Thread: Ueshiba's Aiki
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Old 11-12-2011, 11:46 PM   #239
kewms
Join Date: Aug 2002
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Re: Ueshiba's Aiki

Quote:
Raul Rodrigo wrote: View Post
Hugh, in Bill Gleason's sword DVD, he speaks of waza and sword movement in terms of things like fire ki, water ki, and mudras. How well (or not) does the new IS paradigm fit over the old Japanese religious language that he used in the video? Or a line like "The vertical plane is the plane of non resistance." How has his teaching language changed over the last few years?
I was just on the mat with him today. I would say that he has largely integrated his IS work with his grounding in Japanese mysticism, and is to some extent returning to the teaching language he was using 5-7 years ago. The IS work seems to provide a vocabulary for tying somewhat esoteric ideas to physical realities.

Up-thread, it was implied that he is no longer doing aikido. I can only assume that such a comment comes from profound ignorance of what he is actually doing, since what I felt today was as "aikido-like" as you're likely to encounter anywhere.

(Full disclosure: Though I no longer train at his dojo, I did for quite a few years. So I'm quite biased. And, of course, I do not pretend to speak for him, just for my own on-mat experience.)

Katherine