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Old 06-03-2009, 09:21 AM   #20
Erick Mead
 
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Dojo: Big Green Drum (W. Florida Aikikai)
Location: West Florida
Join Date: Jun 2005
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Re: Does Desiring Power Impair Aiki ?

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Joep Schuurkes wrote: View Post
I'd say it helps, but (as has been mentioned in other people's posts) it greatly depends on the definitions used. ---
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Erick Mead wrote:
Control and grace was the point of aiki and aikido -- not the achievement of greater power.
... How is control not a form of power?
Do you believe aikido can be as graceful 'on the streets' as in the dojo? Or do you see the physical grace in the dojo as something to be applied in a non-physical way 'in real life'?
As I mean desire for power -- it is the sense of overcoming great resistance by calculated effort. That definition applies in many, many settings -- well outside of budo.

Not to prejudice the discussion -- but my sense of aiki when I work it right is effortlessness unimpeded by any resistance to speak of. Desire for power, in my way of thinking, seeks the struggle, preciselyt to gain the sense of overcoming -- as opposed to the irrelevance of anything necessary to overcome

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Erick Mead wrote:
... in a good relativist utilitarian manner simply applying that power in whatever way seems best to you.
How can utilitarianism be relativistic? Unless you are claiming that man should not make his own ethical decisions (by estimating the utility of the options, in case of utilitarianism), but should just do as prescribed by some higher authority (God, objective moral qualities, ...)?
Utilitarianism is the ethic that the maximum happiness of all concerned is the highest good. Leave aside whether happiness has any additive, commutative or transitive properties -- Fine, but who judges that maximum ? Each of us. Which involves conflicts of individual goods, or relativism. It ends up being both demeaning and self-aggrandizing. "Don't you realize that what I want is actually the best you could possibly hope for?"

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If so, where does the ethic of aikido come from? From the kami with O-sensei as their prophet?
Actually, precisely so - according to him. I don't have to apply his religious sensibility to understand that and to agree with it -- in my own terms.

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I did not know that I could do that and it scared the living crap out of me that I could so trivially do that to another human being.
Trying to control the source of the dark joy/anger is dangerous, because that's a form of denial that this joy/anger is part of who you are. Incorporating it into your indentity (in a non-repessive way) is the best road to take. ... * Controlled may not be the best term here. Fact is that dominance fights within a group rarely lead to death or serious injury. ...

If you want to learn to control for a dark joy/anger, I'd say something with full-contact sparring might have been a better choice. Before you can control this joy/anger, you need to get to know it before you can learn how to control and channel it. IME, Aikido provides very little opportunity for that. Of course, the danger of the full-contact approach is that you learn to control it just enough so you can have great fun taking people apart. :-)
You don't get it. I LIKED IT. I would not have willingly stopped at the time. I looked in the mirror and saw the eyes of the killer I now realize we all are, in one way or another. A hot tub is not the cure for the fever. I now realize that we (all of us, no matter how "weak") cannot BE any other way -- but we can BECOME something more FROM that as a foundation. On that O Sensei is a prophet of sorts.

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How is control not a form of power?
Do you believe aikido can be as graceful 'on the streets' as in the dojo? Or do you see the physical grace in the dojo as something to be applied in a non-physical way 'in real life'?
"Desire for power." That is the question. True power admits no resistance whatsoever. Desired power wishes the thrill of the opposed conquest. They are different things -- as I see it -- hence the question raised for discussion.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
一隻狗可久里馬房但他也不是馬的.
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