John Hill's Real Aikido demonstration at the Edinburgh Festival

Real,hard, fight Aikido demonstration by Sensei John Hill 5th Dan, performed at the 1997 Edinburgh Festival. The routine shown in this video was performed as part of my "Zendo Marital Arts Show" at the Bonnington Resource Centre. The "act" was part of a show called "WAR! - what is it good for". The following is a review of that particular show, written by Alistair Macnaughton, which appeared in The Scotsman, 22nd August 1997:

"Experienced practitioners offer plenty here to exercise admirers of the marital arts with displays of Budo, Aikido and sword and stick defence. The execution flawless (to this untrained eye) and the choreography balletic and graceful. However, the substance of the show lies in the four acts about wars of our century, performed by a character called "Zendo" (aka John Hill). As the action takes us from the Battle of Mons to modern-day Belfast, we see Zendo in victory, defeat, committing ritual kamikaze, fighting Charlie in the Vietnamese jungle - a hero essentially unchanged, no matter the uniform he is compelled to wear. The ideas behind these are occasionally excellent- such as the ghostly Angel of Mons riding like one of the Four Horsemen towards the enemy lines - although the simplicity of Boy's Own fantasy rather unman the action. Ultimately, it might be best to forget the theatrics and enjoy what the demonstrations show less pretentiously: the skill and self-discipline of warriors on uncluttered display" Review by Alistair Macnaughton.

As far as I am aware, I was the first martial artist to bring martial arts to the Edinburgh Festival. The show itself first appeared at the Festival in 1996 and it was classed as Physical Theatre. Some of my routines were to push the limits of martial arts to their extremes. Using special effects, costumes, acting, imitation fire-arms, pyro-technic explosives, smoke machines, strobe lighting and very strong, powerfull backing soundtracks - the Zendo Martial Arts Show was a force to be both witnessed and enjoyed.

The Zendo Martial Arts show was a short-lived, but very successfull, project as the focus of my energies were soon to be transferred towards archaeology - see my other video.

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