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Old 07-05-2007, 09:59 PM   #1265
David Orange
Dojo: Aozora Dojo
Location: Birmingham, AL
Join Date: Feb 2006
Posts: 1,511
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Re: Baseline skillset

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Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
What did O-Sensei say about kiai in Aikido, David?
I'm not familiar with anything he said about it. Why don't you supply the quote? Unless it's one of the doka you translated. You know how tricky those translators can be...

I do know that he said that atemi is 90%, was it? But I'm not sure what all he might have said about kiai. Did he say that aikido is actually kiai, but he called it aikido because he lost his train of thought while writing and accidentally wrote aiki?

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Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
I did. I agree with Rob. You haven't said anything other than vagaries.
Too bad for you. That's why no one answers you. You won't accept any answer but in Sigmango. If you want to reject whatever I say, that's fine. It's no different from my rejecting your smug comments.

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Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
I did Aikido 7-8 years. I only went to college for 5 years.... want to toss that off, too?
We're even on college.

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Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
A lot of Aikido with a number of fairly well-known teachers.
That's called scratching the surface--7-8 years with a number of different teachers. When I left Japan, I had 20 years in "ONE" system, five years of that at the hombu with a judan. Does your tai chi even go that deep? Not that I want to lord it over you, but you put yourself out as the big expert teacher, qualified to judge and dismiss anyone, but you're really more like a jack of all trades.

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Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
I know what the concepts and principles are and I can physically do them. Could you even do something basic like receiving jin, cold jin, fajin, etc., in Taiji? If so, this would be a good time for you and I to discuss how these things are done since they cross-apply to Aikido and a number of other arts, albeit with different nomenclature. Want to start? You just made the assertion, so let's see you step up.
I'll assert that I know tai chi as well as you know aikido.

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Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
I know, David. Time and time again over the last couple of years you've gone in and out of this discussion where you know all this stuff and then you admit you don't know it and then you know it again... and when someone presses you for answers, it cycles again.
Again, Mike, that's "you" repeating yourself, pointlessly.

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Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
Why don't you just go visit Dan and see what he can do.... and also show what you can do?
Dan and I have been discussing a trip. He's scheduled up for the next several weeks, as am I. It won't be before October. I'm looking forward to it because Dan just doesn't get offended by a persistent discussion. He's told me I'm wrong and I haven't gotten offended by that because his approach is totally unlike yours. There is a term I've used before, kichigai, which applies to you but doesn't seem to apply at all to him. Kichigai means "altered ki" or "unnatural ki," and basically refers to someone whose mind is unnatural...In martial arts terms it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with ki, but it can be developed by bad ki work. Whatever you're doing doesn't seem to affect your personality the same way his work affects him. Maybe it's because he's doing Japanese stuff and claims to be doing Japanese stuff, but you have this need to dominate the entire world of martial arts. It's too big even for a great master like yourself, though, so it's affected your personality.

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Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
I'm not complaining about being 'picked on'.... source, please. I am complaining about the fact that you and a select few on this forum will keep any conversation/issue that blows your cover full of discussion about personality.
Notice that never happens with Dan? Get a clue.

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Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
...If someone says, "Just relax and let the Ki of the Universe flow through you and it will work", OF COURSE I'd question it!!!!
But that's not really the problem, is it? Earlier, I describe meeting a student of tameshigiri who had trained under Toshishiro Obata, uchi deshi to Gozo Shioda in aikido and student of Taizaburo Nakamura in Toyama-ryu sword. We discussed sword-taking by an unarmed defender and I showed him a method we called te kubi otoshi. He said I was the only person other than Obata who had ever done that technique effectively on him.

Now, if I wanted to explain how that technique was done, why would it be wrong or insufficient for me to say, "as the attacker cuts, move up beside him and take the sword from his hands by appling pressure to the pulse side of his wrist."?

Should I say "Use the outer edge of the first knuckle of the index finger to apply the pressure"? Or do I have to describe it in Sigman-speak, explaining how the internal power of peng-jin makes him release the sword?

