View Single Post
Old 04-16-2010, 01:26 PM   #260
bkedelen
 
bkedelen's Avatar
Dojo: Boulder Aikikai
Join Date: Sep 2004
Posts: 450
United_States
Offline
Re: Video definitions, "Aiki" and other terms.

Quote:
Dan Harden wrote: View Post
I have done this sort of testing and much more stressful ones in gyms with power lifters, in gyms with College football players, in MMA schools, in Judo clubs, with ICMA teachers (who had no vested interest in me succeeding).
Now lets add seminars with oh...maybe 60 or so people who read these pages. ...
Now add twin sticks, knife and sword.
Now add Ark and others to the list who have also done similar things.
Dan, let me preface what I have to say by mentioning that I have been working with a subsection of the Internalati here in Aikiweb for a couple of years and I am in no way questioning the existence of internal skills or the fact that they really cannot be learned from video or explanation.
That said, I can understand why those who do not yet believe that these skills exist are disappointed in the apparent lack of video demonstrating the basics of these skills, the skills being used against the uncooperative, and the skills being used at speed. There are some, such as the Bing video, some good and some questionable stuff from Akuzawa, and some more demonstrative stuff that Mike has released. I am frankly disappointed (skeptical?) that during all of the above mentioned testing, demoing, and seminaring, no one was filming or no one is willing to release whatever footage was captured. Even though I have been working on these skills for a while, I would LOVE to see you or Ark or Mike or whoever else is qualified working some intermediate level skills on some resisting or fast opponents so that I can start to build a more comprehensive skillset. I would also love to see and hear you and others demonstrating preferred solo drills in these areas since the drills that the community are working seem to be diverse and nuanced despite having common themes and goals. In any case, I just wanted to say that I can understand why people are clamoring for more footage, even though I know that it will not do much to sway the contrarians.