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Carsten Möllering wrote:
Sure: This is just the way I myself practice. And for me it is kind of natural because there are a lot of connections with japan through my teacher who lived there for a while and whose wife is japanese. Also through Christian Tissier and Endo sensei.
And in our federation
My teacher also is shibu cho of TSKSR in Germany, which is also very japanese.
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Congratulations! You do look so Japanese now!
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Carsten Möllering wrote:
This ist the aikido-world, I live in and which shapes the character of my understanding and feeling of aikido. And so this is the way aikido reveals itself to me.
We even don't have german graduations. We are graded directly by the hombu.
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Congratulations! That makes you so more genuine!
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Carsten Möllering wrote:
On the other side there are bad experiences of two german federations which have lost the connection with Japan long time ago. This "german aikido" has lost it's character completely, I think.
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And I'm sure that's because they lost connection with Japan. There is no other reason German Aikido has lost it.
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Carsten Möllering wrote:
I didn't start practice until I had at least a little idea of what I am doing when bowing to living people, rooms, kamidana, etc. .
Same with meditating, sitting in seiza.
I'm a lutheran pastor and it was important for me not to mix up the practice of shinto with my christian beliefs.
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So how is your practice of Shinto then? Maybe I didn't understand correctly; sorry about my poor English.
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Carsten Möllering wrote:
grin: Yes. But this is what you and me think.
For my teacher - who is teacher of christian beliefs at school - it is identic. For the aikidoka who do aikido shinik rengo it is identic. Ueshiba Morihei thought it to be identic. ...
It's not that simpel. ;-)
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Well, it's not about thinking or believing, but about universal laws.
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Carsten Möllering wrote:
Bowing to the kamidana is much more then just nodding in front of a picture. (... or calligraphie or flowers or ....)
And when you train with people who practice shinto it becomes even more complicated.
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Sure it is! And that's why it should interfere with your lutheran faith. If it doesn't interfere, then something's laking somewhere. Anyway, for some faiths that interference is unacceptable. Plain as that. If lutheranism accepts it, good for you! Bravo.
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Carsten Möllering wrote:
Excuse me?
When or how did I say that you are not doing aikido?
(This is something I sometimes here myself. When stating that I just practice waza and nothing else ... And at least for this reason I would never judge anyone elses practice.)
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Well, I don't mean specifically you, you know.
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Carsten Möllering wrote:
I don't think I am able (or want) to judge anyone or anyones practice. This is not my job and not my authority.
You may have got a teacher. He is (in my eyes) the only one who might judge your aikido. (If you let him do so.)
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I certainly let him (them, actually) do so.
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Carsten Möllering wrote:
This I think is more difficult:
I think it was Kisshomaru, who openend up aikido.
O Sensei was kind of forced, to show aikido to the public and I think there where "two hearst beating in his one breast". (German proverb I can't translate: He wanted aikido to be for everyone, but at the same time wanted to aikido to be japanese. I think if there only had been Ueshiba Morihei we both wouldn't even know aikido. But that's just my thoughts.)
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So if he wanted it to be for everyone, what are we discussing here? Also... do I infere that all Japanese are Shintoist? Conficianist? Buddhist? No.
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Joshua Reyer wrote:
The problem is, they're not my standards. I'm a descriptivist, not a prescriptivist.
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Again, I do not mean you like in Joshua Reyer.
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Joshua Reyer wrote:
Asking a pointed question is hardly intolerance. Sure, I question whether someone who can't make the cultural leap to bowing in the dojo can understand the more esoteric aspects of aikido, or indeed any martial art. That doesn't mean I give a damn what anyone does in their training.
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That cultural leap is impossible for 50% of the world population. And I think your reasoning is not that valid. Do I need to make a cultural leap to Ancient Greece to study algebra (an arab word, wtf). Do I need to make a cultural leap to England to play football? Do you follow me?
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Joshua Reyer wrote:
I stand by my statement. It is an unequivocal fact that bowing in Japan has no inherent religious meaning. That doesn't mean that it can't have that meaning in certain contexts, only that it is so ubiquitous, it has all the inherent religious meaning of clapping one's hands. Which, incidentally, can also have religious meaning in certain contexts here in Japan, and yet Christian people clap all the time.
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But it is an unequivocal fact that bowing in Japan has inherent religious meaning if you are a Christian, a Muslim, a... Flawed again.
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Joshua Reyer wrote:
So it comes to, either one sees bowing in the dojo as not inherently religious, and thus not a sin. Or despite the large number of Japanese atheists and Christians who bow like madmen throughout their daily lives, even in dojo, one believes that the act of bowing is inherently religious, and thus a sin against God/Allah. For the latter, I have my doubts that they'll come to understand the deeper concepts of aikido in specific and Japanese budo in general.
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Well, you have your doubts. I have my doubts. That doesn't mean you or I are right about it. But we're not discussing the deeper concepts of koryu, but Aikido. A gendai budo.