Thread: kamae problem
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Old 07-23-2011, 01:38 PM   #66
JW
 
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Re: kamae problem

Thanks to Prof G, Joe, and Chris. I was not taking this thread seriously at first and thought that Josh Reyer summed it up well. And now here we are talking about one of the most important issues in international aikido-- accurate translation of the founder.

I saw Stan Pranin's comment on the origin of written works here. (scoll down to comments) But I have not ordered that book yet. So, I hope the passage we are discussing is of known "authentic" origin. I'd better get that book!

I have only some low-level educational background in Japanese and some meager kanji skills from Chinese class. So you can be sure my main contribution to a conversation like this will be questions, not answers. So I'll throw them out there:

1. Did they not use hiragana in the old days?
2. I am ready to be shocked and apalled at the "60 degrees" translation. Am I right that 角 kaku would be used for degrees? It looks to me that one should "open the two legs to 6 directions," as Chris said.
3. What does 常 mean in the 2nd to last line (足ハ常ニ六方ニ開キアル)? Is it something like the 6-direction opening of the legs is maintained throughout?
4. Should people like me settle down and wait on this? The passage talks about 6 directions all through it (though I don't know what it is saying) and mentions internal and external 6 directions. This is so rich and interesting, is it true there are no people already working to publish new translations of passages like this? I know Stan Pranin wanted to do all of the Takemusu Aiki lectures but was stopped at 4. Are there copyright issues fighting against new translations?
Thanks all!
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