Quote:
Rob Liberti wrote:
These are good examples of what I would currently consider the cart before the horse.
I practiced all of those things and taught all of those things for years. I wouldn't try to teach aiki using those things alone (any more). The phrase "the slow boat to China" comes to mind (but you have to extend the analogy so that the boat's compase is broken and it's pretty cloudy for the trip).
I suppose I could build people up to have a decent structure and manifest intent in a methodical approach such that they could then practice moving with aiki while doing all of these things listed on that web page. The rowing would be done significantly differently - but I don't want to go into it since that is a really good example of "cart before the horse" type topic. In my opinion, you'd be better off practicing shikou. Dan did a writeup on that on aikiweb I believe.
Rob
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The thing I like about what I can see of shikou is it's symetrical movement about a somewhat fixed centerline. I get the feeling it might be good at returning the spine to the center of the overall tone of the body (and thus the basis for conveying the power of the hara "upwards" to the upper body?). Is this corrective, centering quality I'm perceiving, the horse you're referring to? I can see how doing the taiso might be difficult because many of the movements can be fudged to not include the center or the spine (a very vertically oriented centerline).
I'm not sure about my impressions at all, so maybe I should just leave it at:
could you try to describe what would be putting the horse before the cart? Do you mean finding someone who can make sure you get a strong sense of what internal strength feels like before you start trying to do movements with it?