Some time back I was surfing and came across an aikido school boasting that they taught their students more than 8000 techniques! Wow! That seems like a lot of value for your money. Tomiki schools (including mine) only teach about 30 unique techniques. Seems like there's no way that someone from the School of 30 Techniques could stand up against someone from the School of 8000 Techniques! Is there?
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Maybe there is. Suppose you get about 3 hours practice per week, drilling 6 techniques per hour. If you don't repeat or revisit or review any techniques, then it would take 8000/18 weeks to spend 10 minutes on each technique. That is, it would take you 8.5 years to get 10 minutes practice time on each thing in the system.
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So, who do you want to bet on? Someone who has tried to learn something for 10 minutes some six or eight years ago, or someone who has spent the same 8.5 years learning and reviewing and experimenting with and delving deeply into 30 things?
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Of course, the schools that claim to teach 8000 techniques don't really practice all those things. There's no way they could. That's just a ridiculous lie. They practice the same things that the guys at The School of 30 Techniques practice.
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So, who would you rather deal with - someone who lies to you about what they're teaching or someone who tells you straight out, "I only have about 30 things to teach you?"
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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮
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