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Dan Harden wrote:
And more interesting then all of this is.....
1. Why....would Ikeda be making this "observation" now?
2. Is it ...after feeling Ushiro?
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Hi Dan,
Ikeda sensei made the statement at Camp last year that "Of course Saotome Sensei has been doing this all along... it's just that we were too thick to get it." I think what has people so excited about Ushiro Sensei, Ikeda Sensei included, is that he has a very clear and systematic way of talking about the various principles which combine to create technique using "aiki".
Saotome Sensei learned from O-Sensei (and others of course) and he stated that he could remeber only three times in 15 years that O-Sensei actually explained something technical. So Saotome Sensei picked this stuff up by feeling it. He is something of an intuitive genius in this area I think. But that method will not work for many of us. Ushiro Sensei breaks elements down that Saotome Sensei simply does, often without really being aware of it as discreet principles. I believe that this is precisely why many folks have been helped by training with Ushiro Sensei.
I absolutely agree that Aikido needs to be taught completely differently than it is currently being taught. I think thet principles need to be identified and broken down for people in a way that they are not currently. Training with Angier Sensei over the years made that abundantly clear to me and I have modeled my own teaching methodology on the insights I got from training with him and other teacher like William Gleason Sensei and Tom Read Sensei who also teach in a Principle based fashion.