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Old 09-06-2006, 05:23 AM   #49
Gernot Hassenpflug
Dojo: Aunkai, Tokyo
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 319
Japan
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Re: No touch throw - again? OMG!!!

Hi Wayne, If I have the same thing in mind, here is he trying to show the other person how to hold properly, by gripping him at the same time, and stopping the breath again and again until the other person starts to do something approaching that. Abe sensei doesn't try to throw people, he tries to get them to stand, grip and stop breath in a certain manner. When he demonstrates with ukes, he is teaching them this, and they are falling in line with that entering force, not because the force is actually strong enough (at that point) to throw them bodily. I'll tell you though that I asked him about all this extension thing a number of times, and once he said there's no need to be violent, it's just the leading, but you can add your own to it at any point, and promptly dropped his hand, and me attached to it, to the ground. I didn't have time to let go completely, so I went down partly even though I was letting go already. Pretty powerful for a 90-year old guy :-) I don't know what he's famous for over where you are. He's well-known as a calligrapher (he teaches, that his profession). At his 88th birthday the aikido people were on one side of the hall, and the shodo people on the other. Abe sensei gave a speech on the podium, telling us that shodo and aikido are identical in basis, and that if the shodo people want to get some exercise, they should come to his aikido classes. Slavering as we were at the gorgeous ladies over there, we all agreed heartily :-)

Last edited by Gernot Hassenpflug : 09-06-2006 at 05:24 AM. Reason: spelling
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