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Post by LG Martial Arts on Aug 16, 2013 17:14:46 GMT
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Post by aussie-rabbit on Aug 18, 2013 3:42:26 GMT
Personally I have 40 years in martial arts, yet I would never assume the title "master", my teacher once said "you journey is to climb the mountain, once at the top you must still descend, so consider the climb to be physical and the decent to be knowledge, a good student never ceases to learn."
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Post by Kuri on Aug 18, 2013 11:38:52 GMT
Wise words
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Post by Judosailor on Aug 18, 2013 21:21:33 GMT
Thanks, LG. I definitely don't like what he says about sparring,though.
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Post by Richard Arias on Jan 13, 2014 20:12:23 GMT
James is not much more than a demo guy who got a few pointers from good people. He has trained in allot of things and mashed them up into his own view. But he never spent more than a year or so (if that) with any teacher. Can he cut with a sword? Yeah but then again who cant these days?
When you boil things down he might have a hand full of years under a few different people in JSA and Budo. His cutting comes from doing the same cuts and demos over and over and having his own supply of wara, swords and deep pockets. Wara is half the difficulty level of tatami to cut and he never does advanced cutting. He has never studied kendo, gekken, or Goshindo (sparring arts). And like most people in the JSA who train in dojo that dont spar he does not see value in the spirit of the thing or mind set and theory vs reality.
He talks about being a warrior (blah blah) but he does not speak japanese and cant read it. He has been to japan but never lived there. He is not ranked nor does he represent any Japanese Federation here in the US. He plays dress up and talks about swords and sword fighting the way the discovery channel does....
He is a decent guy and can chop up mats... but he acts like he knows everything and as my Sensei says "knowing isnt doing".
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Post by LG Martial Arts on Jan 14, 2014 1:25:21 GMT
Thanks for the added info.
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Post by Kurimuzon on Jan 15, 2014 21:56:34 GMT
Richard Arias, I've been curious about James William's training. Do you have sources that I could also read for this information?
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Post by Richard Arias on Jan 21, 2014 19:59:42 GMT
Mostly stuff from Yanagi ryu guys. They had a dojo in costa mesa and their views on Mr Williams are not bad, but not super high. But in general its the lack of specifics of his rank and standing. He has trained with Yanagi ryu and lots of other schools but he does not represent them. namiryu.com/about/origins-of-nam ... iki-heiho/ Look at whats there... vague blocks of time and a few pics of him with high ranking people. But was he a 7 day a week student or a few classes a month? We dont know... but he is not close to the guys now. He does not do seminars with them but blade shows cutting with his swords he wants to sell and his style where he is head master. namiryu.com/about/james-williams/Notice it says experience.... and not ranked student or certified instructor on most of it. Take away military service and you dont have anything on that long list that cant be covered by seminars or going to class once a week. Lastly I have seen allot of high ranking swordsman and martial artists at competition and seminars. James is good and he knows allot of things and is well rounded. But he does not have the polish and skill I see in these other swordsmen (Obata, Hataya, Demura ex.). To make a long story short he is a Sargent who is acting like a 4 star general. If you look at guys who were Uchi Deshi (live in students) in Aikido who log 8-10hours or more a day who graduate in 3-5 years because they log 2,000 hours a year... Change that to a average USA dojo student who might do 3 2 hour classes a week thats 288 hours a year... even if James did 5 days a week thats 500 a year... So his 40 years in my eyes is closer to 10 when you compare him to Martial Artists I have seen and the samurai he claims to know so much about.
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