SeiserL

Yes agreed.

Discussion and distinctions are very good.

I remember when I started Aikido. I was told to move "naturally". After years in FMA, the way I was moving was "natural" for me. But that wasn't my "natural" way of moving before I studied FMA. And FMA said that the way I "naturally" moved when I started wasn't "natural" either because it had been patterned by other bashing arts.

I finally accepted that "natural" had a referential index: "natural" according to who or in what context?

Same way with people's thought and behavior. Its"natural" for them, but not "natural" for some one else raise by different people in a different context.

So I started to separate "natural" from "normal".

As a Zen Koan, what was my "natural" face before my "normal" face?

Is my "social" self different from my "natural" self? Since I have never been raised in nature, everything I think I am came from the family/social context I was raised in. And when I look for a "natural" self before the "social" self, I find no one, no self.

As one of my training mates said after reading a couple of my columns, he was just glad he didn't have to live inside me head. LOL

Thanks for reading and responding. I get a lot out of these AikiWeb discussions.