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Old 10-20-2012, 12:29 PM   #166
Chris Li
 
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Dojo: Aikido Sangenkai
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
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Re: VoE: AWASE - The Principle of AIKI

Quote:
Cliff Judge wrote: View Post
These are all things that can be proven or disproved. But the only way you can do one or the other is by going through a rigorous scholarly process of writing, publishing, and having your work peer reviewed. Not by martial artists, by historians who work in fields adjacent to this line of research. Until that is done this is all a matter of personal belief. There is nothing wrong with personal belief as long as you aren't passing it off as the truth. At best you look like a passionate eccentric when you do that, and at worse you wind up taking advantage of mentally susceptible people, e.g. people who have a tough time differentiating belief from fact, or differentiating knowing how from knowing that.
But that applies to everything in Aikido today, since none of it has gone through an academic peer review process, including the statements by direct students of Ueshiba - many of which are contradictory.

Are you saying that people like Mitsugi Saotome, who certainly make declarative statements about Ueshiba, "look like a passionate eccentric" and are "taking advantage of mentally susceptible people"?

I know a lot of the folks that train with Dan - and they're not a mentally susceptible group of idiots who are being taken advantage of - I don't even see myself that way, although my wife might .

Best,

Chris

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