How did you come to Aikido?
I came there by chance,
I once met someone in a mountain hut,
we spent the evening talking
and he told me about Aikido.
It turns out that I had done judo when I was a kid,
I stopped because I started in conditions that weren't very good
since it was almost 50 years ago.
It was kid's judo in Spain, but inreality it was adult judo, but with children.
So by the time I got to 12 years old,
I had shoulder problems and my hips were staggered.
I had one foot shorter than the other, anyway.
So I stopped, took it up again, stopped, I hurt myself, I started again,
it lasted until I was 15-16 years old and then I stopped completely.
I wanted to take an art martial, I did not know what.
I was not a competitor, it was not my cup of tea.
I had done a little competition since when you do judo you have to go through competition.
And this guy that I never saw again,
whose name I do not remember, told me about aikido with so much passion
that I decided to go see.
I went to a club that was in Fontenay-aux-roses.
At the time it was Louis Cleriot who is one of the pioneers, who's dead now,
one of those who created the federation, he was the one who taught.
I went with a friend, we watched and both said the same thing:
"Either it's fake or there's something".
My friend didn't register, but I did.
I liked it a lot but I had a busy life at the time
and I did not have time to train and to do other things.
I did two and a half, three month, I said "stop".
"I'm going to stop. To do it like this once a week, to not be regular, it doesn't interest me, but I will come back one day. "
I returned five years later.
G.E: When was it?
It was in 1987.
And then it was Christian Mouza who taught,
so he was doing aikido classes
and Philippe Bersani gave kenjutsu lessons once a week.
G.E .: Which school of kenjutsu?
He was a student of Christian Tissier,
so the origin is kashima.
And suddenly, that's it, it was three times of aikido and one time of kenjutsu, every week.
It started like this and then I put my finger in it.
I did the Easter seminar of Christian Tissier when I had three months of Aikido.
I loved it, I understood nothing, but I became hooked, and from there,
I started doing monthly seminars, I did a summer seminar,
the following year, I did a monthly seminar then two, then the Easter seminar, then two courses in the summer, etc.
That's how it unfolded
How did you decide to become a professional Aikido teacher?
I didn't really decide.
It decided itself.
Roughly speaking I started Aikido relatively late, I was 22-23 years old.
I got married young, I had children young,
and so I had to manage professional life, family life, and aikido.
I could not do everything thoroughly,
so I decided that I was going to do professional choices
that allowed me to see my children and to do Aikido.
But not at all thinking of devoting myself to Aikido professionally.
So it lasted a while, I worked as an educator for years,
and then at some point I started teaching [Aikido], so here, I opened the club in 1999.
In 2005 I was asked to be technical director for Basse-Normandie,
and at that time I already had a lot of classes,
I started to have a lot of weekends taken,
- not much more than when it was not my job -
but it started to become a lot and I thought:
"OK, I'm switching"
But that happened a little despite myself.
That is to say that at no time I thought I would become a professional Aikido teacher.
In fact I had a job, I had a family,
I loved doing Aikido, it took a lot of my time,
and in fact it was the responsibilities, little by little, that made everything become incompatible and that I said:
"OK, I'm stopping my day job to focus exclusively on Aikido."
It is true,
though we learn to manage,
we fall less,
or less violently.
We see ourselves being less imposed the pace.
That's an important element,
that is, I have memories of 1st, 2nd, 3rd Dan
or indeed, when you are being pushed around,
a little like a puppet from one side to the other,
you do not always fall well ...
I started attending seminars very early,
then after I returned home, I would lay down half an hour on the back
to try to put everything back in line.
Today it's no longer the case.
I mean that I still fall,
but the rhythms are much less imposed on me.
Falls and rhythms.
Of course, with Christian, it's different,
but it's all the time, so it's okay,
and we do not need - compared to a footballer -
A footballer must be at the top, at the peak of the form, for ten years,
and then after nothing.
We may not be at the peak of the form,
we are at an intermediate level,
but it lasts much longer.
That's how I deal with it.
Perhaps the first thing that has changed
it has been to accept that students are what they are,
and not always what we would like them to be.
This is an important element.
That is, for us, we are a certain number of people
have invested a lot in Aikido, regardless of being professionals or not.
It was a passion and one of the pillars of my life,
but I have to accept that others can come twice a week
to do one or two hours of aikido at each time,
a little laid back to see the friends.
It's a step forward to have accept that Aikido
is also for them.
One of the questions is how do we get them
to progress in Aikido at this rate,
and to nurture their progress and to ensure that they too get something out of it.
Most people here, we are in a rather affluent city,
young people invest more in studies than in sports
and adults invest more in their careers, or their work,
or on their professional life than on recreation, let's say.
So we have to accept that things aren't
as we saw them for ourselves at a certain moment.
No, I do not have a decided opinion on it.
Sometimes I say, "There are grades there are the levels ". (Laughter)
In an ideal vision,
the two things should match,
in fact, we realize,
during the examinations in particular,
that they are two different things.
At the same time,
when it's the baccalaureate season, there are people who are going to get 9.96
and who will just about pass,
and there are people who are going to have 21 out of 20 with the options.
