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Old 11-09-2012, 06:17 PM   #47
Tom Verhoeven
Dojo: Aikido Auvergne Kumano dojo
Location: Auvergne
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 295
France
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Re: The Fear of Power

Quote:
Mark Murray wrote: View Post
So, you see horses in this position all the time and its natural?

http://yellowcreekfarrier.com/about_us

They stand like that for hours and there are millions of pictures of horses being in that posture naturally?

Or does the horse put its leg back down on the ground when you let go of its leg? Why does anyone have to find ways of keeping a horses leg like they do to work on the hoof if its all natural to the horse?

So, again, you are making the horse do things that are not natural to its being. Power. Whether you use it or the horse gives it to you. And you are wanting the horse to put its hoof and leg in postures that it doesn't normally use. Who wins? You or the horse? Did you get the work done? You won.

And if you make the horse better then its a win-win. If you don't do the work because the horse was too much, you failed to do your job. Failure means a winner and loser. The horse won by keeping to its nature. It had the power to overcome a human trying to get it to do things it didn't want to do.

Contest between horse and man/woman playing out exactly like a contest between uke and nage in the dojo. Uke is pretending to have an aggressive nature and attack in some manner. Nage must alter that or be on the losing end of that attack. In aikido, the power is a means to appropriately match the attackers energy/attack and provide a win-win outcome. But it's still power and winning.
Clearly you have not much experience with horses and you have never worked on the hooves of horses. It does not take hours and hours to clean a hoof. Or even to put a new shoe on.
I do not need pictures of horses - I have them all day around me in a natural environment so I see their natural behavior on a daily basis.
I already explained why there is no contest between me and the horse.

Life is not about winners and losers. Life is not an ongoing contest. If you walk your dog or feed your cat would you see that as a contest? If you go out for dinner with someone do you see this dinner as a contest with the other person?

I see your description of Aikido as incomplete. If I understand you correctly you suggest here that there are only two options in Aikido? Either uke wins or nage wins (how is this a win-win outcome?).
In my practice of Aikido there are more possible outcomes.

Tom

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