View Single Post
Old 01-10-2011, 01:06 AM   #26
George S. Ledyard
 
George S. Ledyard's Avatar
Dojo: Aikido Eastside
Location: Bellevue, WA
Join Date: Jun 2000
Posts: 2,670
Offline
Re: Ikeda Sensei Demos of Ki

Mike said:
Quote:
In that case, you should be the one doing the explaining, George. Not me.
If we are talking about internal power development, you, Dan, and Akuzawa have a far more precise set of terminology than I have. I had to work out my own ways of describing what I thought was going on as I became able to do some things.

But, unless you are one of the folks that trains with me regularly, it isn't very productive for folks here to try to learn my idiosyncratic way of explaining these things because I am, in many cases, the only one who explains something in a particular manner.

Based on the training I am currently doing and some experience with Ark and his students, and my brief exposure to you personally and, of course, reading your posts, I am hopeful that I will be able to connect what I am doing, which results-wise I am happy with the way things are going, with the far more detailed and precise explanations you guys provide.

Also, I hesitate because I am keenly aware that there are various things I figured out that my current experiences are not so much invalidating as showing me other, better ways to do the same thing. So for instance, I had a certain way of getting my spine straight. It worked fine and changed my Aikido hugely. Now I have found that there is another way to accomplish this same thing using the breath that is superior in that it not only does what I had been doing but also does a number of things my old way did not.

I am good at explanations from a teaching standpoint. By that I mean, I am very good at getting someone to do something I can do. From a result oriented standpoint I feel my explanations are useful as I am almost always able to help my partner do whatever our teachers are doing when initially he or she could not. But as precise descriptions of actual processes, my explanations are often lacking. My visualizations my enable me or my partner to do something but in many areas I do not think they help one to understand precisely what is happening. You guys have a far better terminology set than I.

As to Ikeda Sensei's work... Certainly a lot of what he is doing is straight out of what you, Dan, and Ark talk about. But quite a lot of what he is doing he got from Ushiro Kenji. I don't have enough familiarity with the range of what you and Dan do to say where you understand what Ushiro Sensei is doing. My experience so far is that physically you certainly do. But on an energetic level, I don't really know because I have not heard you guys talk about it. From my experience, much of the core if what Ushiro is doing has more to do with what Vladimir and Ryabko are doing in Systema than what the internal power guys I have encountered are doing.

Anyway, if I work directly with someone in Saotome Sensei's or Ikeda Sensei's classes, my explanations are most often successful in getting people to actually do what the Sensei was showing. But as descriptive formulations rather than "how to" instructions, well, I am still trying to improve on that, so I will leave it to you guys unless it's something I really have well digested.

Last edited by George S. Ledyard : 01-10-2011 at 01:09 AM.

George S. Ledyard
Aikido Eastside
Bellevue, WA
Aikido Eastside
AikidoDvds.Com