pots... I hadn't said anything else until then.

Alright, fine. Maybe I wasn't being explicit enough and people are misinterpreting me—probably because I like leaving things a little vague when it comes to my favorite topics. 😍

I’ll only disagree with you on that first paragraph: you don't need to understand Aikido to start practicing it. Think about how many people just show up to a class, like they're walking into a local YMCA, enjoy the vibe, and decide to stick with it because they wanted to try a martial art. You don't need total comprehension to start something new, just like TincH said. That understanding comes (or doesn't) with time and practice.

Then again, there are those rare individuals who walk into an Aikido dojo and just *get* the essence immediately, even if they've never trained before. They just live it.

Anyway. A hundred people, a hundred different temperaments, five hundred different motives. 🙂

bluemason3 said:So, it's pretty clear there's an actual learning process involved. There's a specific methodology at play, even if every aikido organization does things a little differently. Everything is defined for a reason, which means 😁

Jeap. But wait, isn't that true for every religion and cult on the planet too?
Even if God is one and the same 😁

Paul Campbell3 said:Jeap. But wait, isn't that true for every religion and cult on the planet too?
Even if God is one and the same 😁

Of course he is... though you’ve still got your New Agers😍 and then there's how things look in the Bible.😬

quietpilot87 said:Jesse Allen2, some people just dive in headfirst before they even realize what's happening—then others actually wrap their heads around it before making a move. 🙂
We aren't cut from the same cloth.

"Some"? I think you mean most. So many people start acting loving when there isn't a shred of actual emotion behind it. Most of them! 😢

bluemason3 said:Of course he is... though you’ve still got your New Agers😍 and then there's how things look in the Bible.😬

I told the guys over at the MMA gym this ages ago: there isn't a damn bit of difference between those people and the religious crowd😁 😉

Jesse Allen2 said:"Some"? I think you mean most. So many people start acting loving when there isn't a shred of actual emotion behind it. Most of them! 😢

And what's the problem with that? You have to start somewhere 🙂

bluemason3 said:So, it's pretty clear there's an actual learning process involved. There's a specific methodology at play, even if every aikido organization does things a little differently. Everything is defined for a reason, which means 😁

Just tell us: which specific school produced legends like Jergović, Tolstoy, or Joyce? Seriously, if you know, please share. You'd be doing everyone a huge favor!