Quote:
Rupert Atkinson wrote:
I was having a conversation with someone recently, fairly high rank, and he could not get past waza: How to do the waza. Posture seemed to mean position; taking balance was yanking the guy off balance; technique seemed to mean leverage. Harmony was to blend with the attack = OK, but then he just forced everything on his uke. That, to me, is Jujutsu, basic Jujutsu, and it is what a lot of people do, whether they acknowledge it or not. I asked him what he thought aiki was and he said blending with the attack. OK, ... then what? He was not the slightest bit interested in other ideas, especially my take on it, Aikido as The Way of Aiki. Probably thought I was nuts.
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Even before I switched out of a more mainline method of training I used to think "blending" was an absurd word to use.
What do you visualize when someone says blend? What are your instincts?
If you're a chef, the imagery is even more useless.
We can choose to re-define words and we certainly should develop a common vocabulary to communicate well with the people we train, but I have never felt that "blending" was a useful word in training.