View Single Post
Old 03-06-2013, 08:46 AM   #41
graham christian
Dojo: golden center aikido-highgate
Location: london
Join Date: Oct 2010
Posts: 2,697
England
Offline
Re: The Empty Body

Quote:
Gary Welborn wrote: View Post
Graham
Chris Li comes from the Islands were Tohei was King for a long time. Most of the early Aikido folks that Chris learned from were Tohei trained........so Chris likely knows, has felt, has practiced, has been the principles that you talk to as your source at some time during his many years of training.

I took ukemi for Tohei Sensei more than once here in California when he came to our dojo to teach an even class for just the dojo. I have felt and trained with several of the instructors who came with him, some from Japan and others from Hawaii. Tohei was a very powerful individual, was like running into a wall, was like a moving solid sphere, his movement produced results from that turning sphere. It worked for him, it was very effective on us and none of the folks that came with him were like that.

I did all the ki exercises......I could do them at the level they were being presented and taught.......As I reflect back now I was not taught the steps needed to find motion in stillness or stillness in motion. I was not taught how to establish up and down...side to side or front to back stability. It was not presented. I was told to keep one point...not taught the steps to get there. I moved on.

It has only come to me lately as a gift that maintaing one point is really pulling out from center in all directions and learning how to maintain that. Solo practice with paired practice to check your progress.

It was never about Tohei not having something....rather it was about how it was passed along.

Just me.......fish or cut bait.....

Gary
Hi Gary.
Shame it took so long for you to be taught in a way that suited you better. You sound like you are benefiting so that's good.

Why you feel you have to tell me about Chris I don't know.

I don't adhere to the belief of training with equals knows more or indeed to the belief that you must belong to a certain group in order to know. However those stuck in that belief I understand too for anything outside of their usual frame of reference they find hard to accept.

I'm glad to hear you now have a better understanding of one point through what you have been practicing, an understanding I have been talking about on here for quite a while I might add along with other aspects of Tohei's methods.

I note you said you learned at the level they were being taught. That's the key point. You then point out what you were not being taught in retrospect. That's all nice and clear. A nice clear presentation of your own personal experience. It doesn't however mean that others were not taught in a better way.

The point Chris was on about was about me saying Tohei got his mind and body unification principles from Shin shin Toitsu do. Believe it or not I understand why he doesn't believe that to be the case for those who follow the way of reasoning he does would have to see it written as such, quoted by him as such or by a close associate of his.

Me, I prefer innocence and common sense. Those things are taught within shin shin toitsu do complete with exercises for weight underside, one point, relaxing with relation to Ki, et. al. No one else presented such things in that way at that time therefor it is quite fine to say he got them from there.

Also the two sentences of mine Chris 'questioned' were addressed to another person, alex if I remember correctly, and refer to a link he pointed out to read. In that article a teacher talked about Tohei. In that article he said Tohei made up his shin shin toitsu principles ie: created them himself.

Well, as I said in those two sentences...I think there is some lost in translation going on. (not translation of language)

The shin shin toitsu principles of Aikido practice he certainly did create himself and I believe those are the ones the Teacher in the interview was talking about. Although they too are an extension of the mind and body unification ones.

Nobody or rather not many were taught or were even aware of shin shin toitsu do as a separate yoga of itself and why should they be. However, I was. Were you?

Peace.G.
  Reply With Quote