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Old 11-27-2012, 10:09 AM   #171
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Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?

Quote:
Mary Malmros wrote: View Post
On the assumption that this is civil discourse, I think the word you want is "requested", not "required". The latter implies that he is somehow subject to your commands, and I'm sure that is not what you meant.
Hi Mary. Yes and no.

Yes, you're right in that overall for the topic, things are requested. In my sentence, I wrote that "I've asked Erick ..." That is my civil discourse request.

No, I actually did mean "required" -- but it is in regards to physics. The answer is required for anyone to use physics as a model to explain aikido. That answer and more. If someone cannot provide that answer, then their entire basis for using physics falls completely apart.

Quote:
Mary Malmros wrote: View Post
But the description is not the thing. For most of human history, there were no descriptions and no explanations of various phenomena in physics terms -- yet bumblebees still flew, and they didn't do so by magic. The fact that a comprehensive explanation isn't available (or, perhaps, just not accessible to a given audience, due to that audience's lack of prior/supporting knowledge) doesn't mean that things happen by magic, or "ki", or some other mystical "it's not physics" force.
I think that one day, physics will get advanced enough to explain things. But that day isn't today and tomorrow is highly unlikely.

In the interim, we come up with wonderful descriptive terms for training. Sometimes those terms are far outside the normal that it borders on hilarious. Bendy straw, for example. Anyway, using basic physics principles of levers and such can be used as a *descriptive* example for physical jujutsu level skills. Even then, it isn't that you are applying physics to explain what's happening, but you are using descriptive terms to get people to understand a function of training.

When you cross over into IP/aiki, none of the physics "descriptive" terminology works. And to try to use physics to actually explain what's happening ... requires far more advanced people than the entire world has today.

Quote:
Mary Malmros wrote: View Post
Sure, but that doesn't exactly make it an advanced topic, does it? The average person has no physics education whatsoever, and their understanding of physics is the worst of popular science. Why expect people to express themselves fluently in a language they've never been taught? And yet, not being fluent in physics doesn't preclude knowing enough about it to have a shrewd notion that that's where the answers lie to questions like "Wow, how does so-and-so do that amazing stuff?". You don't have to be able to design an internal combustion engine to drive a car, and you don't have to be able to explain internal combustion to say "It's got something to do with combustion" (and be perfectly correct) when someone asks you what makes a car go.
Cars, planes, trains are all inorganic metal. Physics has a much, much better grasp of explaining their functionality. Someone can use basic physics to understand levers, lift, friction, etc in the world of nonliving things. Someone can use basic physics to explain levers, lift, friction, etc in the world of nonliving things.

People are not the same. While you can use basic physics as a descriptive analogy/metaphor for certain aspects of physical training, that is nowhere near using physics to actually explain what is going on.

What Erick tries to do is use the nonliving metal physics to actually explain what is going on in living people. Something that even the best, brightest, most brilliant of all scientists/physicists/biologists/engineers/etc in the entire world cannot do. The human body is far too complex for our current understanding of physics to explain. And that's just normal, everyday, common things that people do, including aikido training. When you involve IP/aiki, that complexity is raised a thousand fold, possibly more.

As Chris said, no, it isn't some mystical energy/force. It is the body functioning in a very different, complex manner.
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