Body Type and Spiritual Beliefs
 

Hello,

I am pondering two seperate questions.

One is what type of body type do you believe works best in Aikido. I remember when I was a kid I always though the bigger/heavier people had some sort of advantage but of course many great Aikido masters are very small.

Two is what seems to be the dominant spirutal belief system of the Japanese masters these days?

Thanks,

Tim

Re: Body Type and Spiritual Beliefs
 

sushism and beerism :)

Re: Body Type and Spiritual Beliefs
 

Disappointed; was looking forward to debunking the assertion implicit in thread title :-)

Re: Body Type and Spiritual Beliefs
 

You know that type of spiritual stuff is just not for one day a week; I keel and pay homage to both often :D

Re: Body Type and Spiritual Beliefs
 

kneel (if it was not for my typos, I be perfect :) )

Re: Body Type and Spiritual Beliefs
 

Keeling over might be construed or misconstrued as formal bowing or kowtowing, so even though you might be unconscious, you could still look like you're paying homage.

Re: Body Type and Spiritual Beliefs
 

Keeling isn't too foreign to beerism. I've known many to keel over after practicing beerism. Most have bypassed kneeling in their devotions entirely.

Re: Body Type and Spiritual Beliefs
 

A soft, smooth, connected and permeable body.

I have practiced with only one Japanese shihan. He is very interested in Taoism as far as I understand. Because Taoist body work is about getting a soft, smooth, connected and permeable body. And Taoist spirituality depends on developing such a body.
He is also doing zazen I think.

Re: Body Type and Spiritual Beliefs
 

Well, soft and smooth I've got. Connected, I will assume, since I dont have to pick up parts of me very often. Superglue. Permeable? Very very selectively. All sorts of stuff gain no entrance to my body.

Beer and sushi, their names are on the list.....

Short and fat atheist. Does that fit the expectations about the thread better, Janet? I sure remember some of our way back discussions of spirituality fondly. Your simple proof of why no god, if one existed at all, could be female still resonates and makes me smile.

Re: Body Type and Spiritual Beliefs
 

Don't exactly understand why you ridicule my text?
Don't you understand it?
Don't you like it?
Did I push a button I didn't see?

Re: Body Type and Spiritual Beliefs
 

Well in my opinion it doesn't have to do with the body type you are born with (tall,short,big,small e.t.c.).It has to do more with the state of one's body ragardless of its type.
One needs to be relaxed,and smooth in order to be able to establish contact with the attacker and keep it,so i certainly agree with Carsten in that one.Usually smaller people have an advantage because they cannot rely on strength in the first place and they can learn correct technique more easily,while bigger people have first to "unlearn" using muscular strength in order for the ellements of correct technique(ki,kokyu,tai sabaki e.t.c) to be able to work.
For the second part of the original poster's question, i don't know really.But i have heard that O'Sensei, even though he belonged in Omoto Kyo himself,he used to say that this has no effect in learning the art of aikido...

Re: Body Type and Spiritual Beliefs
 

where is the pizzaism? body type - no thin crust!

Re: Body Type and Spiritual Beliefs
 

Fit.

Re: Body Type and Spiritual Beliefs
 

To address the OP,
It seems to me that the idea of an art like Aikido, is that any body type can practice it successfully, and that being large or small doesn't necessarily mean you'll have advantages or disadvantages unless you're considering being competitive with others.

The real issue, IMO, is not what kind of a body type you start with, but what you do to forge and "re-create" the way in which it carries itself and moves. This is where the concept of a connected body comes in. "Connected" here is used in the sense of how everything in your body carries itself and moves as an integrated entity, in a unified process and not in a chain of sequential movements.

Pretty much any body type can learn to do this. Morihei Ueshiba started training and re-forging himself this way, under Sokaku Takeda's teaching, when he was young, muscular and strong, but was still able to create great power when he had a body that was old, skinny, sick and frail, because he had taught his body to move in a very specific way that differed from the conventional mechanics of human-body movement.

Re: Body Type and Spiritual Beliefs
 

Yes, keel may have been a bit of a fruedian slip on my part since keeling over can come into play as well - also, kneeling has multiple applications with beerism, as when overindulging you can very easily find yourself kneeling over the commode :)

Greg

Re: Body Type and Spiritual Beliefs
 

I'm going to assume you're talking to me.

