View Single Post
Old 10-20-2011, 01:26 PM   #1506
MM
Join Date: Jan 2005
Posts: 1,996
United_States
Offline
Re: Aikido does not work at all in a fight.

Quote:
Alberto Italiano wrote: View Post
Whoever may be genuinely interested in aiki, would never dare say he knows what aiki is. It's an implied gentlement's agreement for me.
That's just the opposite of what the founder stated. When asked what was aiki, Morihei Ueshiba replied, "I am aiki!". When asked why people couldn't do what he did, he answered, "Because you do not understand in yo."

Sagawa stated aiki was a body changing method. Horikawa's wife stated that one must steal it by watching the body.

Just because you might not want to say you know what it is, doesn't mean others are the same. Some of us have done our research, have gone out and met people, have trained with both aikido and Daito ryu people, and have found aiki. Morihei Ueshiba's aiki. Not Modern Aikido's aiki, which is completely different.

Quote:
Alberto Italiano wrote: View Post
Yet as a matter of fact, the fact we have no canonical definition of it so that immediate consensus about it can be won, opens the concept of aiki to broad speculation.
Maybe you don't, I don't know. But it definitely is not a "matter of fact". I know a whole lot of people who have a fairly good grasp of what aiki is and they are working on changing their bodies with specific exercises, so that, sometime down the road, they will be able to say the same thing Ueshiba said, "I am aiki!"

Quote:
Alberto Italiano wrote: View Post
But if you place aiki among the most refined achievements of aikido, as I assume it ought to be placed, then you should not consider it as something that can be acquired cheaply or as something that may be granted to anybody.
Aiki was a closely guarded secret. Aiki was the power and skill that made Takeda, Sagawa, Horikawa, and Ueshiba stand out. However, if one does the exercises, one will acquire aiki. Anyone.

Quote:
Alberto Italiano wrote: View Post
Given that assumption, whoever plans to discover aiki would never say: i now know with finality what aiki is.
In your reasoning, Torres, you are replacing my alleged intention to be final about this thread, with your alleged intention of being final about what aiki is.
I would disagree. Takeda, Sagawa, Horikawa, Ueshiba all said they knew what aiki was. They also said that it was very deep. They never thought that they had found the totality of aiki but they most certainly knew what aiki was. So, too, did other people. There is a concrete, understandable, and demonstrable concept of aiki which shows a finality to defining it.

Think about it. Many competent and very good martial artists crossed paths with the aiki greats that I listed above. Nearly ever single martial artist who did came away wondering what it was that they had experienced. It was beyond their known experiences. Think about that. 10, 20, 40, 60 years in the martial arts and these people meet someone (an aiki great) whom is outside their years of training such that they can not comprehend how these aiki men are overwhelming them. Yet, all of these aiki men knew what aiki was and how to train it.
  Reply With Quote