What Makes American Taido Unique?
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This is an article that I originally wrote at the request of the Finnish Taido Kamae Magazine. While by no means exhaustive, I believe it’s a good background on what sets American Taido apart from that practiced elsewhere. Since only a Finnish translation will actually be published, I’m posting it here for the benefit of Taidoka in English-speaking countries.
Taido in America is very different from Taido anywhere else in the world. Though based on the same original principles as those taught in other countries, American Taido has developed under a unique set of circumstances which has led it to become its own entity. In many ways it even looks different from the Taido practiced elsewhere. In order to understand what makes American Taido what it is, it’s necessary to know a little of its history.
We in America owe our knowledge of Taido to a man named Uchida Mitsunobu. Having practiced karate in high school, Uchida studied Taido for two years in university before coming to America as an exchange student in 1972. After graduation, he returned to Japan to earn 4dan renshi and Shukumine Sensei’s permission to spread Taido in the US. By 1975, he decided to build his school in Atlanta, Georgia. Since there were few municipal gyms like those in Japan and Europe, Uchida had no choice but to open and promote his school as a commercial venture. It has been his full-time job ever since.
Since Uchida originally incorporated Taido as a business, expansion to multiple locations has always seemed like a huge financial risk to him. Instead, he’s focussed on building one large dojo, and with well over three hundred students, it’s probably the largest Taido dojo in the world. There are great advantages to this. American Taido students have a dedicated facility with a full-time instruction staff consisting of Uchida, his son Mitsuaki, and one more instructor. Children and Adults have beginning and advanced classes available six days a week. Plus, the large number of students provides a huge community of support that feels much like family.
On the negative side, Taido has to turn a profit to continue operating. Students pay a tuition that covers not only the rent and upkeep on the facility, but also the livelihoods of the instruction staff and their families. In order to accommodate over three hundred students in a weekly schedule, classes run only about forty-five minutes and include up to forty students on a floor only slightly larger than a standard jissen court. This makes hokei training difficult, and jissen practice is only available once or twice each week. Still, the school has attracted a dedicated following and continues to grow.
In some respects, American Taido looks like Taido’s past. When Taido was young, most of the instructors had backgrounds in karate or another martial art and taught their classes in a similar fashion. However, as younger generations began teaching, hokei and jissen came to occupy a larger proportion of the training. Owing to Uchida’s karate background and the limited space available to each student, the daily training in America is very focused on kihon. Students typically warm up with some calisthenics before proceeding to spend the rest of the allotted time period working on a technique or combination such as sentai-shajogeri.
Uchida’s long absence from training in Japan is also evident in the curriculum. For example, in the beginning, Shukumine taught untai before sentai. Untai’s direct movement is simpler and made more sense to those with prior training in karate. In America, students still learn untai first. In fact, the untai no hokei practiced in America is the old version which was later adapted to created unin no hokei. When Uchida left Japan, there were no -in hokei yet. Also no katsumei, enmei, or -sei hokei. Taii no hokei was the only “advanced” hokei and necessary for promotion to 4dan. As a result, most Americans in the past learned only five or six hokei. Recently, the -in hokei are being introduced to more young women and black belts.
All of this isn’t to imply that Taido has stagnated for thirty years in America. On the contrary, it has been evolving in its own way. On the whole, I believe American Taido teaches a more combat-specific style of Taido than anywhere else in the world. Americans equate the martial arts with fighting, so any successful dojo is going to have to address topics such as self-defense and (since the UFC became popular) Mixed Martial Arts competition. As a result, students also practice techniques derived from Jiu Jutsu, wrestling, and Muay Thai. In recent years, grappling has become an important part of the curriculum for serious students.
Despite the emphasis on fighting in some segments of the student body, most students will never compete in a tournament or even learn to be at all proficient in jissen. The vast majority of students are under the age of eighteen, and many are in the four to eleven range. On the other end of the spectrum, there are a number of parents and older adults ranging in age from forty to over sixty years. Unfortunately, there are relatively few students in between those ages. While many high school students enroll in classes, very few reach shodan unless they began as children. Even then, most of them never return to practice after beginning university.
