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Message: <blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 378145" data-attributes="member: 812">I started out in an odd little Aikido dojo in Calgary where Skoyles Sensei taught iai, kenjutsu and jojutsu. After three years there I went to Japan and studied under Sugino Sensei for three years, learning Katori Shinto Ryu ken, bo, naginata, yari, wakizashi and shuriken. Mostly just the sword, really only dabbled in the others -- three years not being enough time for more.Came back to Canada as my wife and I were interested in film-making -- that was five years ago and we're sending a short off to a festival for our first time. I've poked my head into half-a-dozen schools around Vancouver but haven't found anything that really turned my crank so every now and then I stumble out to a nearby park and freak out the neighbors with my sword.Who's your sensei? Which ryuha did he study? It sounds like he's picked and chosen from variety of schools which is a great way to learn -- IF he's a good teacher. Skoyles Sensei was very much the same way and the great thing is that you get a sampling of all sorts of things and can sort out what direction you really want to go in.Very cool stuff. Is this SCA or more of the ARMA stuff? Or something else? I love watching this stuff done right. I have no idea what's going on, but it's so cool.What's Bushido? I mean, besides the "code of the samurai"? Who was your sensei and what traditions did he come from?An observation of mine, maybe tragically flawed, but what do you think: You can tell a lot about a person from the way they talk about their teachers. What's REALLY important in any martial art is WHO taught you. Not out of snobbery or one-up-manship but because it tells everyone the tradition in which you were trained, the history that has come down to your study. It also shows respect for those who made you what you are and that, too, says a lot about a person.But the names of styles and forms are very misleading, I think. Yeah, sure, Sugino Sensei taught Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto Ryu, the oldest swordsmanship ryuha in Japan. So they say. What exactly that means is not at all clear to me. Forms change, weapons change, needs and tactics change. What IS clear, what really matters to me, is that Sugino Sensei was a man of wisdom and compassion who gave no less than everything he had to his students. If I can be half the man he was, I'll be pretty happy with what I've accomplished in my life.This is why "Which style is better" arguments are so facile. What matters is the teacher, not the style.</blockquote>

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