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Old 10-15-2012, 07:08 AM   #42
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Re: Aiki vs useless waza ?

Quote:
Lars Beyer wrote: View Post
O´sensei was one of a kind and so was the other geniouses of aikido.
Wery few of us will ever be able to reach their level for many very good reasons.
This doesn´t make aikido useless I feel.

My question still stands: What´s the purpose of distinguishing between aiki and waza ?
and

Quote:
Lars Beyer wrote: View Post
Youre right, there is allways waza and whether or not it develops understanding of or the ability to develop aiki is the same to me.
The buttomline is that waza is indistutable in terms of learning aikido and so is aiki in terms of enhancing your training over time. Afterall were all doing aikiDO- no ?
Cheers,
Lars
Sokaku Takeda taught a group of men (who all lived near each other) who went on to become well known (not famous) for their martial skills. Sagawa, Horikawa, Yoshida, Ueshiba. Ueshiba become the most famous of them, however, each were peers. Horikawa is on video doing the very same push test that Ueshiba did. All were known to have unnatural power. They each, in turn, created other martial artists known for being very different from the normal. Ueshiba turned out more than the others did. Tomiki, Shirata, Mochizuki, Shioda, etc. Definitely not "one of a kind" here.

As for reaching their level ... see below.

aiki and waza.

Sagawa, Horikawa, Ueshiba: My art is formless.

1. Morihei Ueshiba: Never did the same technique twice. Ueshiba did not catalogue techniques.
2. Kisshomaru Ueshiba: Catalogued techniques into a syllabus and concentrated on that. Stated that it should only take 2-3 years to learn them.

Who's aikido are you learning? 1 or 2?

1. Morihei Ueshiba: It was very common for Ueshiba to have his students push on him. (Remember, Ueshiba stated that Tenryu couldn't push him over because Ueshiba knew the secret of aiki.)
2. Kisshomaru Ueshiba: Practice was about learning techniques.

Who's aikido are you learning? 1 or 2?

1. Morihei Ueshiba: Taught Daito ryu and from that time, produced Shioda, Shirata, Mochizuki, Tomiki, etc, who all stood out as aikido greats.
2. Kisshomaru Ueshiba: Taught Modern Aikido and from that time, produced ...

Who's aikido are you learning? 1 or 2?

Per Dan, earlier:
1. Morihei Ueshiba: Had an extensive solo training regimen. So did Shirata.
1. Kisshomaru Ueshiba: Banned it.

Who's aikido are you learning? 1 or 2?

1. Morihei Ueshiba: Taught Daito ryu and in 5-10 years passed on enough training to create aikido giants like Shioda, Shirata, Mochizuki, Tomiki, etc.
2. Kisshomaru Ueshiba: Taught in Tokyo and in 40 + years passed on enough training to create what aikido giants?

Who's aikido are you learning? 1 or 2?

So, is waza indisputable to learning the way of aiki? If we look to the other aiki greats such as Sagawa and Horikawa and compare them to Ueshiba, we find they all pretty much said the same thing. Their art was formless and aiki was a body changing method not based upon techniques. Ueshiba would look at sword kata and say, in aiki, we do it this way. Meaning that when you have an aiki-changed body, you move and do things differently than all the other martial artists. Even your techniques are different.

Now, going back to Greg's post, "you can have waza without aiki and you can have waza with aiki - waza will not create aiki, but aiki can create waza", you can see that from Tokyo (in general), there were all kinds of waza without aiki. Doing techniques for 40 + years has not produced people with the skills of the aiki greats. However, when Shirata showed up, everyone knew he was different. His aiki created techniques.

If you were born blind and never saw the moon, you would have no idea what it was. If people started putting a softball in your hand and telling you it was exactly like the moon, you would begin to think that the moon was like the softball. After 40 years of never seeing the moon and endlessly handlling the softball like millions of other blind people, you would not believe anyone else who told you the moon was different. Once you had your eyes opened (to true budo) and someone points to the moon, you see the moon for what it truly is.

Of course, all IMO,
Mark
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