[quote=Alejandro Villanueva;268288]
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Uhmmm... Are those kata a representation of some general principles? Maybe we can define it like a grouping of similar kata displaying a unique set of principals.
Agreed about kata or not kata, and different ways of performing. But what is (should) be similar is said uniform (internal?) skillset, IMHO.
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I don't think so. I think, based on my experience, that the similarities are only skin deep. In my dojo there are three different styles of Aikido taught. There's the old stuff taught by Chiba, the new "hombu style" stuff and the body mechnics intense stuff we call "witchcraft." To my thinking none of these have anything in common on a principle level although Chiba's stuff is a good place to start on witchcraft because it provides a useful framework IMHO.
Chiba's is all about hips, timing, posture and positioning.
The hombu style stuff I don't think has any principles, uke does everything and the witchcraft I find difficult to describe.
You can't really IMO learn it with a co-operative uke because you need to constantly test that you're relaxed and that your body is moving as a collective whole with everything connected to your centre. My instructor basically makes 1st kyu (he only teaches the 1st kyus this stuff for some reason) training one giant push test only we get to push too.
So IMO there are no common principles underpinning how we do our kata regardless of style. We don't all have the same skills even within an association. I can't see how that doesn't generalise across all of Aikido we just don't all train in the same way for the same things.
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That's a good one. Then... did Aikido not exist before O Sensei? I mean, of course, if we define it as that skillset I mentioned before. Didn't those skills predate Ueshiba? Uhmmmm... Aikido, what Aikido?  |
Is anyone claiming that O-Sensei invented anything new martially speaking? No, he reorganised what he'd been taught and apparently failed to pass on most of the skills he had in the process. How many Aikidoka have internal skills? Either that was deliberate or he simply wasn't that good a teacher.
Same goes with the philosophy. How many Aikidoka understand his philosophy? How many shihan can claim the enlightenment Ueshiba supposedly had? Of them how many of their students are more spiritually advanced than average people?
I got into a discussion in another thread which referenced how Araki Ryu retrains the student psychologically "and perhaps neurologically." Is there anything like that in Aikido to teach the mindset of love and compassion we're supposed to learn? And if so how come we have the worst politics of any martial art?