View Single Post
Old 10-12-2012, 02:02 PM   #52
Cliff Judge
Location: Kawasaki, Kanagawa
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 1,276
Japan
Offline
Re: VoE: AWASE - The Principle of AIKI

Quote:
Dan Harden wrote: View Post
It's worth noting that not all "Hanmi" is the same anyway. So pointing out -a- particular hanmi is more exact. That said, beyond its use to make your "martial art" more uniform,(and lets face it, we all have to do that to one degree or another in our arts) I can make a case for it being practically useless to even being detrimental to stability in actual combative movement.
So if you use hanmi at your dojo, it's a "martial art." In quotes.

Quote:
Dan Harden wrote: View Post
At what point does "tradition" have real value as opposed to what we have been told? When does accuracy and walking in tune with what the founder actually said and actually practiced take the forefront of our research.
Dan
Tradition, to make a definition for the sake of being clear here, is what your teachers teach you. It is as valid as it is a representation of what they were taught by their teachers, and their teachers were taught by THEIR teachers, etc. If you are smart you pick your teacher as best you can and constantly reevaluate your level of faith in whether or not what he is teaching you is a transmission from Osensei (or whomever).

As far as what the founder actually said, there has been lots of research done there by folks like Stan Pranin, Peter Goldsbury, Chris Li, etc. For me context is still a huge issue when looking at these things. This thread has a lot of examples - people are posting quotations and everybody is like "that sounds like he has no idea what he is talking about!"

And as far as "walking in tune with what the founder actually practiced...." are we all confident we have now figured out exactly what that is? Because I think it is one thing to note that modern Aikido may be different than what Osensei actually practiced because there aren't a lot of people who are near that skill level. It is quite another to say "THIS is exactly what he was doing" because you don't know that. How can you? The best you can do is train with someone who trained with him.
  Reply With Quote