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Igor Vojnović wrote:
So in general, with all of the commotion regarding the elusive "Aiki" (internal strength, power, jin or whatever), all i wan't to know is, is it worth it?
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Is that really all you want to know Igor? If it is, why have you followed up with your own personal point of view?
Are you interested in the answer or not? You open from a position of not knowing about Aiki/IP.....yet still seem to offer your opinions on it.
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Igor Vojnović wrote:
The point being that there are rarely few people that have it, many of those that have it don't seem to have enough of it or are not on a very high level, many of them took years to develop it (even on a low level),
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Correct. There are very few people who have it. There are many that think they have it......and don't know what they don't know.
There are leaders in the field though, their names are not hard to find and there are more and more courses where these people teach.
In sharing this information a lot of ivory towers have been broken and a lot of ego's bruised.
Mine was.
I asked the same questions as you on Aikiweb 6, 7, 8 years ago....I argued with Mike Sigman, with Dan Harden because I didn't know what they were talking about and persisted in pushing my ideas back at them. Its no wonder they got frustrated.
But I made the effort to get to a seminar.....and the truth was instantly available.
I see exactly same thing today..... Jon Reading posts something to continue to share....and gets responses from people agreeing with him when the clearly don't know what he's trying to say....or even congratulating him on correcting the flaws in his Aikido practice while implying they of course have no need of such improvements because their Aikido is perfect.
Yes -- it does take a long time to develop. Doing Aikido forms is one thing. Doing them with Aiki is another. What do you want? A lifetime pursuit of perfection or a 10 week course in self-defence?
And there are degrees of aiki ...even a little starts to take practice from empty forms to something more...
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Igor Vojnović wrote:
the developing of it involved various methods that don't seem to be adequate to everyone's "needs",
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Boo hoo! Thats a terrible shame....... What the heck. If you want to do something ....and you want to excel at it .....you will eat bitter. Those that aspire to excellence.....work hard for it. Period. Sometimes that means doing something thats not adequate to your needs. Either accept that your needs mean you have to set different targets. Or get some new needs.
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Igor Vojnović wrote:
the ways of developing it are by testimonial evidence, among other places presented also here on aikiweb, in contradictory to regular training methods, so basically you have to involve a separate training method for developing Aiki and keep, or discard, the regular training method for the external type because if you have Aiki you essentially don't need the regular external training.
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well...this issue really is that it has to be felt. Stick a video of regular Aikido up on Youtube....leave it open for comments.....and expect a flood of teenagers and keyboard warriors to rip it to shreds.
Even worse for the solo training thats a defining part of Aiki/IP.
Separate training method needed? Well yes....and no. In my experience the solo work is essential for rewiring the body & mind....but it can still be practiced in regular waza. Anyone that trains with me now compared to 5 years ago will feel the difference.... I know why that is and who deserves the credit.
You don't need regular external training? Well remove external and just consider the training. I train with Dan Harden so can't speak of other names in this field but Dan has a progression from solo training through to fighting using Aiki/IP. So you don't have to abandon the paired waza training.....but it will change as your body changes.
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Igor Vojnović wrote:
I know a number of highly skilled people in Aikido, for which i know or at least have an idea how they developed their skills. By what i have seen and read in many places online they don't seem to possess Aiki but that still doesn't undermine their skills. Therefore should someone still spend time they would normally spend on practicing and developing the external skills on practicing how to develop Aiki, for which there is no guarantee it will develop to a certain "useful" level or at all, or face the fact that Takeda, Ueshiba, Horikawa, Sagawa, Okamoto and maybe some others simply were in the right place in the right time with regular teachers and also owned the much needed amount of talent for achieving such high level of skills in Aiki training.
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I also know such people in Aikido and I'm very proud of time spent training with them. They have awesome skills and are great martial artists....but I feel they would have benefitted from the training I've received from my Internals guide. If nothing else their teaching would have been improved had they accessed the solo work as guidelines.
I also think they would have embraced the training .....no one is saying its a new invention...certainly not the people I've trained with. Its just not deployed throughout modern Aikido....not saying there aren't pockets of it -- there may well be....but it does indeed seem to have been lost...perhaps not adequate to peoples needs.
Face the fact that those names were in the right place, right time? What fact? Not good enough for me. Why should we accept an inferior level? At a time when so much information is available and people are willing to open up and share more.
Unfortunately we go back continually to not knowing what we don't know...and when someone offers information they are deluged with negativity.
I barely post here these days.....few of the IP crowd do. Its not worth the effort but this post on the back of Jons defence of Aiki has triggered this.
Doubtless I'll regret it and sink back to reading with despair shortly.
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Igor Vojnović wrote:
Also if there is some midpoint, using some amount of Aiki for regular external training, does it actually make any valuable difference? I mean if somebody attacks me from behind for a choke, or if i spar with a stricker, does that low level have any value in a conflict situation like that?
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Sure -- power goes up, ability to cope with incoming power goes up. You still need strategy, tactics, a fighters mind and so on. Aiki alone is a skill, the icing on the cake from our art. As Jon Reading has said it doesn't make you invincible.
A punch in the face is still a punch in the face -- it hurts.
Bottom line is people don't know what they don't know....doubtless this post will also be ripped to shreds by some and embraced by others.
Is Aiki/IP worth it? Go train with someone that can demonstrate it, has students that can demonstrate it and can explain it then you'll know.
I've been on multiple seminars with many different people experiencing Aiki/IP......99% have loved it and the way its taught. Doesn't mean they'll all continue with it...its hard work.....but none of them come back here and cut it up because they know.