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Old 05-04-2007, 08:35 PM   #8
Paul Sanderson-Cimino
Dojo: Yoshokai; looking into judo
Join Date: Mar 2003
Posts: 434
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Re: Parsing ai ki do

I'd also add: I really would be cautious about reading the word "harmony" into "aikido". Wado (harmony-way) is another word; e.g., "Wado-ryu karate". Is harmony an important concept in aikido? Sure! But it's not in the word itself in a literal sense.

So what does "ai" mean? Well, Jim Breen's acclaimed online dictionary defines the character "ai" (verb form: "awasu") as follows:

to join together; to face; to unite; to be opposite; to combine; to connect; to add up; to mix; to match; to overlap; to compare; to check with;

So aiki is uniting, joining, fitting, etc. with ki, e.g., your opponent's ki.
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