Still, as long as new students continue to become interested in Taido, the school will probably keep growing. Of course, this article has only addressed the headquarters location in Atlanta. There are also one other small dojo in Florida and the university club I started at Georgia Tech ten years ago. However, both of these locations consist of only between twenty to thirty students each, and this article is already too long.
At any rate, American Taido is certainly an interesting phenomenon - a very unique piece of the Taido universe, small as it is. I feel that, just as every other dojo could, we Americans could stand to improve our Taido in a number of ways. But on the other hand, there are few things that we get very, very right. Most importantly, American Taido is still a work in progress, and its students continue to experiment with ways to make Taido best suit their unique situation.
Content of this page created by Andy Fossett exclusively for Taido/Blog.Tags: us taido
I doubt this will get posted for obvious reasons, but I am writing anyways. If you are a true blogger, you will post this – as any true writer takes the good with the criticism as well.
There are several inaccuracies in this article that should be addressed. First of all, it should be known that it has been more than about 10 years since Andy Fosset has REGULARLY attended classes at the U.S. Taido Honbu. This is a fact. Therefore, how could Andy accurately write an article based on the events of the past 10 years? Anything he “may” know would be from second hand information.
Andy is not qualified to discuss U.S. Taido.
Andy, please write an article about any event you have won in any tournament, ever. Seriously, this is not a joke or to be mean. This information should be out there, along with the large amount of your non sense on this website.
It is completely untrue that U.S. Taido students are not proficient in Jissen. In 2001 at the Okinawa tournament, the U.S. team dominated Jissen in the children’s and teenage divisions. In 2005 at the U.S. tournament with international competitors, the U.S. dojo dominated Jissen every age group. The men’s finals in both black belt divisions include all American competitors. At the 1997 and 2001 World Taido Championships, the U.S. men were extremely competitive, and would have won medals if it were not for some very questionable refereeing decisions. Andy, you are flat out wrong about this.
Also, your quote about classes being “calisthenics” and working on combinations is flat out a lie. You obviously have not been to U.S. Taido Honbu regularly in years. Hokei and some form of unsoku are practiced at almost every class.
I hate even having to read your website and respond, but I am sick and tired of hearing about your negativity and inaccuracies. You were completely unqualified to write this article for Finland Taido. I don’t understand who would actually ask you to write this, unless they hate U.S. Taido themselves.
Goodie! It’s another “anonymous” comment from my biggest fan.
I want to state firstly that I did not write this article with the intention of making any judgement about US Taido. There are a lot of Taido students in other countries who often ask me for the kind of information contained in this article (specifically the Finnish - I tried to send you a .pdf of the actual article as it appeared in the Kamae, but you were so clever and used a fake email address). I don’t think anyone hates US Taido, but your defensive attitude can’t help their perceptions.
This is not the first time you’ve posted a comment here that you felt was inflammatory enough to preface with the assumption that I would delete it. If you truly hate reading my website, you have my permission to stop. But since you feel so strongly compelled to give me a piece of your mind (though only when afforded the safe anonymity of the ‘net), you must be getting some sort of pleasure out of it.
Though I can’t say you are much of a role model for integrity (simply because you won’t even take credit for your own opinions), I agree with you that criticism is an important part of the development and spread of ideas. I feel I owe it to you and other readers to answer your critiques of this post.
You’re right about one thing: it has been a while since I went to the Norcross dojo regularly. I was a little busy building my own program, and to be honest, the honbu just wasn’t as much fun after Negishi left. But I was not absent from Taido.