They do not have the same level at all and yet they have the same degree.
In the end, we are not very far from that.
I think the big criteria,
are not very far from the great principles of Aikido.
We try to judge on observable behaviors
and not just on a gut feeling,
in order to be able,
to discuss among judges,
and because it's not just a federation problem, it's also a people problem
so to be able to have elements
that can be relied on to support a reasoning.
So that's essential.
So from there it's not very far from my criteria.
We could vary on criteria severity though
But finally the question does not arise.
We know the level at which we want to see people,
the question is often, for the very talented there is no discussion,
for those who are not good at all there is no discussion,
the majority of people are within an average.
There, you find more subjective criteria, which are:
what are the factors that will weigh in the balance more than other,
which can be criteria of age, criteria of physical condition,
the importance we will give to etiquette, or not,
the work with weapons,
to all those somewhat peripheral elements,
which are not necessarily the core.
If on the core it's average, more marginal elements will play,
and there sometimes play out differently.
Within the big sensibilities between federations
but also between individuals, according to one's experience and history ...
G.E.: So there is a lot of human factors, more than purely technical ones...
There is a human part.
At one point I used to say:
"Grading examinations are the imposed figures in ice skating".
We have a number of criteria
and there is the part of subjectivity of everyone that will intervene.
We will not necessarily value exactly the same things in the same way.
We will not see the same things
and we will not give equal weight to the same things.
The idea being that in talking - and that's all the work that's done between the technicians of the two federations -
to come to find what common points we can agree upon
to decide whether or not to award a grade.
But it's a continuous job it's not something that is done once and for all.
Because Aikido also evolves,
that is, examinations today are not the same as examinations 20 years ago.
Aikido today is not the Aikido of 20 years ago, etc.
So that's really a work of,
permanent development and readjustment of the criteria on a permanent basis.
Yeah.
First of all because that's how I designed Aikido.
That is to say, very early,
I followed Christian
I started in November 1987
and I did the Easter seminar in 1988.
And so from there I did a lot of seminars with him.
After 3 years,
when I got my 1st Dan,
and between the 1st and the 2nd Dan
my teachers said:
"If you want to continue to progress, you have to go to work at Tissier's dojo".
Not only seminars but also regular classes.
So usually I went there for lunchtime, at first it was Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.
Lunchtime at the Cercle Tissier and in the evenings, I continued to go
to my old club
There is no doubt that in my generation,
Aikido has been something that evolved.
Maybe previous generations
at one point,
have discovered another way of doing Aikido,
and were responsible for...
I was going to say: to spread the Good Word.
And probably to tell people:
"It's like that and no other way."
We did not live that, we were not responsible.
I am of the same generation, in terms of
grade and evolution,
as Pascal Guillemin and Bruno Gonzales, Marc Bachraty.
I got the 1st Dan at the same time as Pascal, we received the 6th Dan together
and Bruno too.
We are of the same generation, we were not in charge
we were not responsible for transmitting.
However, we were in contact with Christian,
if not every day, at least every week
since when he moved [to the South of France], he was there 2 days a week,
but we saw him every week,
and so we have seen this evolution.
For us, aikido has always been something that evolved,
that is, we explore forms,
we deepen them, we go far,
sometimes, we realized that he was working on something,
and when it was acquired he said:
"OK, that's good, we leave it out. "
"It's settled, we'll move on."
"We are going to move on to another line of research or another line of work. "
And that, for us, became something natural.
So there is no particular effort
to update myself.
I had a little break form practice for a few months,
for personal reasons.
I could not practice on a daily basis
or weekly with Christian,
and in 4, 5, 6 months I saw the difference.
That is to say, I think that almost every year
there are new ways that are explored,
sometimes a return to things we worked on years before,
with probably a new way of looking at things.
Something matures, something that has changed.
So when we come back to older things
it's always revisiting in the sense that
it has evolved, it is something that is alive,
which is constantly a living material.
So it does not take effort,
it's not always comfortable.
because it's true that comfort is establishing a truth,
and not to move from it.
But that's what I'm passionate about.
So,
some time ago, I was on a training course in Italy and _I was asked:
"When Christian Tissier will not be there, who will represent him?"
I said, "Everyone and no one!"
I do not do the Aikido of Christian Tissier,
I do the aikido of Mare Seye.
It turns out that I've been working with Christian for a long time,
and so my training is very marked
by what he makes us work on,
by the forms he made us work on,
but that's only what I've integrated,
with what I am, with what I feel,
with my physique, with my qualities, with my faults,
so it will never do Christian Tissier's Aikid.,
I can't, and I'm not trying to make Christian Tissier's Aikido.
I am trying to do Aikido.
So at this level I leave myself a total freedom.
When I'm in class and Christian shows a technique in a certain way,
obviously, I'm going to apply myself
to try to understand why he's doing it like that,
where he wants to go, where he wants to take us, etc.
When I work for myself, or when I teach,
I return
to what suits me.
It can sometimes be very close forms, sometimes...
so,
for people who do not know the system, it will always look like close forms, (laughs)
but for me it will be things not necessarily the way
which Christian is showing at the moment.
