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Old 08-19-2008, 03:26 PM   #163
rob_liberti
Dojo: Shobu Aikido of Connecticut
Location: East Haven, CT
Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 1,402
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Re: "Aiki" in Russian Video Clips

I'm not looking to fight anyone.
(Okay, sometimes I admit, I wouldn't say no... but not in this case.)

Quote:
Erick Mead wrote: View Post
You are more straightforward in your approach to these issues than most, which is a credit to you, and probably to your teacher. You (and they) can presume all you want, and it will trouble me not at all. If you ignore something useful on a supposition, you have only your supposition to blame.
I'm really not trying to "trouble" you. I was trying to figure out how to bridge the gap between our perspectives. I defined "intention up" in pain-staking detail. If that is not connecting to anything on your side, then the only reasonable option left is for a visit. Which is what I think everyone was suggesting.

Otherwise you have this statement that what you are offering is "useful" and I can't see any reason to agree with that. Maybe I'm being thick, but unless you are saying you can do or teach these things using your model, what would the "use" be?

Quote:
Erick Mead wrote: View Post
If you really conceive that asking to define terms is indicative of anything other than care with meaning, then I don't know what to tell you. I've taken care with meaning since before I began the law twelve years ago, with things physical since I began flying twenty years ago, and with things violent since I started aikido and joined the Navy before that.
Well I think at a certain point of defining terms - we get to such basics like "up" - that it seems like there is no way you could possibly be on the same page as everyone else I've met who had these skills. Gleason sensei who doesn't teach this stuff directly has taught classes of imagery of flowing up through your body like a fire hose that isn't being held by anyone. He discusses the image of how it spirals in the air a bit - and tells you to imagine that and when you stick your arm out for katatetori to think of the arm being supported by those spirals. That is intention up too. Dan about it a bit differently (different image), but EVERYONE and I have traveled a bit and met a lot of people with varying degrees of skills - EVERYONE has some sense of intention up. So if you don't it's a reasonable presumption that you are not doing what they are doing - especially because I thought you were certainly not stating that you had any method for directly teaching these things like the "aiki" skills guys.

Quote:
Erick Mead wrote: View Post
You admittedly are dwelling on your intention, not primarily dwelling on what your body is actually doing. As Tim noted, your theory is in search of a physical model for its ad hoc training methodology. Effective or not, it has no physical model. Nothing wrong with that, but that's the fact.

The theory of your present training seems to be that if your intention is refined according to the theory of orientation you are using the body will follow suit. You have defined exercises to frame this intention. You have a guru to mold your intention. Fine. It is a yoga and a good one probably. I don't challenge that.

I am focusing on how my body moves and how it moves in relation the movement of another body in connection. Cutting out the middleman, so to speak. When I think less I move better. The less I think about how and why it moves that way when I am moving, the less disconnected my mind is from the doing of the movement. I reflect carefully on the movement after I have ceased doing it rather than being severely intentional while I am doing it.
Well, my point here is that yes - I'm doing that initially becaue I believe it is the fastest method. The assumptin is that I'll be able to let that mental aspect go and just maintain the feeling after it gets burned in.

The other point is that I don't see how you method can possibly be a faster or better method because I don't see any results to compare them. Until I do, I have to reasonably conclude that this method of studying this is not optimal compared to my current approach.

Can we all get along and just discuss?

And by the way - out of context the "we are speaking English" statement I made looks rude as well - but you had just wrote about an example using some made up language and I was addressing that.

Rob

Last edited by rob_liberti : 08-19-2008 at 03:29 PM.