I taught three times a week at Tech, and usually made it to Norcross once every week or two. I also made myself available at times when Uchida Sensei needed help: I opened and closed the school every day and taught every class when most of the other instructors were off to the WC in Okinawa; I was there every morning and evening during the summer of 2003 when Sensei asked me to teach those students preparing for black belt promotions; and I flew all the way back from Japan in 2005 because he asked me to help out for the duration of our anniversary event. I’ve planned events, judged tournaments, and taught tons of classes over the past ten years. I just didn’t usually stand in the front.
I never wrote that Americans suck at Jissen. To name just a couple, Musashi Uchida and Brendan Dumont are extremely talented on the court - more so than I. However, most students will never get that good. Luckily, we don’t have to win tournaments to see how they are won. The US teams did very well against the Japanese competitors in 2005 (though Japan’s top players were at the World Championships in Sweden) and have fared well in many other international events, even in spite of some possibly poor judging calls. American Taidoka are typically very aggressive in jissen, and this is a big advantage when most Japanese competitors are used to a more passive approach.
I still believe my characterization of a typical class was correct. I haven’t watched one since the new year, but the last time I saw a class in session, there was a warm-up consisting of calisthenic-type movements followed by kihongi and piece-by-piece practice of combinations from hokei (which does not have the same mental or physical training effect as performing a hokei “for real”). I didn’t think there was anything negative about the way described classes, but it seems to have rubbed you the wrong way. If you’ve got some kind of super-great class planning tips, send them along.
Honestly, I don’t see what’s got your panties in a wad. I’ve never claimed to be a rock star, tournament champion, or very much of anything for that matter. But I do really like Taido, and I’m good at teaching it. I care about people having access to information about Taido, so I provide Taido/Blog as a service to the English-speaking Taido community. It’s an imperfect (possibly even inaccurate, at times) resource, but the response I get tells me that it’s a needed one.
fosset sensei,
I respect you a lot but I feel that you are incorrect on the class curriculum that is ussualy taught.
I have not been teaching very long ( about 2 years) but in my experience, after the kihongi, uchida sensei will split the students up into groups based upon the color of their belts. And in those groups the students will learn and and practice the requirements in order to pass their next test. That does include techniques but almost every time they practice at least one hokei. I know because I am ussually judging the hokei.
This form of teaching is not only taught to the begginners but also to the very advanced students as well. I do not know if you are familiar with the kishi kai class which is meant for blacks and brown blacks. It was created about a year and a half ago. In that class we also warm up with kihongi but we also practice unsoku no goho, oyowaza, and kanrenwaza. Once in a while we will do compound techniques but otherwise we will split up into two groups ( the black belts and the brown black belts). The black belts will practice advanced hokeis such as the in hokeis with Mitsauki sensei, while the brown black belts will practice the tai hokeis and perform a rigourous workout with Dumont sensei.
I also must disagree with you about the order in which the hokeis were taught by shukimine sensei. I was told that he taught sen first and un second, but because un was easier than sen, some of the high blackbelts asked shukumine to make a harder untai no hokei. Thus came the birth of shin untai no hokei.
I also believe that you have failed to mention that United States Taido is the only taido that teaches the all the hokeis to both sexes, instead of the -ins being taught to the girls and the -tais being taught to the guys. The only reason why the girls are learning and henin and tenin before black belt is so that they can compete in an international tournament if needed.
Other than those details I agree with you the whole way. I hope that you come to the Atlanta honbu soon so that we can discuss the matter further.
Rahul:
Thanks for your comment.
If classes are now run in the manner you suggest, it is certainly an improvement over what I witnessed during my last visits in late 2006 to early 2007. That’s really wonderful, and I’m glad hokei is now a major part of the curriculum. I do want to reiterate that practicing complete hokei with the proper mindset is quite a different beast from practicing the movements step-by-step. However, if this is happening, then I am very glad to hear it.
Just to be clear:
In any event, thanks for taking the time to offer your opinions and insights. On a personal note, I’m really proud of what you and the other young black belts in American Taido have accomplished in the past couple of years. Keep working at it. I look forward to meeting you all again some day soon.
