Kevin Leavitt

Chris,
Thanks for bring that up. Good points.

I am certainly open to a new outlook, and I still have lots to process for sure, so I would not say definitively this is my final answer. BUT.

I would still stand by my original assertion concerning the concept of pain making those things work. That is the rote techniques of jiujistu.

However I would also agree based on what Mike taught, that it is not aiki, but good jiujitsu.

We did not do much in the way of joint locks, but we did work on nikkyo a little. Mike reinforced to me that it does not work without positional dominance, moving or pain. He could ground out the technique and bounce me back. I could do the same, that is ground out the technique, although I could not bounce it back. Regardless, you were not going to get Nikkyo.

My impression is this:

You can root or access center from just about any position or technique....the technique is not what is important. the hand/arm could be in any position it does not seem to matter. So based on what I saw, i'd throw out those techniques all together when discussing the aiki part, AND I'd contend that to make those techniques work as the techniques they were designed to be, that they require either pain or the threat of pain/avoidance to make them work.

Combining the aiki(accessing power) and the jiujitsu (Positional Dominance) though and you have a much broader range of options to affect the situation.

Jiujitsu becomes much more adaptive for sure!