Quote:
Matthew Story wrote:
Certainly, but if our criteria don't lead us to a word with a clear definition, then they fail, no matter whose criteria they are, even O Sensei's. I don't think O Sensei was particularly interested in clearly defining his art, and as I said above, he had the luxury of not having to. As long as O Sensei lived, the word aikido needed only to mean "Morihei Ueshiba's martial art".
O Sensei's definitions of the art simply do not suffice on a linguistic level in the absence of O Sensei himself. They do not coalesce into a single definition of a single word that can be used practically.
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Sure they do - he was difficult to understand, that's all, especially without the proper context. Not only did he give some very clear definitions, but he repeated them ad nauseum. Read through "Take Musu Aiki" and one of the first things that hits you is the continued hammering on repeated themes.
Quote:
Matthew Story wrote:
Your opening post makes it clear that your definition of aiki is at least broad enough to cover what MMA fighters do, and discussion with you has lead me to believe that you also think it can cover dancing. Rather than arguing the definition of aiki (something that would take forever and likely go nowhere), let's say the definition ends there.
In that case, your definition of aikido is anything that is done according to the principles of aiki, which you seem to be saying can include any number of martial arts (including even competitive MMA) and dancing. So the sentence, "I did aikido this morning," now means that you did one of many martial arts or danced. Still not a particularly useful sentence.
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Not at all, just because a dancer may have Aiki doesn't mean that all dancers have Aiki, or that all dancing is Aiki. Same for martial arts.
Best,
Chris