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Its been a while since I have posted anything But I thought I would share this for you and to be honest this is more for those people who are just starting out in Aikido
Most of you would of come to your own conclusion's on this some time ago so here I go .
I was at work yesterday and I found a quote I really liked it goes "Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought."
Now I have been thinking of this since yesterday and with this Quote I came to my very minor discovery, first off what does path of least resistance really mean
"The path of least resistance describes the physical or metaphorical pathway that provides the least resistance to forward motion by a given object or entity, among a set of alternative paths"
Now when you start off in aikido you see the higher grades fly though the air landing with perfect grace and timing (well some of the time anyway )
And you think to yourself I never be able to do that then you see these same grades apply technique and that's all you see has a beginner all you really see is the attack, and then the technique and the guy sucking up the matt.
Now most people ask why we do things like Tai No Henko Kokyu Ho etc its seems pointless and has a beginner you have faith in your teacher and you do what he says and how he says at times blindly the teacher will say things like blend with the other person or try not to get a blockage and try to flow, but if you are not shown or given a explanation Beginners get frustrated and will give up easily because they do not understand what they are seeing or being shown.
I believe that Aikido techniques are paths to least resistance all the basics we perform at the start of aikido shows us the path to follow not matter what happens in aikido there will be a path to follow all we have to do as students is to recognize the paths and walk them, for a example from a 2 handed grab someone is pushing forward you can feel the pressure in your hands and arms and you get pushed back by simply folding around the attack the attacker will be thrown with ease,
I feel there are many sides to Aikido and not all of them are apparent at first but thought training we can seek out these answers, what made O sensei great was not that fact he was a great martial artist but he did not stop searching in ways to improve himself and his Aikido.
04-25-2010 09:37 PM 
