Is Aikido Graduate School?

Aikido was sort of a graduate school for martial artists.. the study of the sublime moves.

Aikido was not so much training up new martial artists, but a migration for many martial artists from kendo and judo to aikido.

Indeed, when I was starting the dojo was heavy with judo and kendo men.  The kendo men had been studying kendo for say fifteen years and were nidan in kendo...  and the judo men were tough fighters.  And they were happy to wear yellow and blue belts after even two years of aikido.

What was new was taking scraggly kids who were terrible at anything spoirting and training then to be martial artists, lucky for me they needed my $10 a month.

It took me nine years in the 1970s to get my shodan.  never bothered me to wait, as long as I got to practice.  I got to practice, 4 times a week for 4 hour shots, the times a week for 2 hour shots.  And the instructors were exceptional.

I must say there were long stretches where I hated practice, but then I'd go try to break off the platreau by studying judo (remedial aikido) to make some progress.  My koshi nage was terrible (I tried too hard).  I practiced kendo for a while too, because the jo and ken work can get boring in an aikido dojo, since it is all forms.  I like trying to get someone who is trying to get me.  So occasionally I had to cut back my weekly aikido schedule to work in some kendo or judo time.

Aikido comes from kendo, and it was very helpful to have so many kendoka as aikidoka. And the judoka set the tone for falls, hard falls mostly.  A brief and shining moment, that decade.  Hard to find that kind of training anymore.  I am over 60, because I trained with that intensity, I still train with that intensity.

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Israel Throws Girls In Jail Who Don't Want To Fight

Back when Israel was fearsome and great, before they had kings, let alone government, and went downhill fast, here is how they rolled.

4And the Lord said to Gedeon: The people are still too many, bring them to the waters, and there I will try them: and of whom I shall say to thee, This shall go with thee, let him go: whom I shall forbid to go, let him return. 5And when the people were come down to the waters, the Lord said to Gedeon: They that shall lap the water with their tongues, as dogs are wont to lap, thou shalt set apart by themselves: but they that shall drink bowing down their knees, shall be on the other side. 6And the number of them that had lapped water, casting it with the hand to their mouth, was three hundred men: and all the rest of the multitude had drunk kneeling. 7And the Lord said to Gedeon: By the three hundred men, that lapped water, I will save you, and deliver Madian into thy hand: but let all the rest of the people return to their place.

Today, Israel throws girls in jail who do not want to fight.

At the end of their current prison stint, the two will be released, after which they will be required to once again present themselves at the induction base. They will then likely declare their refusal once again, and be handed a fourth prison sentence, a cycle that can repeat itself for months on end.

I like the old Israel better.

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Drink Tea? You Can't Be a Conscientious Objector

Conscientious Objection needs be holisitic, or the mores of any given time will catch an appellant up.  In WWI, the draft board tried to catch presumed hypocrites by asking if the drank tea:

It appeared that the tribunals tried to argue that as a taxed good, drinking tea was a contribution to the war effort.
Thousands of conscientious objectors refused to perform military service, usually on moral or religious grounds, as conscription laws enlisted 2.5 million extra British troops from 1916 onwards.
By March 1916, the British Government was desperately short of soldiers, conscription was introduced and all able-bodied men, aged between 18 and 41, were ordered to join the war effort.

Conscientious objectors can drink tea even if taxed, because a tea tax is a minor violation of human rights but killing others is an existential violation.  You'll need to be holistically formed to defend your objection when the next draft comes.

They drafted 41 year olds?

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Conscientious Objector and the Pacifist

Sometimes they shoot conscientious objectors.  How to define those who are to be shot?

Conscientious Objector, or CO, generally relates to war, but can relate to anything: Romney/Obamacare, school choice, you name it.

Assuming freedom is the ether necessary for us to have free will, then the ability to choose is fundamental to being human. Conscientious objection is grounded in freedom, and freedom assumes all is voluntary.  Violence violates freedom, so conscientious objection is necessarily nonviolent.  But one confusion is the homophonic word but profoundly different meanings.

Although pacifism is what conscientious objectors are all about, that is making peace, people speak of conscientious objection as though they were passivists.

You see above in the verb and adjective form the sense, the difference, emerges.

Tohei Sensei, aikido chief instructor and the only ju-dan awarded, taught about positive non fighting, that is dealing with violence peacefully.  To pacify the violent is the work of pacifists.  Tohei contrasted positive non-fighting with negative non-fighting, for example, running away form a fight is negative non-fighting.  Passivism would be a form of negative non-fighting.

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A Rainbow of Conscientious Objection

Conscientious objection is not limited to war, but all violence, defined as force to effect an injury.  Forcing people to recognize same-sex marriages is a violence, one to which there is objection.

The government will propose new protections for “conscientious objectors” to same-sex marriage which marriage equality advocates fear could allow civil celebrants, registrars and even bakers and florists to refuse to serve same-sex weddings.

There are those who conscientiously object to gay marriage.  They ought to live out their conscience.

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Talk About Misogi Training

In addition to the mountain water no doubt ice cold, there is the fall.  I make a big deal about my cold water swimming...  this guy is tough...  cold water mountain waterfall diving!



True, the fall won't kill you, it's what you strike below.  Then there is the green water.  Hope that is vegetation and not pollution.

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No Place for Moral Convictions in Conscientious Objection

Medicine is another field where willful killing is practiced, and seen as a virtue.  In Australia they are working on a CO status for doctors.

Establish medical conscientious objection review boards. Robert Card, of the University of Rochester Medical Center (US), argues in the JME that doctors need to give “public reasons” for conscientious objection. This would rule out even “effective referral” for a procedure. Their reasons need to be solidly grounded, empirically and ethically. This rules out reasons based on prejudice (sexism or racism) or sincere moral convictions.

Wait, what? Sincere moral convictions are no basis for CO status?  Well, I guess we cannot have morality in medicine.

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