David Orange

I wonder why I always get such blowback when I say that aikido is based on a killing strike?

Anyway, thanks for the excellent thread.

I think there are some great things here, especially considering that they come from 1938. That was the year Shioda began training with Ueshiba, I believe.

As for Yamato Damashi, I was told that it meant Japanese Heart. And from the kind of training that was going on at the moment, it meant something I would hesitate to try to translate. But it seemed to have a sort of tribal initiation element to it, creating a modification of kokoro to a yamato (Japanese) heart. And this seemed to imply a kind of wildness and realness that I had never encountered among them, like a hidden spirit within a very pure appearance. A seemed to be both extreme ijimeru and extreme fighting spirit. Imagine the treatment of recruits in the wartime Japanese army.

This training of which I speak was not conducted by Mochizuki Sensei but by one of his students who was conducting special training for junior college students.

I could understand calling it "sincere" but it was not really much on the sweetness and light.

Still, O Sensei's call for a joyous atmosphere is refreshing and his sequence for light to intense movement is great.

I like this:

"4) The teachings of your instructor constitute only a small fraction of what you will learn. Your mastery of each movement will depend almost completely on your earnest practice.

I'd say #4 really implies constant practice, both with and without partners or adversaries.

Think of all the martial arts movies where the young man who practices his moves day and night, walking, working, alone and in class, becomes the best. He also gets in the most trouble. Sometimes he overcomes it and sometimes he gets killed. But the answer is always more practice!

They sure come back easy from brutal beatings in those flicks.

But solo practice is where you can ponder and absorb lessons from classes. And it's where you can think about other arts and approaches you've heard of. You can cross-train and recognize related principles.

And I no longer doubt that the IP workers are onto some core principles that were lost from mainstream aikido but have been re-discovered.

Of course, I was never mainstream aikido, but I found some great things from meeting Minoru Akuzawa, Rob John and Dan Harden, and reading Mike Sigman.

") The daily practice begins with light movements of the body, gradually increasing in intensity and strength, but there must be no overexertion. That is why even elderly an elderly man can continue to practice without bodily harm but with pleasure and profit and will attain the purpose of his training."

Thanks for posting.

David