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Old 02-23-2012, 07:04 PM   #24
Ellis Amdur
 
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Location: Seattle
Join Date: May 2003
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Re: Kiichi Hogen and the Secret of Aikido

I - can't - help - it.

One other whole area of questioning and research that people brush off. Shamanism. Paranormal powers. I can hear the scoffing - but is it any different from scoffing about IT?

There are a number of descriptions of Ueshiba calling down the gods (Re Mariye Takahashi's account on Aikido Journal, for one). I've read others, including by Shioda. Now Takeda Sokaku is sometimes described as showing a level of intuition (also a manifestation of aiki in the literature in question) that is nearly paranormal. But Ueshiba is described as doing things that no one - I repeat no one - in Daito-ryu is described - or claims. This is easy to brush off. Are the people who expeirenced paranormal experiences in connection with Osensei the most susceptible, the most credulous, the most bliss-ninnied as all? Like Shioda Gozo, for example?

Abe Seiseki asserted that Ueshiba was doing something different - definitively different from Daito-ryu. Now - don't get your knickers in a twist - aikiboyz - I'm not talking about technique, and I'm not talking about the IS/aiki paradigm. I think he was talking about these other powers that Ueshiba seemed to have access to.

See, if you all intend to do justice to Ueshiba, it's not enough to bring him back to aiki, so to speak, to reserrect the internal strength paradigm. You all (and me too) have been the brunt of heated denial - that this IS has anything to do with Ueshiba, that it's a fantasy, whatever.

Well, given that there are all these accounts of ueshiba doing things beyond that - accounts by Shioda, among others, then perhaps a whole other area of research would be to compile all those accounts in one place, and see if there are any operating principles.

Deal with it, kids. Ueshiba's aikido was not only DAito-ryu with a religious trippy overlay, just as it was not merely watered down DR. Maybe it's all fantasy. BUT -
1. When terry Dobson describes ueshiba as grabbing his wrist and feeling like a red hot wire ran through his flesh, when Shirata describes the agony of his yonkyo, when an old guy from Tomiki cricles states that everytime he laid hands on me, it hurt, and Mochizuki stated that the reason they took jumping ukemi was to get away from being grabbed by him - all of this is a combination of raw power and Daito-ryu, together. That's the way some people describe the yonkyo in Daito-ryu - recently had that on another discussion thread. Fair enough.
2. BUT - when Dobson describes deciding that he's going to kill the old man, to attack him with full force and hold nothing back and suddenly find himself looking down at the earth, the emerald/blue globe of the earth, falling back through the earth's atmosphere, it taking all the time a free-fall from the upper atmosphere would take, and then BOOM, impact on the mat, to find Osensei looking down on him with a knowing look in his eyes. - - well, that's not Daito-ryu. It may be too many drugs -except Terry wasn't high. It may be fantasy. Or - maybe all those austerities enabled Ueshiba to tap into a different realm of power as well - that legendarily held by shaman (Kiichi Hogen was believed to be a tengu, as I recall - and was legendarily believed to have all sorts of superhuman powers.).

Anyway, it would be kind of funny if those who are outraged or dismayed or disappointed that most of aikido is not interested in the IS/aiki that if Ueshiba presented, would, on the other hand, dismiss the various accounts of other powers.

Just sayin'

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