Quote:
Tim Anderson wrote:
Not to rehash an old dead (or most likely closed) thread. At that camp during one of Ikeda Sensei's classes he said (paraphrasing here), "because of Ushiro Sensei I am only now understanding how Saotome Sensei is able to do his aikido".
Personally, I think all the tools for internal training are in Aikido its the know-how that is lacking.
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Fair enough. The problem is not with the statement but with the improper gloss that critics with an agenda tend to give it (i.e -- that it implies "(until Ikeda met Ushiro) I (Ikeda) did not (understand/was not able to do) aikido"). Nothing could be farther from the truth. That statement was in front of his primary teacher and a (welcome) stranger, and thus to speak well of himself or his ability or understanding in such context would be the height of personal disrespect and arrogance.
Having said that, the essential point goes back to my discussion earlier about breaking out of received nomenclature -- in order to fulfill that nomenclature in both concept and practice. Ushiro does that in the context of his own art, and it is that mode of thinking about the training that seems to me most important aspect of the collaboration they are all engaged in.
But then, I am reading it as in agreement with what I personally already see. Seems to me everyone else that same problem, too, just from a different perspective. That's why intellectual objectivity in the content is the most critical thing to me, right now.