Promoting International Community
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As I mentioned in my top 11 article, one of my favorite aspects of my Taido experience has been the opportunity to participate as a member of an international community. There are people all over the world that share my passion for Taido, and I’ve really enjoyed meeting so many of them. There are plenty of others whom I have not yet had a chance to meet, but I hope to get around to it.
It’s one of my goals for the next couple of years is to visit every country where people are practicing Taido. My reason for wanting to do this is to learn more about how Taido is practiced and what kind of people practice it. The more I can learn about the people who do Taido and the practices in which they engage, the better I can understand what Taido actually is and, more importantly, where it’s going. It’ll give me a chance to influence this evolution as well.
In the past, we have left the international connections to organizational ties between the lead instructors. In terms of community-building, I think it’s obvious that this approach has failed for the most part. It seems that the real friendships we develop with Taidoka from other countries almost happens in spite of organizational intervention, rather than because of it.
In my vision of Taido’s future, all Taido dojo and groups will welcome any Taido student from anywhere, without regard to what rank that person holds from what organization or dojo. I think we should open our doors and accept all Taido students as brothers and sisters to share their experiences with us. In return, we will give them the benefit of our own ideas. This should be a free exchange, and it should not be limited to instructors or tournament champions.
I could probably send an email to just about any Taido dojo and ask if they would allow me to visit them. More than half would likely be enthusiastic about this. However, I suspect that quite a few instructors might not want an outspoken American teacher hanging out with their students too much. If I were to send out test emails to every Taido dojo on the internet, I wonder how many of them would return my communication… I’ll bet that more than a few would be “too busy to have any visitors right now,” or some other such excuse. If you are holding practices, how can you be too busy to practice with me?
(Actually, I have been doing this for years now - sending out random emails to various Taido groups. The experiment has been pretty conclusive that most instructors don’t want to have too much contact with random Taidoka from other countries. Most don’t reply to the mail at all. Why is that? The major exception is Japan, where I have always been very well received. Actually, it’s very common for Japanese Taido students to visit other dojo when they travel.)
Part of the problem is that we have some negative political history between various Taido organizations. Some of these problems go back to (and I am not even slightly exaggerating here) forty-year-old rivalries between former college classmates that are now highly ranked instructors. I don’t see any good reason that this should have any effect whatsoever on students in Taido. I feel that we should value the desire of students to create connections and friendships with students in other schools and other countries. The better we promote this kind of connection, the more we can be sure of better and more widespread Taido in the future.
We have an international network of Taido organizations. Let’s now leverage that network to create an international community of individual Taido students. We are all practicing the same art, even if we practice it in different ways and for different reasons. This variety is rich with opportunity for the future of Taido. We have much to learn from each other if we can get together.
This is already happening on a small scale with certain individuals. I know that several Japanese Taidoka have received invitations to teach at various dojo in France and Australia. However, i’d like to make this international community accessible to all Taido students on a wider scale. This need not be limited to instructors or even large dojo.
Especially in the past year, I have been able to cement stronger friendships with Taidoka in Japan than I had in the past. I’ve also made friends with several of the students in Australia. Through this website, I have made contact with several Finnish Taidoka, and they seem very cool. I want to visit all of these people at their home dojo, and I plan to invite each of them to my own.
So here’s the deal: open your doors. If you are an instructor at a club, make it known that your club is an open club. Don’t just wait for people in other countries to call you up and ask to join a class - you call them. Invite them to visit you. Not just for a class - for two or three, and give them a place to sleep (you do have space for one person to sleep in you house, apartment, or car).
Is that asking too much? Just think of what your club gets in return. If a brand new beginner from some other country spends a week with you and your students, just think of the relationship you will build by the time that student reaches shodan.
I’m taking the first step here. I’m making an open invitation there to all Taidoka to visit my dojo at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. I will make a commitment to provide lodging, practice, and plenty of hanging out to any Taido student who can make it to Atlanta International Airport.
I challenge every Taido club worldwide to take this step toward a creating real community of Taido students: leave a comment here with your intention to host any Taido student at your dojo for one week, or however long you can manage. If they can get to your nearest airport, your job is to give them a place to sleep and practice.
This simple arrangement can do more for the future of international Taido than all the political nice-talk in the world and also allow the World Taido Federation to devote their official energies to developing Taido, supporting instructors, and creating educational materials. Indeed, if individual students take the initiative to build their own community, the instructors can better focus on teaching, and the organizations can better focus on organizing. Perhaps then, instead of wasting time and money in copyright lawsuits, Taido Honin can actually begin working to spread Taido.
Let’s all take this initiative together.
Content of this page created by Andy Fossett exclusively for Taido/Blog.Tags: georgia tech, practice, rank, tournament, us taido
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