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Old 06-21-2005, 10:38 AM   #20
rob_liberti
Dojo: Shobu Aikido of Connecticut
Location: East Haven, CT
Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 1,402
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Re: Chinese Influences on Jujutsu/Aikido

All,

I made a big mistake here. I'm sorry. I only meant to comment above on one aspect of the many points made here; number 5 from the original post:

Quote:
5) Deguchi Onisaburo took the intuitive, channeled writing of his mother-in-law, Deguchi Nao and EXPLICTY added Taoist five element theory, yin-yang dynamism to his doctrines. Deguchi claimed a universalist religion - sometimes he'd use the Taoist or Buddhist terms, and sometimes they'd be blurred, as above into Shinto terms.
Sorry, everyone. My mistake.

Mike,

I forgot about most of the other stuff and I was careless in not re-reading. Sorry to get your blood boiling over something I didn't mean to argue. As far as that specific point, I only remembered this thread was about the 5 elements getting injected into the kotodama. That is what I meant to comment on.

Quote:
how about let's see the support or at least the logic?
Okay, well, obviously you are talking about the entire thing here and I only meant to be discussing one of the points. I'll do my best to clarify as I address some of your comments. I understand that you were obviously upset because you thought you had to argue an absurdity, and that's understandable.

Quote:
Why do these conversations always devolve to unsupported assertion?
Okay, well, the first words of the thread were:
Quote:
I recently had a conversation with a noted scholar of Japanese history and religion, who is also an authority on older martial arts. I shan't use his name because I'm paraphrasing our conversation, and I believe this person would prefer nothing be attributed to him that he didn't write himself, backing up with appropriate citations.
I'd say the content of this thread started out unsupported by anything other than the source was credible to someone who is credible to us - as opposed to devolving. (Ellis is my sempai from the dojo in CT that my dojo evolved from - and still has some common students from when he was there). Since he posted this thread, I have corresponded with him about what I know of Gleason sensei's continuing research (which I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess has been a bit longer than the 10 years he was in Japan) and my impression from Ellis is that he also considers Gleason sensei a credible scholar. I agree with your comments about the level of credible scholars in this arena. (I'm not qualified to judge him based on anything other than the results of his findings that I have felt and I suppose the approval of other experts in the field like Saotome sensei of his findings with respect to kotodama and aikido. But...) Ellis is the person who considers both sources of different findings credible - he doesn't (or didn't at the time) have access to the sources of either of the findings, and so that makes it a push as far as I'm concerned. Regarding point 5 (which is the only item I had meant to discuss), the logic is simple. Two scholars - apparently credible to the same poster - differing conclusions - most likely different sources of information - no citations available either way at present - therefore the case is not open and shut. When the citations are there then there can be some futher debate.

Quote:
Why not get Gleason Sensei to post ... I'd be interested to see what he knows about ki development, since you've offered him as an expert. And I say that with an open mind.
Okay, again I understand why you would want that - given that I overstepped the scope of what I intended to comment about. Obviously, I wouldn't make a great intermediary but I didn't "offer him" in the sense where I can simply get him to do anything. He's not my employee. If he wanted to post on aikiweb I'm sure he'd be doing that. Maybe his next book will have something about the 5 elements and kotodama.

(Anyway, that's what I get for posting while distracted. Poor excuse, but that's what happened.)

Rob

Last edited by rob_liberti : 06-21-2005 at 10:40 AM.
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