Andy, this is a good example of you having no idea what is going on in U.S. Taido. You said that what you witnessed in 2006 and 2007 is not as Rahul described. Well, classes have been like that at least since I was 14 and started learning how to teach. That was 8 years ago.
You would be hard pressed to witness any class outside of tengi, jissen, and grappling that doesn’t have the students doing full hokei at some point. This goes for all classes from children beginners through adult black belts.
No negativity here. But, I have to agree that your presence at the Honbu has been extremely sparse, and I have never seen you practice there.
-Corey
Hey Corey. It’s been a while; I hope you’re doing well.
I’m going to out out on a limb and say that your personal recollections of classes when you were 14 years old may not be totally accurate. I say this for two reasons. Firstly, you were just 14. Secondly, you can’t remember seeing me there, but I remember teaching classes in which you were a student.
Even if you truly believe that the teaching style at the Norcross dojo hasn’t changed in eight years, I wouldn’t say that’s anything to be proud of. I see a lot more evolution happening, and I think it’s generally going in a positive direction.
As I responded to Rahul, I’m very glad that students are doing full hokei in most classes. It warms my heart to hear this. I’m also glad that there are so many students that enjoy and value their time with Uchida Sensei, et al, that they continue to go back year after year. This is the mark of a school that is doing some things right.
And yes, my attendance at the school was extremely sparse from ‘96 to 2001. For one thing, I was running my own club. You know this. But from 2001 to 2003, I was there at least once a week (Wednesdays), usually more (Mondays and the odd Friday or Saturday). Perhaps you didn’t see me, but that may be because I was teaching three times a week at Tech. Of course, you were still in high school, so I don’t expect you were aware of everything that went on at the dojo around that time. No negativity here either.
Once again, I stand corrected on the method of hokei practice that is currently employed, and I’m extremely happy to hear that the last batch of classes I attended and watched were anomalous. I hope that Sensei continues to refine and improve on his successes and wish the best for everyone involved with the continuing evolution of American Taido.
Howdy,
just dropped in to see if Andy had posted anything new. Two things.
1) A comment on the hokei/gender thing. In Finland, and I’m pretty sure in Sweden as well (don’t know about other European countries), both in and tai hokei are not only taught, but required from both men and women. I, for example, am ikkyu and male, and am able to perform all of the in/tai hokei, in addition to a few others. The formal grading requirements in Finland go something like this:
blue belt - sen in OR sen tai
green - sen in, sen tai, un in OR un tai
2. kyu - sen in, sen tai, un in, un tai, hen in OR hen tai
1. kyu - sen in, sen tai, un in, un tai, hen in, hen tai, nen in OR nen tai
shodan - all of the 10 in/tai hokeis.
2) Andy, you write in the article that there are taido dojo in Atlanta, Florida and Georgia. Some time ago, I was reading an MA discussion board and happened to see a mention of a Gensei ryu school in America that also taught taido. The writer was in LA, but didn’t say where the gensei ryu school was Iocated. I wonder if this school is one of the schools you wrote about, or is it a fourth one.
Kind regards,
Miika Heino
Turku, Finland
Miika:
Thanks for the note. As for posting anything new, I really am working on it. I have a lot of in-progress articles, and some of them are very close to ready. Honestly, I have no good excuse for not posting more often - none except for this: life is busy. Please keep checking…
Your first comment confirms what I had thought. In Japan, both sets of hokei are not formally required, but it is encouraged for black belts to learn them all. I’m glad that Finland is taking a lead in requiring all of them.
As for a fourth Taido dojo, I can’t say I know anything for sure. I know that there was a man teaching Taido in California about 30 years ago, but he is now in Australia and not affiliated with Taido. If a Gensei school is currently teaching Taido in LA, they are doing so without accreditation by any formal Taido organization. Certainly, nobody from WTF or Honin has mentioned such a dojo. I’m interested in finding out more about this.
Again, thanks for chiming in about the curriculum in Finland.