This is one of those little questions that has been floating around at the back of my brain for a while. Hopefully someone will be able to shed some light...
The kanji for "Ki" in Aikido - I know it as the one that is written with four strokes on top and two in the bottom left enclosure, that look a bit like a cross (or the katakana 'me').
Written here for those with machines that support Japanese characters; 気
But Ive seen it on odd occasion written with the four strokes at the top and then the 6-stroke radical for rice ('kome') in the bottom left (ie; the characters at top left of this page)
Are my eyes failing me or is this a derivation of the former character? an older way of writing it? or just a stylistic variation...?
Cheers!
-Sarah Moon.