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Old 01-27-2011, 05:30 PM   #179
DH
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Re: Aikido training - Why are you searching for internal strength?

Quote:
Jon Reading wrote: View Post
Sorry, let me clarify one point Nicholas mentions. There are those aikido people out there who have retooled their aikido after years of training because they found something they liked and integrated that concept into their training. For example, I believe Ikeda sensei's aikido today is different that it was 10 years ago (I believe in large part due to his exposure to other arts and instructors like Ushiro Sensei). I admire that Ikeda sensei altered how he was doing aikido to incorporate his new concepts; I told him as much the last seminar I attended because it impacted the quality of the seminar so significantly.

I think we need to understand, even for those more martially competent that others, the next logical step after acknowledging the benefits of internal strength training will be to incorporate it into their aikido. There will be some aikido people out there who will not make this choice. I do not know if I would call it "off-track" as a critique against those who do not make this choice for their aikido; there may be a number of reasons why an instructor or dojo or student does not incorporate IS into their training and I don't think that is a critique against aikido. I think my critique would be more directed at someone who could incorporate IS into their training and did not make that choice because they were not motivated to change their aikido.

Does that help?
I think that as a natural progression, those who embrace IP/aiki and make even fairly decent progress are going to just simply be the "Go to guys."
It has been my experience that IP/aiki is so practical and obvious that when Martial artists feel it from someone who not only has it ...but can actually use it...they want it.
There is another debate to be had is whether or not this is THEE essence of Aikido. So far Shihans I train with all agree this is it. YMMV.
As I wrote elsewhere, there is going to be an interesting panoply of uses as people "get it" in various amounts, and use it in various ways. Both can be complex and creating aiki effects from IP can be stressed in different ways according to someones wishes and emphasis.
For that reason (assuredly among the flops,false starts and outright failures) ...a lot of intellect, insight, even genius will unfold with a new era of interesting teachers.
And we may find that the Japanese teachers coming out of Japan are going to have to work very hard to keep up.

All the best
Dan
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