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Old 10-22-2012, 09:31 AM   #206
Carl Thompson
 
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Re: VoE: AWASE - The Principle of AIKI

Sorry for all the quotes, but I thought they tied together quite nicely...

Quote:
Dan Harden wrote: View Post
Carl
Ueshiba never studied KSR. He wanted his students to study while he watched. The soke made him take keppan, just to be allowed to watch. Most famous were him telling his students something like he would never do this or that...like KSR. "In Aiki we do it this way." There are several quotes, I just don't have access to my files right now.
So how did the first kumitachi get into his aikido weapons then? I agree, he would have adapted things, but that still makes it an influence, whether it's as a vessel for aiki or as a tool for adding some other quality to his budo… etc.

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Dan Harden wrote: View Post
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Later, I mentioned all of this to Stan Pranin, publisher of Aiki News, and he has since established this and many other hitherto previously unpublished details of Morihei Ueshiba's training in the classical martial arts and the influence of the koryu upon the development of modern aikido. A great deal more work, however, remains to be done.
Not true either.
Stan (right here in his interview with Jun) Relegates Ueshiba's training to a short study under a 17 year old Judo shodan his dad hired, part time study over a few years time, traveling to a Yagyu Shingan dojo (something like 5 hours away) part time on weekends. and......
23 years in Daito ryu.

Dan
Alexander Sensei said Osensei adapted techniques from Daito Ryu and other arts. Mark's original assertion said this was unsupported but Osensei was clearly interested in other arts, checked them out and bits of them are found in his aikido. You actually said the following to Mark on this very subject on another thread a while back:

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Dan Harden wrote: View Post
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Mark Murray wrote: View Post
I disagree. If Takeda had not taught him, Ueshiba would have been just another unknown person who had some training in bayonet, judo, and a bit of sword. He would have been just another of those muscle-bound martial artists who liked it when people broke their hand on his head. He would have remained unknown.
Well, I think you are taking this way past the question at hand. Not to be nitpicky...seriously.

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Mark Murray wrote: View Post
And even though it grates on people, the answer is still -- pretty much all the martial skills and abilities about Ueshiba can be traced back to Takeda.
Come on Man. The guy stopped training with Takeda before the war and he continued to train for thirty more years! I am possibly the strongest advocate on the web that he was Daito ryu through and through. I drive people nuts over it. That his internals and aiki are sourced to Takeda is certain, but hell all of his peers stated they all grew past Takeda's teaching. All 5 of the greats.
I am certain that when he was hanging out an experimenting/ training/watching all manner of things; koryu, modern weapons, Bayonet, even playing with Judo, that he...learned..something...anything different than what he got from Takeda.

I mean let's face it, he came from an informal Itto ryu and Jikishinkage ryu background into watching/ possibly training (I'd bet on it) informally in TSKSR and KSR and Yagyu. No one is EVER going to mistake Itto ryu's approach for Shinto ryu.

Ya don't think he picked up some things? Continued to develop? So even if he picked up one principle...cough. With all that exposure that's it...ONE...are you kidding me....What was he, blind?

There goes your absolute argument out the window. It's not reasonable.

Cheers

Dan
I would also add Ellis Amdur's related commentary from another thread :

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Ellis Amdur wrote: View Post
Haga Junichi was the one who said that Ueshiba was the best swordsman in Japan. On the other hand, a person expert in classical sword spoke scornfully to me about the way Ueshiba executed yokogi-uchi (hitting the bundle of sticks, a Yakumaru-ha Jigen-ryu practice), because, done properly, one strikes exactly the same point every time (until the sticks break), whereas films of Ueshiba show him hitting the sticks at various portions. (The swordsman said to me, "He's doing exercise, not kenjutsu).

As for where Ueshiba learned what, I'm not aware of any records or accounts of Takeda teaching Ueshiba in detail. However, I've seen one article in Hiden magazine where the writer uses photos of pretty much all the major figures in Daito-ryu and some of Ueshiba's major students as well, to establish that there are several components (technique) that are common to all of them.

Ueshiba is known to have taken other people's forms and saying, "in aiki we do it this way," which suggests that he used sword kata as vessels to hold what he considered his primary study. Among the ryu that he used in this way were Yagyu Shinkage-ryu and Kashima Shinto-ryu.

I could go on for quite a few pages, but - oh yes! It's already been done. HIPS - "A Unified Field Theory: Aiki and Weapons
Bear in mind that one solo "exercise" used to build kokyu-power is tanren uchi (usually with a tyre these days rather than sticks).

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Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
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Carl Thompson wrote: View Post
There's an interesting description of the katai / kotai, yawarakai (solid), ki-no-nagare (liquid) and kitai (gaseous) forms here:

http://www.iwama-aikido.com/resist.html
That's an excellent article, Carl. It's basically about the development from normal strength to ki/kokyu skills and going from static to moving techniques.

There is an interesting implication that a student is expected to go from resistance and muscle toward using correct strength (kokyu ryoku) and then developing technique and correct-strength toward using no-strength (that's a very classical statement). What's interesting about the stated ideas in that article is that a person more or less has to find his own way out of the muscle-puzzle. Too many people never do, so they wind up adjusting their use of muscle to techniques... and that's the common scenario in Aikido (and a number of other arts).

The power of the ki/kokyu skills is very much tied to the power that an Uke/opponent puts out in an attack. There is an old, old saying that essentially says "I cannot beat a wooden man or a brass man, but if he is human I can beat him". The essential idea is that using ki/kokyu skills I can blend with the various generated forces of an opponent, blend my forces with his forces and the combination will defeat the opponent. Since a wooden man and a brass man generate no forces, my ki/kokyu forces offer no real advantage.
I would relate the warning about getting lost in the muscle-puzzle to something Chris Li said earlier in the thread about extracting from a morass. Also this...

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Christopher Li wrote: View Post
What's changed? Takeda said that his art was a principle based art, not locked into specific physical postures - Ueshiba said the same, so did both Yoshiyuki Sagawa and Kenji Yoshida, which shows the same transmission going down two variant lines from Takeda.
I agree, the forms are for cultivating principles. Don't you use physical postures to train internally too? What are specific physical postures trying to achieve? We know Osensei left plenty of techniques. What were the techniques meant to do? Would you ever expect to attack or be attacked with a vertical chop to the head? It's only a little more likely than someone jumping out and trying to do push-hands.

Here is a translation Joshua Reyer did of one of the Doka:

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Joshua Reyer wrote: View Post
教には打突拍子さとく聞け極意の稽古表なりけり

There is no extra syllable with "oshie".

Oshie ni wa (5) - In the teachings
Uchitsuki hyoushi (7) Striking-thrusting rhythm
Satoku kike (5) Listen well (satoku has the sense of "cleverly, keenly)
Gokui no keiko (7) Practice of secrets/ultimate meaning
Omote nari keri (7) Is the surface (basic, first learned techniques)

My translation would be, "In the teachings, mark well the rhythm of striking and thrusting; the practice of the innermost secrets is the basic techniques."

Seems pretty straightforward to me. Understanding the rhythm of attacks is important, and the basic techniques contain all the gokui of aikido.
Carl
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