PaulF

Yep, I take the point about being "beyond technique" to mean that you no longer have to think "I'm going to do shihonage" or whatever but that you just react to whatever uke is giving you and an appropriate response arises spontaneously.

To take this into the cooking analogy, you can think "I'm going to cook chimichangas and therefore I need the following ingredients..." or you can take a look in the fridge, see what's there and make something really tasty with it, then maybe give it a name that best fits what you've come up with if you want to brag about it at work the next day.

As far as the OP question is concerned I'm not really qualified to comment being neither a proponent nor sceptic at this stage but I'm going to DH's seminar in Bristol next month and am looking forward to comparing what we do there with the qigong and ki development exercises we do elsewhere.