Quote:
Chuck Clark wrote:
I think that possibly what Tomiki Sensei found that was not "germane" to the practice of what he was doing was the "theatrics" (my own term and view from having spent many years under the influence of Tomiki and his senior students) that many people did to demonstrate their "aiki"...
I think the nature of aiki and learning how to do it are contained in the kata. The problem is finding a teacher that has done the work and progressed through the system of kata using aiki as the primary component of the riai and katachi. It is not labeled with Chinese terms, but aiki exists within the system. I don't think Tomiki and others knew how to "teach" it, but he could surely do it and I don't think he left it out of his teaching method on purpose.
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Hi Chuck:
We're all of us more or less reduced to the "I think...." perspective, since all we can do at this time is guess, based on what anecdotal indicators are left AND based on what is becoming more apparent about the ki and kokyu skills that seem to have been available in those earlier days.
Tomiki demonstrated that he also knew the "secret" methods of generating qi and jin power, in the basic sense, but whether he understood the "aiki" use of those powers is simply not clear from the available documentation. If someone wants to argue that Tomiki did indeed understand how to use the "aiki" variant of those powers, I'd be interested in hearing them explain how it's done... a "Catch 22" if there ever was one.
Best.
Mike Sigman