GlimmerMan said:
I had one lesson in Aikido a while back, and the sensei sneered at me because I had trained in kickboxing, which "is not a real martial art". I think he thought I was some kind of thug. Ha! The only reason why I went to the lesson was because of Seagal, but the sensei's attitude put me off. He did allow me to beat him with a large pole though.
People like that do no good for image of Aikido. For all I know you could've beaten the **** out of that "Sensei" and remove that smirk from his face real fast. After he gets out of intensive care, maybe he'll get some respect for full-contact martial arts.
There are dojos like this everywhere. In San Francisco there's an Aikido dojo which will go unnamed where they talk a lot about peace and harmony while delivering attacks which wouldn't even hurt a toddler, and then dancing through the technique which "deals" with this worthless attack.
An acquaintance of mine, who has been studying and teaching Judo, Karate, and various forms of boxing for 40 years, visited that dojo. He visited for a month, and quit because he got extremely sick of the smirky condescending 5th degree blackbelts telling HIM that he wasn't punching correctly. I guess he wasn't "harmonious" enough for them.
Excuse me, but isn't Aikido's purpose is to learn to deal harmoniously with violent attacks ? Thats what makes it an art. Dealing harmoniously with HARMONIOUS attacks is no challenge.
A student from my dojo also visited the above dojo, where first they started telling her that she wasn't punching correctly (she's one of the people who likes to give sincere attacks and a pleasure to train with), and then, apparently to teach her some kind of a lesson, a black belt paired up with her during kokyu-dosa exercise and hung on to her wrists with all his strength.
Little did he know that we DO work with some degree of resistance, AND that she is an avid weightlifter. She picked him up and flipped him. He immediately started whining that "she used her strength".
That is how delusional and distanced from reality some dojos become. They become a cult of wannabe moral elitists who think they're above everyone else, fall for each other, and patronize people who actually practice sincere Aikido.
Oh, and of course, they patronize people who practice the "MORALLY INFERIOR" arts like boxing, kickboxing, Judo, etc.