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Old 07-05-2007, 04:43 PM   #1254
Mike Sigman
Location: Durango, CO
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 4,123
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Re: Baseline skillset

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David Orange wrote: View Post
No probelemo. I don't mind at all being "called on" something, but you invariably do include a personal attack when you do it. And I invariably respond in kind.
I disagree. I think your reactions are more because you've got some sort of pride about what you think you are and who you are and you want some sort of acknowledgement of that position. My position is bluntly discussing a key point in martial arts, particularly in Aikido, and you're upset that your version of the rules aren't being followed. So much so, that post after post you continue this "personal issues" crap. Or you use it to cover what you don't know. See if you can discuss actual facts... much like in the discussion of the useless "ura of kiai" that you seem to have quickly dropped (describe it physically, if that isn't the case).
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First, that's your opinion and the forums are for exchanging opinions--not trying to blister others who have different opinions.

Second, it's less cut-and-dried than you'd like to make it. I've said many times that the CMA and JMA are both very similar and very different. I wouldn't try to call you on tai chi (much) and you're not really qualified to comment very much on aikido.
I'm easily qualified to comment on Aikido, David, despite any comments trying to say that I'm not. And if you feel it's germane, please feel free to drag Taiji into the discussion, since the basic principles are going to be the same. Logically, though, if you don't really understand the basics of Aikido... which a number of us have stated... then you cannot understand the logic of Taiji. So your statement is groundless. Instead of making your arguments on assertions and then complaining that you're being picked on when someone calls you on them, please try to win your arguments with well-founded and demonstrable facts. All of us have stepped up to the pump for public "give it a try" stuff and all you've done is some focused personality attack while pumping up the air in your own tires. Defeat my argument with cold fact, if you can.
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Third, the nature of "discussion" is to explore the fine distinctions between such matters as 'core skill' and 'technique', Chinese and Japanese, etc. I wouldn't mind reading tons of your thoughts on "how" to generate and employ jin. But you "call out" pretty much everyone who comments, including Dan, who seems to know tremendously more about the Japanese side than you.
"Call out"???? When I ask someone for specifics and they (like you) never give them, that's "call out"? Bullshit. You tried to talk knowledgeably about "reeling silk" and so did Chris.... I asked for facts/logic or I gave facts/logic. Your idea of "call out" is more like "not giving face". I give face not by playing some silly role-game of pretending that someone has a mystical rank in the Masons or Aikido, but by treating them as an equal in the discussions and asking blunt questions. You and a few others think that we should all be playing the Masonic Lodge version of Aikido and anyone who doesn't is "calling you out". What absolute hogwash.
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Regardless of what you think you know or what you think you know about me or what I know, I was uchi deshi to one of Morihei Ueshiba's earliest uchi deshi. I was there over four years, actually lived in the dojo almost two years and got on the mat with people from all over the earth who came to find a tough aikido dojo. Mochizuki Sensei not only liked me, but he told me that I pretty well understood aikido and he told me that he wanted me to always teach his budo. Which, since I taught it in Japan, is only reasonable. If you don't like that, it's too bad.
And the reason you don't know this stuff is why? What you seem to miss is that any good teacher, whether Ueshiba or Yang Cheng Fu or Chen Fa Ke or whoever, has thousands of students who lean their reputation against the big name...... yet each teacher in reality only has a few really good students. The fact that you keep leaning your own reputation against some sort of nice and diplomatic remark your teacher made... instead of arguing facts... points out the whole problem. Try discussing facts instead of regaling us with Mochizuke Anecdotes from the Heart of Alabama. Please.
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You love to drop Chen Xiao Wang's name and tell us what he said to and about you. That's nice. Don't criticize me for doing the same with my teacher, and, moreover, for describing what I do in my own way. If you think it shows a lack of understanding, maybe you need to read into it as much as you read into Shioda's comments or Tohei's. Their descriptions are very simple and I've yet to see one that really "says" what you make it out to say. Their descriptions are closer to mine than to yours, which are closer to Chen's than to Shioda's or Tohei's.
Er, subtract out where I've used CXW's name as a counter to a "source" you have claimed. That leaves "love to drop"..... show me a few recent examples of my using Chen Xiao Wang's name as gratuitous, like your own repetitive posts about Mochizuki. You know, you make these silly remarks and then when you're told that you're being petty, you say "aha, I was being attacked!". It gets absurd.

Er,..... by the way ... where are these facts I keep asking you for, post after post?

Regards,

Mike Sigman

Last edited by Mike Sigman : 07-05-2007 at 04:47 PM.
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