Customer Reviews

Aikido Masters Demonstrate

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The first DVD I got didn't have any information on it, so Amazon sent me another copy that did work. Irritating, but good costumer service by Amazon though. The content was dissapointing when compared to what I was led to believe before bying it. The last ten minutes there were three unknown aikidoka demonstrating! They are even presented as "unknown". Certainly not the masters advertised. The segment on Shioda is by far the best in production quality, but it's only about one minute in lenght. Tohei (the one in addition to Shioda, that I was mostly looking forward to watching) got about 30 seconds in slow motion. Saito about 9 minutes. Morihei Ueshiba about 7 minutes, but the picture clarity is lousy, despite what it says on the DVD cover that the black and white part was of very good quality. Since aikido is about fine motor skills and details, it was difficult to see what was going on when O'Sensei demonstrated. In conclusion; the company behind this DVD release should have higher ambitions concerning their business ethics and product quality. By the way, I recommend the DVD series "Practical Aikido" with Robert Koga and "Aikido Self Defense for the Modern Warrior" with David Dye, for real life aikido self-defense techniques. Two great instructors.

I was happy to see a DVD on Aikido featuring a variety of its masters (rather than Ueshiba alone). But there is a wide discrepancy in the material quality from one master to the next and the end sequences look like someone just added in their own dojo's home movies to this otherwise historic footage of the masters.

I've seen this footage elsewhere (and before 2004) contrary to what the ad tries to suggest that this was recently recovered "lost" footage.

Don't waste your money on this poor quality production. The Aikido Journal release "Aikido Classics" DVD is much better quality.