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Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
I'd say "how does that work". If they tap-danced and bullshitted about "secrets" I'd keep questioning them. If they started talking about my personality flaws because I didn't treat them with enough respect and because I was rude enough to demand factual answers, I'd hold it up to the world to "beware of this man... he's only posting to get himself known".
Which might be valid......unless your being "rude enough to demand factual answers" was actually expressed as, "BS! Why don't you admit that you don't know how that technique works? You obviously don't understand the first thing about it or you could explain it in concrete terms!"

THEN is when you'd get the personality comments, don'tcha think? That is how you get those comments, by the way. Who has said anything like that to Dan? I mean, other than you?

And my first sense of you from the early days, when I was quoting your claimed teacher, Liang Shou Yu, on matters of qi, was "This guy is just posting to get himself known." And I still think that. Selling tapes and seminars, yeah?

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Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
That's the way I am.
That's what I said.

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Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
The uncomfortable people seem to be the people who don't really know, as a lot of people have noticed. Exactly. That's your real problem, right there.
If I were uncomfortable, I just wouldn't post. As it is, I only post when I have some loose time. But I see you on here every day and night.

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Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
People don't give you and some others "enough respect". The answer is this: people gave "enough respect" for years and all that happened was the same hierarchy and BS ruled. And that's what you want, as do a number of people..... you want somehow to keep the status quo the same and not have anyone rudely questioning.
Status quo has never been my image anywhere I've gone. Ask around.

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Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
And again... the reason you can't physically describe how to do these things is???
I describe sword taking above and the technique I did on the swordsman. What's wrong with that description?

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Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
Give me a quote on that one. I've never said that.
That is the quote. At least, it's an accurate paraphrase. Who knows what thread that was on? But you said it and it stimulated several posts of comment. Don't say you didn't say it. Someone will link to it. Like I said, your own comments are invisible to you.

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Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
Go back a few posts to where you said I never said who my teachers were, David. Other than just nit-picking and staying on personality, what's your point? BTW.... what's the date of when I mentioned Liang Shou Yu and how many times have I done it?
You think I keep an index of all the stuff you say and when you say it? Isn't that part of your tactic, though? You say so much no one can keep up with all of it, then you demand to know the date you said it. You must make 60 posts a day to various boards and groups, don't you? No one with a serious occupation and a family could really keep up with that kichigai kind of verbal diarrhea.

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Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
Just tell us physically how aiki functions as the "ura of kiai".
Okay. What did I say before? "Blocking" a punch is "ura" of kiai but because it still conflicts with the strength of the punch, it's not "pure" ura and therefore doesn't rise to the level of aiki. Aiki goes to the real weakness, the void of strength, which, typically, but not exclusively, is "behind" the punch. Isn't that what I said. So you need it more physical than that? Okay, the way you do that is irimi, which is entering the rear of your attacking partner. That will get you out of danger not only in one-to-one encounters, but also when you're surrounded by multiple attackers. Of course, irimi is more than just entering the rear. It can become atemi, nage waza, sword-takng, etc.

How's that?

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Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
And BTW..... you might want to go back and look at that interview with Inaba Sensei I pointed to a few times. See what he has to say about what aiki is.
Again, I know it amazes you that people don't index all your posts and read them on their knees before bed, but if you want to make a reference like that, you need to supply the link. I read the interview but I don't recall anything specific he said about aiki. Of course, my source was far his senior....as well as senior to Shioda and Tohei....

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Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
Think of Ueshiba's manipulating the Sumo player and saying how he did it as "the secret of Aikido". See if you can reconcile your "ura of kiai" with a physical how-to. That should explain pretty well why you're on one page and everyone else is on another one.
Well, if I'm on the same page as Mochizuki Sensei, you can keep your page.

I think, from Tenryu's description, Ueshiba did aiki age on him. You say that the "secret" was that he was immoveable. I say that the secret is in aiki age, which saps the strength with which the opponent would move you. Making him weak is the same as making yourself strong. You like to appear to make others weak, but it doesn't really affect the truth.

David

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

"Eternity forever!"

www.esotericorange.com
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