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Old 06-20-2013, 04:34 AM   #18
Dazaifoo
Dojo: Chikushino Rental Dojo
Location: Fukuoka
Join Date: Jan 2013
Posts: 51
Japan
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Re: Saito sensei's method

One missing detail from the analysis of gokkyo in method #5 is that Ueshiba appears to be performing the technique from shomen uchi while Saito is performing it from yokomen uchi. The entrances into the techniques are different.

For a video, look up the Aikido Alive London youtube account, check out their videos of Saito Sensei, yokomenuchi, shomenuchi, and tanken dori. The tanken dori video has gokkyo at the end and is quite direct. The others feature the gokkyo techniques, omote and ura, around the four and a half minute mark or so.

One of my other big problems with this type of analysis is drawing conclusions off of a limited number of pictures from Ueshiba's staged for posterity stills against stills taken of Saito performing techniques in motion. Are there any pics of Ueshiba bringing uke to the mat? Hard to tell just what is going on from two pairs of photos, and when compared to the far more dynamic 1935 Ueshiba film the Budo photo series seems rather a staid affair. "Oh, gokkyo eh? Very well, have at me."

I admire what Voarino Sensei has done in finding correlations between groups of techniques and movements, I think there's a lot of good material to be had there. That said, there are certain things I just can't get behind. For example, in the Kajo series, the whole shebang about the 23 degrees rotation of the earth being a keypoint for understanding the true nature of Aikido because O'Sensei once said something about the rotation of the planet.

This is then spun into being the key to understanding the secret of the whole Kajo system, but only if we stretch the number of degrees up from 23 to 30, because Ueshiba said in Budo that one must open your legs in a Roppho (60 degrees) stance. BOTH legs open to sixty degrees, and because 30 and 30 is sixty, we now are using the tilt of the earth's rotation to stand in roppho! Except when roppho means 6 directions, which it does a few kajos later. Or something, it gets kind of fuzzy.

I'll give this a try too. Well, 23 and 23 is 46... Where did the extra 14 degrees go?!? Perhaps if we round that up to 15, double it because of omote and ura being TWO different directions, then we'll get thirty, one for each leg! Which brings us back to 60 degrees! Roppho!

You see. There's just a little too much of that kind of thinking scattered throughout the analysis to really wow me. Yes, the human body moves along certain vectors and if bones twist this way or that you'll see how they connect in motion. Agreed and well done, keep up the good work. As for the rest I'm reminded of the Honorable Louis Farrakhan and his amazing numerological speechifying at the Million Man March back in the day. (Dear non-US readers, please google it, its a scream). Less of that and more of the other.
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