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Old 09-28-2011, 05:31 PM   #41
Allen Beebe
Location: Portland, OR
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 532
United_States
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Re: Aiki Ken and Ken justu

Hi Cliff,

Quote:
Cliff Judge wrote: View Post
Allen, with all due respect, you've just asked a number of rhetorical questions that you don't believe anyone can provide adequate answers for.
But I could be wrong, so better to ask than not to. If I'm not wrong, maybe my query will prompt those that with formulaic answers to reflect whether they understand their own responses with any depth. I'm quite pleased with the majority of responses most seem seem sincere and thoughtful.

Quote:
Cliff Judge wrote: View Post
In some circles this is called trolling. It obscures what your actual thoughts are on the matter, which would probably greatly benefit this thread if you offered them more gently.
If you knew that I wrote my post with my lap top on my lap while performing my "morning constitutional" you'd probably be convinced that I was trolling. I find that when I am "gentle" most folks don't understand my meaning. I tend to favor blunt and true over gentle and false or obscure. I am also aware that these are not mutually exclusive. As an aside I find our society in general confusing these things with one side adopting the philosophy of "Don't tell me the truth if it hurts my sensibilities." and the other philosophy being "I'm going to hurt your sensibilities and that PROVES what I'm saying is true." I figure the truth is the truth, it has little to do with being offensive or being offended. Thanks for calling my attention to your concern though. It is duly noted!

As for what I have to share . . . I think I've done about as much as I can on a forum. I think there is no one unified thing called Aiki Ken that we can coherently talk about. Therefore, it seems to me, to be silly to make value judgements and general statements about something that cannot be coherently talked about. What I would guess can be done is now being done. That is, some folks are talking about what THEY do and CALL Aiki Ken. Not surprisingly there is a broad continuum from "an extension or elaboration of what I consider to be the core of Aikido" to "Koryu Kata as taught to me by teacher X, who was qualified to teach that Koryu Kata."

I still think that if Aiki Ken is illustrative of Aiki Principles those principles should be able to be enumerated. Wouldn't that be an interesting and edifying conversation?

Quote:
Cliff Judge wrote: View Post
Are you suggesting that aikiken and aikijo systems are meant to actually be effective in actual combat? Or are you lamenting the fact that you constantly hear the refrain "these sytems are meant to illustrate / explain / demonstrate principals of aikido," but you do not hear adequate explanations of what these principals are and how they are demonstrated? Or something else?
As I wrote above, I am suggesting that SOME Aikiken and Aiki jo systems are meant to (or at least conceived as being) actually be effective in actual combat, and SOME Aikiken and Aiki jo systems are not. There is evidence enough of that on this thread. (BTW, I believe that just because most individuals conceive of Koryu Ken Jutsu as being conceived of as being effective in actual combat doesn't mean that they ARE in FACT actually what they are conceived to be . . . today or in the past. There are a LOT of Koryu do we know for a fact that they all were "super cool" in combat? How should we know any better for Koryu today, than we do for any other system? And of course there are other factors that just a "system" alone.)

And, yes, if the principles were common place (for example I am aware of the Ki Principles) they should be easily pointed to I should think. Let's start pointing. Maybe (probably) there are diverse lists. Still, a comparison would be interesting.

I would think that these would be Aiki principles. So that should be interesting and informative as well.

Thanks,
Allen

~ Allen Beebe
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