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Old 03-25-2017, 12:50 PM   #241
Budd
 
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Dojo: Taikyoku Budo & Kiko - NY, PA, MD
Location: Greater Philadelphia Area
Join Date: Aug 2003
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Re: Are you invincible if you possess Aiki?

To train aiki from an IS skills or conditioning perspective- I don't think winning v losing should be factoring into it other than when choosing the setting to bring your IS skills to bear in an application sense. Certainly types of push hands, or aikido randori have more competitive elements, as does judo, but they also are intended to be training devices more so than outright competitive shiai. My personal opinion is that well rounded training should include all of those things in a martial arts setting, while I acknowledge that some schools may choose to focus on all or none of these things (hopefully they are also self-aware and honest about their marketing of this). But aiki, in as much as it aligns to the bigger category of internal strength in the Eastern sense, by itself is intended to describe a specific type of skill and conditioning, rather than any assumption of victory and defeat.

Mary, I think that aiki as originally designed was much more pragmatic about the harmonization with the natural forces we encounter as material world entities (gravity, ground, other entities, etc). I also think Ueshiba was pretty blatantly aligning to that in his writings, even as he layered in his religious beliefs around opening up to the divine and transforming the world via your connection to it. So I'd argue that the aikido as described by Ueshiba and then spread by his family and disciples is fully intended to include aiki as described here, while also agreeing that it also included more religious and psycho-sociological considerations, even as it was spread and influenced by the consumers and market world views of the 60s-80s.
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