Mario Tobias
01-29-2012, 06:09 AM
I love the way how Endo sensei narrates how freedom is achieved from this youtube clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QltmmZe3Fek
He says that you begin by being restricted at first and practicing in a very unfree form. Over time through many repetitions, it may happen that the restriction would rid you of itself.
Did you have similar experiences?
Carsten Möllering
01-29-2012, 09:01 AM
I wasn't aware you just posted something relating to Endo Seishiro when I linked the video of 1995.
Well: I think his thinking about becoming free is very true.
"Practice basics. - Be as free as nature" is another quote pointing in the same direction. And I like it very much.
The aikido I am taught and try to teach tries to explore one's own body, structure, feelings, "way to be". And the movements of the waza are first and formost understood as a vehicle to open up blockades existing within one's own body and teaching the body a certain strucure. They are not designed to make contact with the attacker, but to get in contact with one's own body, movement, feeling.
So if you restrict yourself to the "correct" form, you will build your body, your feeling, your movement in a certain way. And gradually this, what you have build up by restricting yourself to certain, given and unfree forms, will enable you to move - and feel - more and more freely.
Looking at the video I posted in the other thread: The exterior of the forms of Endo is nearly the same like now. Even a lot of details have not changed since then. But nevertheless what he does today is different. Much more free. ...