I am not ridiculing your text, I am just taking it in a different direction than the one you expect as an attempt at mild humor. I am doing that because, frankly, no, I do not understand it. The specific words you use are actually pretty vague and/or oddly used. Soft and smooth is equally useful in describing a fat person as a flexible and graceful person. I am fat, so I played on those words. You seem to be using the term connected in a specific way to mean something I know little about, so I took the term literally. Same with permeable.

Re: Body Type and Spiritual Beliefs
 

:D

Re: Body Type and Spiritual Beliefs
 

I offered a view of the core of what I practice and teach. I f you don't understand or don't want to or don't need to, feel free to laugh at it.

I used words/terms, which are quite common, precise and meaningfull in my context of practice and teaching. As I said before: If you don't understand, feel free to laugh.

My central statement was that there indeed can be seen a relation between body type and spiritual beliefs.

Christianity often states a kind of duality, the body is like an antagonist of spiriutal matters. So ther is nearly no body work in Christianity.

Buddhism nearly neglects the body, seeing it as one root of illusion. So buddhist spirituality tries to leave the body behind and there are certain ways to vanquish or bear down the body.

In Taoism bodywork is the very first step towards spirituality. Building, developing the body is not only a prerequirement, it is even part of spirituality.
So I talked about a certain shihan who connects his way of bodywork to taoist views.
And once more: If you don't understand or don't like to: Please feel free to laugh at those thoughts.

I take them literally too. Albeit the outcome is different.
To more and more understand that these terms are actually meant literally, I practice and teach in a certain way. I just work on what you laugh at.

Implicitly I changed the meaning of "body type" as the OP used it ( i.e. thick, thin, big, small ...) to types of organizing/moving/structuring the body.

Re: Body Type and Spiritual Beliefs
 

Still, I am not laughing at your thoughts, training, dictionary, methods, or motivations. I do not know what those are, I dont need to know what those are. My post was a simple play on words.

Re: Body Type and Spiritual Beliefs
 

Ok.
I'm known to lack any sense of humor at all, when it comes to aikidô ...
I am also known to be hypersensitive. Not only when it comes to aikidô ...
Which is not a good combination to communicate with persons who are a little bit more relaxed than I am ...

I hope you are still and will stay connected and permeable in that sense, you mentioned!

Re: Body Type and Spiritual Beliefs
 

I'm not sure it is a true.
Yoga practice precedes Buddhism, and was included in daily practice of very many Buddhists starting with Buddha himself :)

I'm talking here about a real Yoga practice (that includes very sophisticated spiritual concepts), not todays superficial substitute often found in our towns...

Also your remark about ‘a body as a one root of illusion’ - I disagree completely. It is my imperfect perception of the ‘higher’ reality that makes me believe that body (as part of all world around us) is somehow separate from ‘me’.
Particularly in early Buddhism, body training through Yoga practice was one of essential elements of spiritual development.
As a reference you may use “Indian philosophy” by S. Radhakrishnan who is an excellent reference for that matter.

Re: Body Type and Spiritual Beliefs
 

It is not often that I agree with the bombastic one, but... What Szczepan said. :) The body shouldn't be neglected or seen in a negative light -- Just seen as it is. And like all creatures we need some degree of care, feeding, nurturing, ... How else did that Buddha guy end up with that gut? :P

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Actually I do often agree with the man... But I often laugh and grab popcorn when he posts. Gotta respect someone who is willing to share his completely unfiltered opinions.

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The concept of "Tao" is found within Buddhist thought, and even powerfully embraced in aspects of certain sects, particularly Zen/Chan/Sun Buddhism. A number of martial disciplines, both old (the samurai) and contemporary (I Liq Chuan) tap into the cultivation of dispassionate awareness that is a hallmark of both Zen and of Taoism.

Re: Body Type and Spiritual Beliefs
 

I think this is a common misconception, fostered by some arguably poor word choices in translation (particularly the word "illusion"). In English, we'd use the word "illusion" for something that doesn't really exist, but the Buddhist use of the word (in translation) might better be expressed as "impermanent" or "mutable". Buddhist thought certainly doesn't see the body as "illusionary" in the sense that it doesn't exist; it does see it as impermanent and changeable, like all things. This does not, however, mean that Buddhist spirituality is about transcendence ("leav[ing] the body behind"). It focuses instead on immanence, which goes hand in hand with the understanding that what is, here, now, will not be in the next instant.