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Old 05-09-2010, 12:03 PM   #80
David Orange
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Location: Birmingham, AL
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Re: Yoshinkan and "aiki"

Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
So is Mrs. Horikawa the defining authority on the correct usage of the term "aiki"?
Well, first, she's talking from many decades of experience with Horikawa and his students. Second, there were at least two of Horikawa's students involved in the conversation and they said similar things. What about the comment that he would apply aiki and "hold" it on them for some lengthy time?

Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
It simply doesn't make a lot of sense, given the antecedents of the term for a couple of thousand years.
Of course, in the earliest usage, it means to be in a sword situation in which neither person can get an advantage.

Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
Maybe it's a vernacular within Daito Ryu (who knows?), but technically the forces are aspects of ki, not of "aiki".
I see aiki as an aspect of ki. And we (and the Chinese and Japanese) say we "have" ki...so...I don't see it as out of place and of course, all modern uses of "aiki" are from Sokaku Takeda anyway. Whatever it meant 1000 years ago, within daito ryu, it means what Sokaku and his top people say, I would think.

Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
Heck, I can even see it as an idiomatic use and I know what someone is trying to say... but technically "aiki" is something that you do with ki, it's not force by itself.
I think it means to have a body that "naturally" uses its ki in an aiki fashion when touched. Which won't happen if you don't have that kind of body...so you have to "have" it to use it.

Anyway, my point is that it's wrong to say that the Japanese don't refer to "having" aiki because some of them certainly do.

Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
And as grandiose as it sounds, "aiki", it's still going to use the same basic forces that are a kokyu power. Any amount of money you want to bet.
Not arguing that, but then we could say you "have" kokyu or you don't....meaning that you have developed it to the point where it is part of your being instead of something you try to do without having developed it far enough to say you "have" it.

Thanks.

David

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

"Eternity forever!"

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