scott.swank

You lost me too. This seems a discourse on purely speculative matters, yet it is presented with a particular authority.

Are you talking about bio-mechanical energy or some sort of spiritual energy? It is never entirely clear, at least not to me.

In your first post you reference a skin "topology", but as a topologist I'm not sure that's the word you want.

In your second post you make analogies to decoupling in electronics, but that is a matter of ensuring that separate sub-systems have independent energy supplies (e.g. you know how your radio may cut out when you start your car? those are not decoupled subsystems or you would not see that effect). Again I'm not sure this is the word you want.

All that aside, I think that the mental structures people build up to make sense of aikido (and no doubt a great many other endeavors) are a very interesting and at times mysterious thing. O Sensei understood certain things via the kami, Koichi Tohei as ki, perhaps you as resonance and damping (I don't want to speak for you...). Why do so many of us build up these icons and symbols to understand our practice? And because aikido is as much a mental art as a physical one, how do these mental structures manifest themselves in our practice? To me this is a significant question in understanding aikido.

Cheers.