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Old 02-19-2011, 07:54 PM   #120
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Re: Future of Aikido

Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
My point had more to do along the lines of the early UFC's where they made a big deal out of "Joe Blow is a 3rd degree blackbelt in Aikido" (or some other art like Silat, Hung Gar, whatever) and yet when you see what they do, it has nothing to do with the named art except in their own imagination and role playing. In terms of Aikido and the future of it, it's perfectly legitimate if someone claims to be doing "silk reeling" or some other buzzword to ask them to explain it. To just dumbly nod without anything going through the head but fleecy clouds is to ask for trouble. The idea that anyone can assert anything publicly and that no one is allowed to ask questions is a sure sign of trouble in an art.

Any discussion about a 'future' should allow for critical and specific questioning
(not some of these "I demand you explain this" absurdities to crop up occasionally on the forum).

Mike Sigman
Bold mine.

Mike's response when asked to explain silk reeling:

Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
So my recommendation is to stick with absolute kokyu/breathing basics and branch out into techniques and applications only after the basics have been truly ingrained.

Mike Sigman
Does Mike know silk reeling? Let's see what he says:

Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
Someone misunderstanding exactly what is being practiced/conditioned in the breathing (and related) exercises is going to blow the reeling-silk exercises (or misunderstand what is being talked about) and is going to have some wrong idea about "moving from the hara", in addition. I.e., these things are easily misunderstood without a common dialogue established in person. Most of the people I see nowadays who are "using internal strength" are still moving from the shoulders, etc., which means all the talk about 'silk reeling', 'breathing exercises', 'hara', etc., is actually something else and the terminologies are getting crossed.

As always, "these things are 'easy to learn' but difficult to correct". Mike Sigman
and

Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
This is exactly what I mean. There is a precise definition of "reeling silk" in that it is a way of practicing Six Harmonies movement. The Six Harmonies movement involves the 3 internal harmonies and the 3 external harmonies. Everyone's pet, ad hoc definition isn't valid and a lot of peoples' guesses are not as valid as everyone else's. In the same sense, people can't just come up with their own definition of "aiki" with no comparison to the original way it was used, and so on.

Mike Sigman
It seems fairly straight forward that he does. Then why hedge on explaining it? What is silk reeling? After all, "it's perfectly legitimate if someone claims to be doing "silk reeling" or some other buzzword to ask them to explain it. " If Mike stays true to form, it'll either be silence or a turn-around asking the poster to explain it.

Speaking of explaining, how about explaining knowing what Ueshiba's breathing practices were and what Ueshiba's traditional system was in regards to kokyu? Especially considering most of Ueshiba's students had a very hard time understanding what Ueshiba was doing, let alone recreating those skills. Bold below is my addition:

Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
In other words there's a trick to getting hold of and conditioning the right things. Although Tohei and Ueshiba were careful to delineate this problem by insisting on very relaxed breathing practices, my personal opinion is that they would have helped a lot more people if they'd been further explicit than just saying "relax".

Kokyu, hara, ki/breath/suit, all together is not really a difficult idea to conceptually grasp, but to implement it is pretty hard because it means changing the way the body moves and breathes. Well, of course I referring to the traditional system that Ueshiba seemed to subscribe to, not other approaches.

2 cents.

Mike
Remember, "it's perfectly legitimate if someone claims to be doing "silk reeling" or some other buzzword to ask them to explain it. "
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