Robert,

Hope I did not sound harsh. Limits of the web and all that.

Holes as art: Japanese art has, as you likely know, a principle of
use of space and nothing as part of the art. WE might think of it in
the use of white space on a printed document for emphasis and focus.
If perfection means without omission it also can mean nothing unnecessary.

The frame of mind I seek to avoid is that of the student who comes to
class and demands to see a self-defense technique. During the
demonstration he squirms out and asks, "What if I do that?" This
continues until the lesson has wandered off topic and is useless.

If I want to learn sword art I don't think it is a hole in Wado for
lacking it anymore than it is a hole in the pizza parlor menu to not
offer cheeseburgers.

Conversely, it seems that people in an effort to reestablish links
with the Jujitsu lineage of Wado have 'found' things that are not
there. I have no expert knowledge of this, but reading Mr
Threadgill's posts indicates that people sometimes try to deduce
applications and principles that don't exist for Wado. If this is
true then they are making an error of mind by trying to fill an empty
space.

RCG

--- In wadokarate@yahoogroups.com, "Robert Agar-Hutton" <robert@...>
wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> > early in your Wado career to offer much constructive criticism to
> > the art. Essentially it is not possible to teach everything at
> > once, so whatever 'holes' you might see could simply be lessons to
> > come.
> I wasn't saying that I was aware of any 'holes' just that simply
> EVERY martial art (including Wado) has holes.
>
>
> > Finally, if one applies Tai Chi in the Wado class you are not
> > practicing Wado
> Sorry but I think that you misread my previous post - I DO wado at
> the wado class - the story I told was what happened at a Ju-Jitsu
> class when they did an exercise that was fundamentally similar to the
> Tai Chi pushing hands exercise so I had an advantage, which since I
> was wearing a white belt, confused the Black Belt I was training
> with.
>
> It is (I suggest) quite common with people in the martial arts to
> think that belt rank equates to skill - this is sometimes the case
> but not always :)
>
> > However,I am saying that 'holes' in an art like
> > Wado may have a purpose from an art perspective.
> That's an interesting comment, would you care to expand and explain
> what you mean? My definition of a 'hole' would be an aspect NOT
> covered by an art - a simple example would be that traditional Wado
> (certainly as taught in the UK) does not teach Firearms skills (I
> mean USE of firearms) - That is NOT a critisism of Wado in any way
> but does refer to a combat skill not in that particular art.
>
> All the best.
>
> Robert.
> ---
> Robert Agar-Hutton
> www.p-k-j.org
>