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Old 02-29-2008, 10:08 AM   #18
Ecosamurai
 
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Re: Is it kokyu-nage if you don't use kokyu-power?

Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
In that case, everything is Aikido and there is no right way to do it. That's the problem with your relativism... you don't stop and think what the full implications of it are. In fact, there is no such thing as "Aikido", it's simply Daito Ryu, if you want to go by the trendy idea of relativism.
Not really. I'll give another example. Before the advent of cladistics Linnean taxonomy was the primary method of classification of living things, i.e. Kingdom, class, order, family, genus species. all things had to fit into those boxes and were boxed acording to physical characteristics alone. Along came cladistics and swept that away by ignoring the boxes and insisting that naming reflected evolutionary pathways. Until that time the taxonomic question of what is kokyunage was decided by the guys who had the greatest scientific reputation. Cladistics levelled the playing field and is a more scientific way of doing things. I don't think you've got the cladistics of aikido going for your argument at present IMO (apologies again for the nerdy biological stuff, but its something I know a lot about and so I tend to think in those terms).

Put it this way, people used to decide that x characteristic was more important that y characteristic and so it was a defining feature. When asked to justify why x was more important the answer was invariably 'cos i said so and I get more research grants than you'. You would have it that the Mike Sigman interpretation of kokyu is more important than other interpretations of kokyu and therefore your ideas behind the name are those which should define the name. Now I happen to agree with you, but you don't have any definitive neutral framework for saying that your interpretation of kokyu is more important than anyone elses (unless you wish to use your lengthy posts upon the subject here and elsewhere, but I wouldn't accept that scientifically and I don't think you would either). So that leaves us in the position that even though I agree with you there is no neutral methodology to allow you to definitively state that the Mike Sigman interpretation of kokyu is more important than anyone elses. Therefore we're back to what I said before, its just a name and a label, more important is how you use it and in what context.

Best

Mike

"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."
-Martin Luther King Jr
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