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Old 07-12-2009, 11:26 AM   #37
Mike Sigman
Location: Durango, CO
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Re: Japanese Aikido Teachers - Translation

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Mark Murray wrote: View Post
Reread Ledyard's post about "If it doesn't look like Aikido, smell like Aikido, and taste like Aikido, it's not Aikido."

Now, I'm the first to state that I know very little of the Chinese arts, but here's a short list of things I've never seen in the Chinese arts that can be found by those doing Daito ryu aiki:

Lying on the ground with people holding arms, feet, and neck and then throwing them off of you.

Sitting on the ground cross legged and having people push your head and try to push you over.

Holding a piece of paper or cloth and throwing someone who grabs that paper or cloth.

Ueshiba did these things. You wanted some sort of list and I started one. Now, you're stating that this list, just because it reflects Daito ryu aiki should be renamed and all connections to "Daito ryu" should be dropped.
You're talking about simple techniques that are ubiquitous in Asian martial arts, Mark. But since Joep has already begin to point you in that direction, I'm not going to belabor the point.

My point is that all the ki/kokyu/qi/jin skills Ueshiba got did not necessarily come only from Aikido, but worse than that, what ki/kokyu/qi/jin skills that Takeda had he certainly didn't invent himself, either. If you want to worry about Takeda, start worrying about that part of it. My position is that the skills in Aikido and DR that are being called "aiki" or "kokyu" or "ki" simply come from a very ancient tradition throughout Asia. To keep hammering that Ueshiba owed all he had to Takeda is one of the great absurdities I've seen on a martial-arts forum. No one has ever argued that Ueshiba didn't get a lot of his information from DR. I doubt that he got it all. If you want to talk about "techniques", then the argument becomes absurd. Start another thread and start naming DR techniques that aren't just variations of techniques already found in Chinese martial arts (and of course I mean martial, functional ones, not dive-bunny techniques).

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1. If you're going to research how Ueshiba did these "physical phenomenon" to show ki, then you should be looking at his peers, too, who also did the exact same things. You want to look and feel like Ueshiba's aikido? Then you have to have at least the foundation to do that *and* you have to understand how he was using those skills. So far, there's only one other area that replicates the "physical phenomenon" of Ueshiba -- his Daito ryu aiki peers.
Are you serious? Seriously? You may need to do a little research on this, Mark, but I don't see anything in DR or Aikido that is outside the mainstream of skills and techniques found in older Asian martial arts.
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2. I posted, put the info out there, showed where to look, what was being done. You post that I should stop saying Daito ryu aiki. But you gave exactly no references to Chinese arts doing the "physical phenomenon" that Ueshiba had done. You have said that while the basics are the same, the way it is used can be different. Well, I'm taking you at your word and showing where people can go to see how Ueshiba learned to use Daito ryu aiki. It would be very helpful that, rather than keep harping on and on about how you don't like Daito ryu aiki mentioned, if you'd provide examples of any other art doing the same things. Not just suggesting that there are.
OK, that's easy. Look in Shuai Jiao; look in Bagua. Notice how many people think Ueshiba got his techniques from Bagua because they look so similar. Actually, the techniques in Bagua are still, at best, techniques that have been in many ancient Chinese martial arts. Again, though... you seem to think I'm talking about tecniques. I'm not. I'm talking about people making a list of the ki/kokyu/qi/jin skills that are defining aspects of Aikido's usage of those skills. You misunderstood me and went off on a tangent.
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Otherwise, you'll be setting up a list of "physical phenomenon" of ki skills that would be like someone else, for instance - Tohei.
That's what I was suggesting.
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NOTE: PLEASE don't take that sentence as disparaging Tohei. I'm NOT! I have great respect for him. But, he didn't do all the same things that Ueshiba did (as far as I know) in terms of "physical phenomenon" of ki skills. Can you do some great Aikido without replicating Ueshiba's "physical phenomenon" of ki skills? Sure. Just look at Tohei, Tomiki, Shioda, Shirata, Saotome, etc, etc. But this part of the thread wasn't about doing good Aikido.
So list what Ueshiba could do that Tohei couldn't do. Ultimately, that's part of the "list" I was talking about.

Mike
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