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Old 04-10-2010, 05:12 AM   #112
DH
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,394
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Re: Video definitions, "Aiki" and other terms.

Quote:
Joshua Reyer wrote: View Post
Quote:
Michael Varin wrote:
I thought this was a video thread.

Why have only two men posted a total of seven original videos?

And still no attempt at a definition for aiki.

And for those who blindly insist that aiki = internal strength = structure, not the slightest shred of proof that Ueshiba ever considered this to be aiki.
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Except the whole jo trick thing, and the push test with Tenryu. Some people may insist, and you're free to disagree, but they are hardly insisting blindly.
As well as the many references to how Shioda and others trained with push-testing and breath training, and the push tests mentioned in the fighting spirit of Japan with an aiki-jujutsu teacher and the use of center. You could also lump in solo training, breath training with questions of push testing and still come up with an interesting list of suspects!!
As far as fascia being involved in the training and just what came into who's jargon and when is concerned it is worth noting: Mochizuki's mention of it in an AJ interview, Richard Kim (student of Yoshida Kotaro Daito ryu and Yanagi ryu) discussion of breath training in an interview (I believe from the early 80's) and the results it had on the skin and bone thickening among adepts. It was highlighted by a story he told of one of his training partners having his arm broken and the doc's noting the thickness of the bone, I didn't care about the story as much as I found these interviews and references "cross checks" for other sources mentioning the same things. Case in point; I found Mochizuki's comments and his calling fascia, "long muscle" in the written AJ's from the early nineties particularly interesting, since I first heard the term used by a Japanese Daito ryu shihan. He was discussing breath and the effects it had on "long muscle" and then being corrected by an American physical therapist who told him the proper term was fascia. There was a reference to breath training and fascia as well in a book on DR published in Europe. There was another reference somewhere -I think it was in Takeda Tokimune's in-house circulars in the late seventies for students in reference to aiki-in-yo ho and how it effected the tissue in connecting the arms and legs to center.
So here we see references to skin, bones, and fascia from different teachers...all connected to who and what art? Since they were discussing it in interviews in the 80s (late in their careers after they were famous) -how long had they been training it? And in that time and place is it another coincidence that they were also known for unusual power?

I also found Sagawa's decision to bring up and then deny breath-training note worthy, if not fascinating, as I know he taught breath-power as a specific training to at least one teacher.

Again, all these references are by whom? Should we consider it coincidence that the Japanese teachers who were mentioning it and discussing it were oddly enough men well known for unusual skills and unusual power? Is that worth our attention?
It seems odd to insist the knowledge of this stuff is everywhere in Asia- then not acknowledge the various sources of it being discussed and taught by....Asian teachers!
The one interesting and overriding factor in all of this, is that when we trace the routes of aiki back to the greats in the art- why do we run into these stories of solo training, push-testing and breath power?
And why it seems that over-and-over, these men were just like us. Among their peers -only one would listen as hundreds of others got lost in waza.
The more things change.....
Dan

Last edited by DH : 04-10-2010 at 05:25 AM.