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Old 08-08-2006, 01:53 PM   #23
Don_Modesto
Dojo: Messores Sensei (Largo, Fl.)
Location: Florida
Join Date: Mar 2001
Posts: 1,267
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Re: Poll: Is there a universally accepted definition of the term "aikido"?

Quote:
Joep Schuurkes wrote:
I don't think Aikido should be broken up in ai-ki-do.
I think it should be aiki-do, the way of aiki. Aiki being quite a complicated subject, but only when explaining 'aiki', one should mention 'ai' and 'ki'.
So the universally accepted defenition should mention aiki and do.
Personally, I like this. But I think it's wrong.

One Mr. Tanahashi, IIRC, defined it your way in Susan Perry's Remembering O-Sensei: Breath Unification Method, but he's the only person I've seen do this.

I once facetiously asked Stanley Pranin if we could define aikido as the way to unbalance your opponent (functionally the same as Tanahashi's definition), and he unsmilingly dunned me that Osensei explicitly meant AI and KI and DO, the way of harmony of spirit, i.e., Osensei punned on the historical meaning of aiki making it a DIFFERENT meaning than had theretofore been accepted for aiki.

Don J. Modesto
St. Petersburg, Florida
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