Tomiki Aikido: Waseda Line?

[Aikitech]

Hi folks,

I recently came across this sentence while checking out a query a friend of mine had about the folks from a particular school.

Wilkinson has participated in several filming projects over the last 10 to 15 years and has a new filming project slated to begin in 2004 & 2005 which will document Aikido as taught within the Waseda Line of the Tomiki Ryu instructional methodology.

The entire document is found at this link - http://www.aikibudo-aikido.com/bio-lf_wilkinson.html - on this website - http://www.aikibudo-aikido.com .

Though the comments and essay the site owners made about where they believe Tomiki's Aikido should be going were interesting in themselves , I was wondering who or what created this "distinction" within the training methodology of Kenji Tomiki? In speaking personally with the current Head Instructor of the Waseda University Aikido Club (which I assume the above statement is referring to) I was given no indication of any sort of separation of ideas, concepts or training methodologies when I asked a similar question.

Is there or has there ever existed a "Waseda Line" of Tomiki's Aikido so to speak?

Thank you for any replies.
Onegaishimasu.

[Peter Rehse]

LK Wilkenson the III is a student of Karl Geis who maybe has come across a a couple of times. There is no Waseda line - in fact Nariyama Shihan teaches up there every week. What there is are a couple of old sempai that are not JAA instructors that have been sidelined long ago basically because they just don't train. Lowel doesn't have a clue what he's talking about and in fact Karl Geis has publically disavowed him.

[Aikitech]

LK Wilkenson the III is a student of Karl Geis who maybe has come across a a couple of times. There is no Waseda line - in fact Nariyama Shihan teaches up there every week. What there is are a couple of old sempai that are not JAA instructors that have been sidelined long ago basically because they just don't train. Lowel doesn't have a clue what he's talking about and in fact Karl Geis has publically disavowed him.

Figured as much.

I pretty much got a similar answer to the one you gave when I personally asked Shishida Shihan why there was the difference in naming between folks who called what we do "Tomiki Aikido" and those who called it "Shodokan Aikido." He put it in a nice nutshell that made perfect sense to me regarding how it was seen by the J.A.A.

I personally hate having to constantly re-clarify that Tomiki (in most cases)=Shodokan to many folks who think they are different methods. But then again there are the Karl Geis folks who insist on calling what they do Tomiki Aikido in an attempt to say that what they do IS different from Shodokan.

Ahh the stuff of headaches.

Have heard mixed things about Karl Geis and his folks myself. I just thought it strange that someone would try to identify a "Waseda Line" of Tomiki's Aikido. It initially sounded kinda dumb, hence the reason for the initial question. I guess this is another one for the Baffling Budo section at E-Budo.

Thanks for the info Peter.

[Peter Rehse]

I wouldn't call Lowell baffling Budo - he does train and I think sincerely but he does have issues and certain pretentions.

The Waseda old boys train at Shinjuku and one of their founding members is heavily involved in the JAA (USA) as is Tanaka sensei who was team captain and hence expected to take a lot of Tomiki's waza for a year. People like that are what Waseda has produced. The Shinjuku group trains differently from the university crowd mainly because they are well older. You see some members who do their kyu grades in that club look a bit different than university bred animals but in my opinion that would be the case just about anywhere.

The Waseda old boys that don't continue to train or engage in other ways (refereeing, judging) are sidelined - more so recently. It used to be that they gave themselves belts, sat at the head table and squabbled. This occured for about 10 years after Tomiki died but then Nariyama Shihan, Shishida Shihan, and Morikawa sensei, and the other members appointed by Tomiki to carry on the training were able to completely dominate. Shishida shihan is of course a Waseda man as are many of Nariyama Shihan's deshi including one who trains regularily with my group.

The thing about Karl Geis's group is they put great stock in one individual who was never a JAA instructor and trained only for a couple of years after university. The man was an incrediably connected business man who was useful to the organization just as he used the organization. Point being - is that all the JAA instructors have been and always will be on board. This is especially true as Nariyama Shihan continues to attract people to the Tomiki style.