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Old 12-03-2012, 11:22 PM   #299
Lorel Latorilla
Location: Osaka
Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 311
Japan
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Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?

Quote:
Erick Mead wrote: View Post
Then why did it nearly fail? It nearly failed with Takeda in Japan by all accounts; Sagawa had few to follow him -- whether he intended it or not. China is a mass of splinters or impenetrable clans.

No offense taken -- or meant. I don't denigrate them. I value them I mine them. I translate them -- there is no disrespect involved. Quite to the contrary. There is immense knowledge within them -- but it does not explain itself well. They simply do not serve as well in the forms they have come down to us, and for many reasons, some of which I have suggested. The proof is in the very precarious state of affairs that Dan and others have been very critical of. I don't reject anyone's points

Because he said so? A man who just told the world he in essence lied to his students for decades -- and you believe what he is telling you? No, there is much more going on there.
No, I am not trading in stereotypes but in simple realities of a major -- and real-- cultural difference -- I am simply acknowledging that the perversities of on and giri in Japan make for tragedies real and literary that Shakespeare would have wept over. And the history of this body of knowledge alone is replete with such occasions...
1) Sure Takeda is of the same stock as Sagawa or even his son Tokumine. All of them engaged in some kind of "hiding knowledge". How did Takeda fail, when he was able to produce dudes like Sagawa, Ueshiba, Horikawa, etc.? Would you consider them failures? Was it ever a desire for someone like Takeda to spread the tentacles of Daito Ryu? What's more probable? That Sagawa, Ueshiba, and Horikawa were flukes? Or was it more probable that they, who were hungry for such knowledge, were dceliberately taught the secrets of Daito Ryu?

2) Erick. Trust me, if you were to show up and show us your skills, or if your method produced results, people would be talking about you. You would be in demand.

3) " A man who just told the world he in essence lied to his students for decades -- and you believe what he is telling you? " This is silly. The fact that Sagawa produced Kimura and a couple of others, or Takeda produced Ueshiba, Horikawa, and Sagawa shows that they were not lying about the fact that they were not lying. You are probably right, there is more to that. I think Sagawa, Horikawa, and Ueshiba were more hungry to learn than other students, which put them in the proper state to learn and absorb the things Takeda was teaching. Same goes for Kimura. Maybe you can interpret the "hiding" as Sagawa just giving up on his students, who he probably saw as pathetic guru worshippers that were more awed by the fact that they were learning in Sagawa dojo and didnt care about learning and refused to do the work. I can testify to that fact that this country (Japan that is) produces students that "learn" for other reasons besides learning. So it was not the methodology that was lacking, it was the lack of will to learn. The articulation of the methodology and its improvement is only helpful for the one who had the will to learn, and had his foot in the door. Maybe Sagawa and Takeda could have been more empathetic and be patient towards his students and find ways to ease them into a learning state, but I don't think they were ultimately interested in that. I don't think they were interested in the betterment of people through the medium of bujutsu. It was like, if you didn't want to learn, you will not learn--if you wanted to learn, you got it. In this context, it is understandable that Sagawa and Takeda gave hints to people who were not remotely interested in learning but ultimately did not go out of their way to teach the goods to these people. From soem other aspect and the way Sagawa probably interpreted it, this was "hiding the goods" from people.

Unless stated otherwise, all wisdom, follies, harshness, malice that may spring up from my writing are attributable only to me.
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