Especially since
Christian is in a [constant] evolution.
So we see him at the end of a path.
When we train people for the first Dan,
we can't immediately give them these elements if they don't have...
- it's is a big question, we could get back to it more -
But the me who understood things, today,
is not me 10 years ago, or 15 years ago, or 20 years ago.
I understand things, can I give them the shortcut?
And tell them here, I'm here, that's what we have to do?
Or do they need to build
foundations that are strong enough
to be able to get to that point, or go further.
It's a balance that's difficult to reach,
between showing what interests me, where I am, etc.
and show what students need at some point, from my perspective.
Yes and no.
For me, I separate
seminars that I do in a federal framework
since I am in a technical college,
when I intervene in a federal setting,
I have the concern to work from a common background,
a common denominator.
It depends on the type of seminar, but I can say to them:
"I'm going to that, that's what interests me right now, etc. "
But overall, I'm really trying to work on what's
the common denominator and the way I see
the construction within this common denominator,
with my sensitivity, my way of being.
In private seminars, I will allow myself to go towards
what interests me, what I am looking for,
but it's really dependent on the type of seminar,
not just federal or private,
there are some private seminars in which
I was asked to give building elements,
in which case I will give building elements.
There are private seminars, there, the summer course I do in Poitiers
where it's more people who see me regularly,
and where I'm going to do what interests me at that moment.
It depends on the seminars, it depends on the encounter.
It also depends on my ability to integrate what I am seeing.
I would say that the first thing is to say to myself:
"OK that we can approach it like that to tackle this or that technique
"Or approach the relationship with the partner in such and such a way. "
So maybe the first question
is indeed the difference of approach.
How each people approach things,
which ultimately are the same thing.
That's the first point, it can open up perspectives,
research, work, questioning,
it can allow me to reinterpret the way I do it, myself.
- that doesn't mean I'm going to copy the form -
but inside, if I understand certain principles,
I will see how to integrate them with what I do.
It is at the same time technical
because when I attend a seminar,
I try to reproduce what I am offered,
in any case I'm trying to do it,
but afterwards, I will not come back saying:
"Ah, I saw so-and-so, that's how we'll do ikkyo from now on."
No, I'm going to do what I integrated.
And what I saw, or how I felt
might modify what I have integrated before,
but it will never be more than what I integrated, and basically,
if we put the thousands of hours of a practice
compared to ten or fifteen hours
with a Sensei that I discovered at a seminar,
the equilibrium is not there.
It's like I'm a classical musician, I often use the comparison.
I'm a classical musician, I'm going to do a jazz internship,
maybe it's going to totally change the way
in which I will interpret my songs.
But I am a classical musician.
So maybe I decide to change and get into jazz,
but I mean, if I'm doing a week of jazz,
it will change my openness, it will change my relationship to what is written,
maybe it will give me more freedom
but that does not make me a jazz musician.
Even if it can profoundly change the way
that I will approach classical music after.
It's a bit in that sense.
No no, I leave them.
Overall, I leave them.
Of two things,
either they will see someone I appreciate,
in which case I consider it an enrichment for them,
or they will see someone who does not convince me, for whatever reason.
There too possibilities,
they think it's great and that's what they want to do,
in this case it is not me who could give them what they are looking for,
or it does not suit them and they prefer what I propose to them,
in which case everything is fine.
But I do not consider myself the owner of my students.
After that, if they ask me my opinion, I can give it
but it's up to them to get an idea.
For example, in my dojo, I decided not to do monthly seminars
because I wanted my students to go see other people.
If I offered monthly seminars,
in a way, the students would feel obliged to come
and since they do not do a lot of seminars
it would probably be to the detriment of the discovery of other teachers or other approaches.
So I think it's a richness anyway.
After, we have discussions with students who sometimes do things, and then say to me:
"Yes, but he's doing it like that. "
I say, "OK, but when you're here, you'll do it like this."
It doesn't mean it's better, it doesn't mean it's worse,
simply if you want to follow the path that I propose to you and go there
I suggest that you go through there and there,
and if you go your way, you will not find that.
In any case, I will not be able to bring you there.
So we need to be able to prioritize.
For me the seminars are also that.
When I attend seminars with teachers who have different practices,
it's not like I'm going to do something else.
I continue to do it in a coherence of work,
and inside that, there are things that are questioned, that are changed...
But the idea is that you can't build yourself by constancy dispersing.
So you have to go and see, we need to open up to it,
and at the same time, you have to keep a framework that allows you to progress.
When I go on an seminars, I really position myself as a student.
And I try to reproduce not only the form,
I try to understand what is there.
There comes a time when we have lived enough
so that when one reproduces a form, one does not reproduce only one form.
That is, inside the form,
I will look for what is happening in the movement.
And form will be a way of getting into what is happening.
But that, I think is the chance we had with Christian Tissier.
He gave us such a structure,
with more or less abilities,
we can enter forms of work that are not ours
because we have a sufficiently structured practice
to be able to understand what is changed,
how does it change, sometimes it can take a little time,
but overall, we have tools to adapt,
so suddenly, by working another form,
we try to work also another way to feel the movement.
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