Talk:Aikido

Article Checklist for "Aikido"

Workgroup category or categories	Sports Workgroup [Categories OK]
Article status	Developed article: complete or nearly so
Underlinked article?	Yes
Basic cleanup done?	Yes
Checklist last edited by	Reuven Lazarus 19:17, 1 April 2007 (CDT)

To learn how to fill out this checklist, please see CZ:The Article Checklist.

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Did you write this yourself, Yann? Well done! --Larry Sanger 10:16, 14 February 2007 (CST)

Approval

Hi Yann. I was just browsing. The article looks great, but we need to have an editor approve it. Clearly we seem a little short on the "Sports" front. :) I'll start hunting around to see what we can do to move this through the process. -- Sarah Tuttle 15:03, 25 March 2007 (CDT)

Some comments

• Overall, nice article. I'm glad to see an article about Aikido.
• I wonder whether more could be put in about the philosophy or purpose of Aikido. As I was taught it, Aikido is a martial art because you learn to defend yourself from being killed -- but you don't learn to kill or learn to attack, except just enough to help other students practice defence. This makes it different from other martial arts. The purpose is to get out of a situation in such a way that not only are you not harmed, but the person attacking you is not harmed either. As my teacher said, if you find yourself in a situation such that you can't get out of it without either being harmed or harming the other person, that means that you haven't studied enough Aikido.

The introduction mentions self-defence and lack of attack moves, but it fails to mention the efforts that are taken in Aikido to avoid injuring the attacker. OK, I just edited in "without injury to either party"; maybe that covers it.

I'm not sure I got the above quite right. The goal is not exactly to avoid injury to either party, but to make sure each party has a reasonable option of avoiding injury. For example, you push your hand towards the attacker's face in such a way that they have the option of moving their head (and losing their balance, but not getting hurt); they also have the option of not moving and being hurt in the face. --Catherine Woodgold 20:22, 21 April 2007 (CDT)

• Is a "pin" different from a "lock"?
• This is a short introduction to about a century of history. This sentence seems unnecessary to me.
• Please note that Japanese names are given in the Japanese tradition of Last, First. I laughed out loud at this. Sorry. Wouldn't it make more sense, or be more acknowledging of diversity of culture, to say something like "Family name first, then individual name" or just "Family name first", rather than the nonsensical "Last, First"?
• When Morihei Ueshiba is first referred to as "Ueshiba-Sensei", maybe readers unfamiliar with the term "sensei" need something to let them know that it's the same person being talked about? (Or maybe not? Is this like saying "John Smith ... Mr. Smith" and just expecting the reader to be familiar with the term "Mr."?)
• He started to teach Daito ryu Aikijujitsu in 1916 in the town of Engaru in Hokkaido. On 15th September 1923 he became qualified to teach. He was teaching for 7 years before he was qualified to teach? Maybe this should be reworded?
• Aikido is for the entired world. Train not for selfish reasons, but for all people everywhere Is this a translation? I presume he would have been speaking Japanese? I would like to see the original Japanese words here, perhaps in a footnote. If it's a translation, probably the "d" needs to be deleted from "entired world". --Catherine Woodgold 19:27, 6 April 2007 (CDT)
• The founder's name is given in one place as "Morihei Ueshiba" and in another place as "Ueshiba Morihei". I think Ueshiba is the family name but am not sure. I'm not sure how best to fix this. Maybe where it says family name is given first, it could specify that that applies only to "this section", i.e. the history section. --Catherine Woodgold 19:35, 6 April 2007 (CDT)