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Old 02-29-2008, 07:24 AM   #13
Mike Sigman
Location: Durango, CO
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 4,123
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Re: New interview with Christian Tissier Shihan (in English!)

Here's the quote:
Quote:
Ki is not tangible. Ki is within us. There is Ki everywhere, either we know how to use it or we don't. The fundamental issue with Ki is its flow. In terms of Aikido vocabulary, we have Ki and Kokyu, which is the vehicle for Ki. The translation of Kokyu is "breathing" but to be more accurate, in reality, Kokyu is the exchange between the two.
The bottom line is that if you practice with your stiff shoulders up to your ears, the Ki won't flow, any acupuncture practitioner will tell you. As a consequence, until the technique is perfect, there will be no Ki, no natural flow. To me, people who really have Ki don't feel it because everything happens naturally within them.
We could of course develop exercises such as the ones proposed by Qigong in order to specifically work on breathing. We could also specifically work on flexibility or other things but to what end?
I dunno. I read it several times, charitably, and looking for something I might be missing. Often when I read translations of comments about ki from Kisshormaru Ueshiba, Seiseki Abe, Minoru Inaba, Tohei, etc., the problem is usually the translator, but reading beneath the translation and seeing the way the sentence elements are put together, I don't have much problem seeing someone who really knows and understands ki. Hmmmmm ... maybe we should make a compilation of the important ki thinks that are already available.

But in regard to this Tissier one, I would bet the house mortgage that he simply doesn't really understand the concept. Can someone do strong, powerful, flowing, practiced "Aikido" techniques and not have ki/kokyu skills? Of course. And that is a big problem... the ki/kokyu skills are not something that you spot easily if you don't know about them. Even Tohei was known to make remarks about some of the higher dans because they had nice-looking techniques, but no ki.

And I go back to a comment I've made before. If someone has pretty good ki skills, then they should be able to do all of Tohei's ki-tests quite easily, because those are simple static tests. Moving with ki would be where the rubber meets the road, IMO.

YMMV

Mike Sigman
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