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Old 04-10-2007, 05:28 AM   #40
Kevin Leavitt
 
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Location: Olympia, Washington
Join Date: Jul 2002
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Re: Internal strength in bowling, fencing, golf, etc.

Actually I think the reverse is happening, more things are making it into MMA.

Yes, you will always develop your "game" with a limited number of "high percentage" things that work for you. You can train someone actually realitively quickly to be functional I believe....more so than from an "internal", DO, or strictly "budo" practice.

Yes there are some that will end their practice and training at that point...a few things that work.

What tends to happen though is that everyone learns those things, you achieve an efficient market of things that work, then someone else comes along with a new angle or new twist or methods and figures out how to exploit it.

The upside to MMA type training, or better yet, training with aliveness is that you actually can make real mistakes, not simulated ones, and then struggle through and figure out what works and doesn't..find your weaknesses honestly and work through them.

Do I still do niikyo, yes I do, I have a much better understanding I think today of the importance of nikkyo than I did three or four years ago.

All the big names in budo all had aliveness backgrounds prior to studying the more esoteric stuff we tend to study today. They became authorities in their area because they did stuff with aliveness.

This is just my own opinion, but I have never figured out how you can learn this stuff honestly without finding out that nikkyo does not really work most of the time in reality. Why do it over and over again in a nice, clean enviornment for years...only to discover that you really don't know what nikkyo is, or how to apply it?

All the great sages, philosophers, mentors, saints and those that have been deitized have all sort of said, "look, I figured it out so you don't have to". ....At least that is how we interpret what they say today.

I think what they really meant to say is "here is the path, follow me!' so you don't have to get lost...I know a way there!".

Even Buddha said "don't take what I say or do at face value, figure it out for yourself".

Anyway, I see MMA or aliveness training as a way back to the roots of what was lost in training in many respects. A rebirth of forgotten things...it is putting the life back into the kata and things that are dead.

I did nikkyo for years thinking that it had some life in it. I found out that my nikkyo is essentially dead. So how do I now put the life back into it?

The limits you see in MMA or aliveness I think is reality. We have to learn to crawl, then walk, then run before we can start climbing mountains. In many respects I think Budo practice leaps bounds above thngs and starts training people how to climb mountains, sort of like reading a book on technical mountain climbing, and then saying I can concieve of how this is works, but I would probably kill myself if I climbed Everest!

Sure there are many that are involved in it for only the sport that will never be concerned with Nikkyo, Jin, or anything associated with it. However, that does not mean it MMA or aliveness cannot, will not, or does not incorporate elements of these concepts, now or in the future....it is only presenting that which works and is honest, IMO.

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