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Old 11-05-2012, 12:47 PM   #33
DH
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Re: Defining the word "Aiki" and looking at the phenomenon it describes.

Quote:
Chris Hein wrote: View Post
So you started with "C" here, and moved on to say how that makes "D". I got where you're going. However, to me, "C" (and maybe we just need a better definition of the phenomenon of "C") sounds like it is describing a kind of physical powerfulness. If we compared you to a child for example, you are much much more powerful then the child, to him you would seem unmovable and strangely powerful (Definition "C"). However your power over the child doesn't give you definition "D" "automatically able to adapt to movements and changes made by the child (ever had a kid surprise you with a hit to the face? HA). It also doesn't make the child feel strangely weak, he just can simply tell the you are more power then he is. Like if you arm wrestled one of the competitors from the "worlds strongest man", he would probably easily beat you, but you wouldn't feel strange, or weaker then normal. Definition "D" has a quality about it that requires a strangeness or otherworldly quality. Definition "C" seems to simply show great physical power.

Having the ability described by "B" seems to be a different type of phenomenon to me then a physical skill, or body ability.
The child fighting an adult is actually part of a good example, just not the way you yourself have outlined the parameters.
The opponent feeling strangely weak is not something I care about at all. In the venues I have chosen to test this against neither is ukemi (which would be openly mocked) a requirement or consideration. So the descriptive model is flawed in my opinion.

What I am more interested in (while using the child/adult model) is:
1. Dynamic Stability
A very well developed dynamic stability. In and of itself this begins the process of the person who attains it as *feeling* very powerful and strong against forces in or out (push testing, waza etc.) The means to do this come solely from training in C. (Solo training, from your example) The idea of training solo (C.) is not something new...well...maybe it is to you...but it is ages old and Ueshiba constantly pointed to it.
You claimed to be so thoroughly versed in internal power that you "got it" in a year or two. Yet, solo training is thee corner stone to achieve internal power!. Yet ...here we see...you don't get that at all and assigned it to tricks you learned in a couple of years and are flummoxed to explain anything.
Anyway....
The admonition for solo training, Ueshiba talked about over and over. Many of his descriptive models for what aiki is involved solo training. It is spelled out in Ueshiba's copying of the traditional teachings and exact terminology of other cultures; heaven/earth/man, six directions, one point, spiral energy, etc. I won't go into that in detail since it is routinely dismissed by everyone here.

Shirata laid out the model from C to D to A and B in his poem:
Place the immovable body
In an invincible position
Release metsubushi
Until the opponent becomes
Non resistant...

There is that nagging immovable body again...doggon it!! ...Creating opportunities for D. A and B....that would not otherwise arrive and *feel* like an invincible position, and then have that work also produce blinding strikes and moves (no telegraphing and non-sourced power that feels unstoppable....Oh well. Lets not listen to him either. What does he know?

As parts of the whole....
a. I would only offer people to consider what it means to push and pull on someone and have them stand there looking at you-much more if they choose to engage you!! What "part" would that have in a confrontation? What advantage does that create in doing the rest of the requirements for budo or in fighting? What if the very act of pulling on someone, actually makes them stronger and causes you to feel almost magnetically "drawn-in" to them? What if pushing in to them causes you to feel repulsed back from them?
Where then would *your* power to do anything to them, matter?
What if that body quality removed slack and allowed them to move in a non- telegraphing manner that gave no signal and hence hard to read, was faster than normal, and could transfer weight on to you without giving you weight to use?
You are left with kicking and punching them or trying to out strategize them. Okay...
b. What if the training that caused the above also caused a body feel that felt like kicking and hitting a rubber tire and your power to do that sort of bounced off and you are only left with the face and balls?
c. Now what if, there were a way to use that body in motion so that all forces coming in were neutralized and absorbed and redirected ...as part of the initial training model without using waza or counters?
d. What if, the training inherent in C produces ALL of the above and then in the course of fighting, all of the above effects are amplified for certain reasons in using the body and that persons movement created aiki effects while their own punches and kicks were potentially knock out strikes in small distances?

In and of itself, a. b. and c. in my example above are all it usually takes to take apart shihan and other martial artists. I only have to resort to d. against fighters.

Where did this failure in understanding begin? Where does the fault rest? Interestingly the Yoshimine Yasuo interview echos my own findings, findings for which I was roundly criticized even when I was dead on accurate. Yoshimine is Japanese, so maybe it's okay for him to say it:
Quote:
The reason why the matter has fallen to such sorry state is because aiki is very difficult to master. So only external forms have been transmitted and it is very rare to encounter genuine aiki techniques. Accordingly, even among people who call themselves Shinan (instructor), unfortunately, only few know it......Hopefully, I think more open and modern/enlightened attitude will slowly change this and make aiki easier to learn
The admonitions of the blind man doesn't require and Elephant. Often it leaves out the most common reason for this state of affairs.
The blind...leading the blind.

It seems that like me, Yoshimine doesn't really care what random people with no unusual power think about aiki when-as he says "Shihan don't get it either." As I quote often, neither did a ICMA teacher who said "Why argue with students?" Maybe the smart idea is to go to people with unusual power and find out their opinions on it.
I would suggest that on an Aikido forum, we would do well to begin a discussion of what aiki is ...by considering what the founder of the art had to say about...aiki. Aiki is solo training..his examples are a match, sometimes were actual quotations *borrowed* from Chinese sources for work spelled out in Koryu and Daito ryu. He continually pointed to solo training.

Searching high and yon for some whacked out, tricked out, new idea about how to feel ordinary -from students who feel ordinary- is a process that will lead no where, and accomplish nothing, other than to help you feel..well...as ordinary as your sources. Probably not a very good plan!!
Ueshiba, Aikido's founder, pointed out what to do. He laid out that aiki was:
C. leading to D. resulting in A. and B.

Dan

Last edited by DH : 11-05-2012 at 01:00 PM.
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