View Single Post
Old 02-25-2015, 03:46 PM   #23
RonRagusa
Dojo: Berkshire Hills Aikido
Location: Massachusetts
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 824
United_States
Offline
Re: what does internal mean to you?

Quote:
Brian Sutton wrote: View Post
What does "internal" mean to you? Thoughts?
My view on "internal" has more to do with how the art is learned and made manifest in an individual's practice rather than a method of classification that pronounces this or that martial art is internal while those are external. When I first began my training, Aikido was exclusively taught to me, coming, as it were, from outside sources in the form of "see this now do it." Gradually, as years passed and turned into decades, I noticed that I continued to learn and discover Aikido even though I no longer had a "teacher" whose job it was to lead me in my development.

This revelation awakened me to the fact that learning Aikido (and probably most any other endeavor requiring ongoing study in the quest for mastery) eventually turns itself inside out and becomes an emergent form of study. I'm learning from the inside out and the exercises, waza and other forms of physical practice are expressions of my ongoing progress and transformation (learning) while simultaneously enabling me to refine my knowledge via the feedback provided as a result of practice.

Ron

  Reply With Quote