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Old 05-10-2011, 11:45 AM   #260
graham christian
Dojo: golden center aikido-highgate
Location: london
Join Date: Oct 2010
Posts: 2,697
England
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Re: Are we really doing O'Senseis Aikido?

Quote:
Maarten De Queecker wrote: View Post
You can't, since the tea pot, the tree and the pen are not attacking you. You need (preferably aggressive) energy in order to perform aikido.

That said, it is perfectly possible to apply aikido to daily situations, e.g. in the way you handle conflicts at work or in your family. I would not call those aikido, but rather applications of the priniciples of aikido.

Aikido in itself is a combat system derived from various other systems that had battlefield legitimacy (i.e. they were efficient at killing other people). Aikido still holds a lot of that destructive potential but we generally do not decide to unleash it. Destroying people is easy, controlling them without (permanently) harming them too much is way more difficult.
Maarten.
Therein lies the apparent discrepancy and apparent contradiction of O'Sensei Aikido.

That it's as you say and yet that it's as described by others. O'Sensei has many sayings and quotes you can fit with each view as do some of his students.

I'm not one for quoting 'he said therefore' and thus not really one for citing who said what when for I wasn'y there and thus can't fully grasp the circumstance under which the statement was made or context it was said in or even if the person who said it would appreciate others holding it as a fixed position from which to argue a point.

How would you or any of us feel if we came across people in twenty years time arguing about a staement we made twenty years prior? Would we even remember saying it?

Having said that I do admire the real historian who goes and visits sources of information, all kinds of sources pertinent to the person or time and thus presents a more interesting picture.

Plus as an aside it seems reasonable to most that we should hold a view and in argument that's what arguing is all about, defending your view. However this may be very clever and if you watch polititions very 'normal' but why not explore the different views without any reason to go against or agree.

This thought is what occured to me and led to me adding here.

Just that word, explore, mmm. feels better already.

Cheers.G.
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