Quote:
Ken McGrew wrote:
I am going to respond within the quoted text in bold:
THIS IS NOT AN ANSWER.
DAN HAS ARGUE THAT O'SENSEI'S AIKIDO HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN UKE AND NAGE BUT RATHER AN ONLY THE BODY CONDITIONING THAT HE DESCRIBES. HE CLAIMS THAT THE NEW TRANSLATIONS BY CHRIS PROVE THAT HE WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG. O'SENSEI DISCUSSED THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN UKE AND NAGE REPEATEDLY. THUS THE "ABSOLUTE NON-RESISTANCE" QUOTE. I ASK AGAIN, HOW DO YOU RECONSILE WITH WHAT O'SENSEI SAID? IF YOU CLAIM THAT THE TRANSLATIONS WERE ALL WRONG PROVE IT. BUT DOES THAT MEAN THAT HIS DIRECT STUDENTS WERE LYING TOO?
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I think that you're taking his comments at much too much of an extreme. Of course, there is a relationship between uke and nage. But that relationship is secondary (in terms of Aiki) to what you're doing inside of yourself. If you try to play off what your partner is doing as your primary approach things just happen too fast, you can't keep up with the changes.
Neither I nor any one else said that all the translations were wrong - but the posting in the Kamae thread clearly illustrates that some of the translations are wrong in certain points and incomplete in others. Also, the context in which you are reading Ueshiba is extremely important - Ueshiba is very hard to read, even in Japanese by native speakers. Most native speakers that I've talked to don't even try for that reason.
Don't get me wrong - some things were clearly lied about (see
http://www.koryu.com/library/mskoss3.html for an example) - but most of the time I think that people believed what they were saying. Why wouldn't they? Ueshiba tells Saotome "I studied many martial arts", Saotome tells you - is Saotome lying?
Ueshiba said that he studied many martial arts, which is true, but leaves out the fact that in all but one case that study was of extremely short duration compared to his 20+ years in Daito-ryu. Is that a lie or not?
If you actually practice much Daito-ryu you'll see the connections clearly enough. Sure, there are differences, but there are differences between instructors at hombu as well, or between Saotome and Yamada and Chiba. The differences are really not much larger, and don't effect the basic martial principles.
Best,
Chris