View Single Post
Old 01-14-2007, 04:52 PM   #21
eyrie
 
eyrie's Avatar
Location: Summerholm, Queensland
Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 1,126
Australia
Offline
Re: Stealing techniques

Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote:
The idea of "going outside", while I understand it, is sort of alien to my way of thinking. For me to "go outside" of the Asian martial arts would mean that I would have to go to Greco-Roman wrestling, Jogo do Pau, or something..... i.e., I tend to see the Chinese-Japanese-Indonesian-Korean arts as all being pretty much based on the same things, so it's not really "outside".
I meant going outside of one's current teacher/school/style/system.... but I see your point. Going outside of ethnocentrically related systems would be going too far outside... say from Aikido to Capoiera - there *may* be *some* similarities, but I think it would be more than a bit of a stretch...

Quote:
When Ueshiba studied his other arts, I think that while he recognized them as separate arts in their own right, he also still saw them as being part of the general martial arts grouping which he was interested in... he didn't see those arts as "outside", if you see what I mean. Aikido is only a closed-world to many of the people inside of it.... any reasonably knowledgeable 'outsider' sees it as just part of the family.
Essentially, what you're saying is that even though these arts might be "separate", there are some threads of commonality (part of the "family")? So it would behove people to seek out the commonalities (of ethnocentrically-related MAs) rather than highlight the differences, in order to steal....er... I mean seek out the "missing" information?

Quote:
Some of that's going to be open to interpretation, but I think the Ki-Society basic-movement stuff I saw (by some, not all) at the Shaner workshop should be like a given at every Aikido dojo, regardless of style. As I've said, I think their stuff can be taught quicker, more directly, a little more sophisticated in upper ability, etc., but that's just an opinion and quibble.... the point is that Tohei was more or less laying out an acceptable ground level for these skills. That Shaner-workshop-level-stuff would be my recommendation for a baseline of skills that are a "must" in any Aikido dojo.
Whilst I understand what you mean by baseline skills, I think part of the problem of going "outside" (my meaning), is that most people are generally unaware of what they are looking for. They feel like they're not getting something or missing something, but they don't yet know what it is. And their current teacher is not giving it to them. So what invariably happens is a kind of itinerant dojo-hopping... in search of the elusive - until one "works it out".

I agree, establishing a "baseline" is a positive step forward, BUT... WHAT is the baseline? And by WHOSE standards? Especially if such *basic* and *necessary* information is "open to interpretation"...

Quote:
People in many different arts are beginning to realize that the basic mechanisms for doing a lot of the ki/kokyu stuff are in other arts, too.... so they're already out there looking for information and getting some..... These are Asia-wide demonstrations of the same power and you'll find them in Ueshiba, Yiquan, Taiji, Japanese sword experts, Xingyi, you name it. Understanding that these skills are common to Asian arts is a big step forward:
This goes back to my other point... even if you can start to understand that these skills are common to Asian MA, if you don't know what you're looking for, how do you know what to look for?

Perhaps analysing what the similarities are between Ueshiba and Master Sum, would be a start?

Ignatius
  Reply With Quote