Tomiki Aikido

While watching this DVD, I felt like I was teacher reading a book report by a kid that did not read the book. It is only about 20 minutes long with a drawn out title screen and a lot of warnings about copyright included. There may be about 10 minutes of vintage film footage, but much of that is, oddly, a bunch of SAS soldiers getting dressed to practice judo at the Kodokan. At most, about 5 minutes of film show Tomiki sensei. To give you an idea of how poor this DVD is, much of it is refilmed film of Japanese texts, placed backwords on the screen. So, even if you can read Japanese, you would have to look at the text through a mirror to read it. Also, if you are a practioner of Shodokan (Tomiki) aikido, you will quickly notice the narrator using tradition aikido names for techniques that are generally referred to differently in Tomiki Aikido. Based on the lack of useful information given by the narrator, I'd say the filmmakers knew about as much about Tomiki Aikido as they did about Japanese (see above).

It is only 15 minutes long!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Plus, there is only about 5 minutes of aikido, and not that good at that.

After I saw the video I returned it immediately.

daniel

Like the video, I have little to add that will educate. This review is in response to Alexander Burakov "AlexB."

AlexB,

Saying that Tomiki Aikido is "not real Aikido" is both ignorant and insulting to the thousands of Tomiki Aikido practitioners around the world.

I am a shodan in Tomiki Aikido, and I can tell you from direct experience that not only is Tomiki (aka Shodokan) Aikido an excellent martial art and self-defense system, one that I have succesfully employed, the competition and "match-ups" are practiced only by a small minority of Tomiki Aikidoka, and I am not one of them. Although you are somewhat correct that O-sensei frowned upon the use of Tanto randori, the competition aspect was only used to attract new students to Aikido, and because a competition aspect was required for all Waseda university sports/physical education curriculum, where faculty member Kenji Tomiki taught. Oh, I almost forgot to mention, Kenji Tomiki was one of O-sensei's first students, already an 8th-dan Judo expert who trained with Judo founder Jigoro Kano before practicing Aikido, and eventually recieved an 8th dan from O-sensei himself.

Furthermore, to say there is "only one Aikido" also insults the thousands of practitioners of Tomiki, Shodokan, Yoshinkan, Shin-shin toistu, and several other wonderful forms of Aikido practiced around the world today. In summary, I have met several Traditional Aikido practitioners who are truly god awful, and some Tomiki Aikido practioners who can wipe the floor with anyone. I have also met Tomiki people who are truly bad and Traditional Aikido men who are outstanding. It is the quality of the person, not the art, that determines excellence.

And in case you are wondering, not only I am a shodan in Tomiki Aikido, I am also now learning your One True Hombu dojo Aikido to broaden my horizons and expand my understanding of the many faces of this beautiful martial art. Something you are apparently too narrow-minded to contemplate.

Oh yeah, the video is too short and is a waste of money. I gave it a slightly higher rating only because there are limited materials out there. For a better representation of Tomiki Aikido, Google yourself the Dr. Lee Ah Loi "Tomiki Aikido" book and DVD, "Aikido: Tradition and the Competitive Edge" by Senseis Shishida and Narayama, and the Kihon-no-Kata DvDs by Higashi Sensei.

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