Thread: Ueshiba's Aiki
View Single Post
Old 11-11-2011, 11:19 PM   #193
Chris Li
 
Chris Li's Avatar
Dojo: Aikido Sangenkai
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Join Date: Dec 2000
Posts: 3,313
United_States
Offline
Re: Ueshiba's Aiki

Very nice post - I just have two comments.

Quote:
Hugh Beyer wrote: View Post
Similarly for the quotes about being the embodiment of the Kami. Even a Christian might say they were inspired by or filled by the Holy Spirit. It's a great mistake to take religious language as literal language. Religious language is always, at base, poetic--the language of myth.
I think that Ueshiba's belief in possession was quite literal. Check out http://www.aikidojournal.com/article?articleID=108

Quote:
Hugh Beyer wrote: View Post
Translations: The best specific example is in the kamae thread. I'm not gonna hunt it--you should have done so already--but the basic story is that O-Sensei wrote or had written in his manual "Budo" a term ("roppo") describing a specific stance. It seemed to mean "open the feet in 6 directions" but the translator (Stevens) didn't know what that meant and asked Saito Sensei, who just said, "Oh, it means hanmi." So Stevens translated it as "stand with your feet at 60 degrees to each other" (paraphrasing throughout, but I have the sense). There were additional passages that he didn't understand at all, and rather than put a bunch of gibberish into his book he just left it out.

But it turns out that "6 directions" is a well-known concept in the internal arts, with a specific meaning. So the translation buried a link to a traditional body of martial knowledge.

Other, similar passages have been cited--e.g. moving in opposing spirals. One passage talked about putting Izanami in your left foot and Izanagi in your right, which is completely baffling if you don't know how Izanami and Izanagi are pictured as spiraling around each other and how spirals are used in martial movement. But when you have all the pieces, they lock together like a jigsaw puzzle, so much so that they self-evidently go together.

Jeez, this is way too long for a forum post. But it's late and my glass is empty, so I'll put it up as is. Anybody who gets through it, I'll buy you a glass of Talisker's if we ever meet.
There are two translations, the later one is the "Takemusu Edition" by Saito that was (I believe) translated by Stan Pranin. The earlier one was translated by John Stevens.

The Saito edition included the "6 directions" quote, but cites it as a possible reference to stepping in Kabuki.

The Stevens edition leaves out "6 directions" all together and translates "always open your legs in 6 directions" as "always open your feet at a 60 degree angle".

Both translations leave out some important material about spiraling through the legs when stepping - the Founder describing how to stand and move, how to hold the body, in clear technical language, if you have the background to understand the context. Seems very foundational, and very important, to me. More importantly, the same references appear in Daito-ryu, and then back into Chinese martial arts, which demonstrated the technical lineage. There's more, much more then we can go into here.

Best,

Chris