Dan Austin

Perhaps knitting is best in that it's truly peaceful and can never give any illusions as to how it applies in other contexts of real life.

I wouldn't presume to define what Aikido is, it's easier to isolate and discuss portions of "Martial Truth" than try to pin it all down in a concise fashion. Besides, you get criticized as a know-it-all or wannabe savior if you dare express your thoughts on a discussion board made for expressing just those sorts of thoughts. I do think that making progress up any path of the mountain requires gaining actual as opposed to imaginary ability, which translates to ability against increasing levels of intelligent resistance. In the aiki-boxing thread someone posted a link to an interview with Aikikai Shihan Hiroshi Isoyama with the following comment:

"Q. Did you ever talk to your American students about the founder, Morihei Ueshiba?"

"A. Yes. I even took some of them to Iwama to meet him. They couldn’t believe it when they saw me being thrown all over the mat by O-Sensei. They said, “How can someone like you, who can throw all of us so easily, be thrown around like that by an old man?!” I replied, “That’s what I’d like to know!” (laughs) I explained that aikido had nothing to do with one’s age. They asked if they could try holding onto O-Sensei themselves and one of the most lively came up and was downed and pinned the instant he tried. They couldn’t figure out how they’d been controlled like that; they just knew they had."

This is another account of Ueshiba being on another level than his own teacher-students in a way they couldn't really understand. This lends credence to the idea regularly espoused by Rob and Mike Sigman that there is a different way of powering movement, not normally taught, which accounts for such stories. Having read many of those discussions, and then seeing the comment about the Yoseikan movement, it sounds strikingly similar in concept if not in detail. It's worth having that discussion on a separate thread. It seems the Yoseikan founder did not have this skill from Ueshiba, since it's said that his son added this movement to unify the disparate styles. I can't comment on what Rob's teacher Akuzawa does, though I believe the claim is that it is distinctly not a sequential wavelike movement, like throwing a baseball. After all, that would hardly require specialized exercises of the kind Rob talks about. If Rob or Mike Sigman see this thread perhaps they could contribute more, but it's an interesting question where the Yoseikan Budo founder's son learned this movement, and what differences there may be in the Yoseikan world. Playing Devil's Advocate and assuming Rob is correct that only handfuls of people here and there would have knowledge of it, one would expect that only a few in the Yoseikan Budo world would have a solid grasp. However in Yoseikan Budo lore, despite whatever factionalization may exist, there seems to be an explicit awareness that there is supposed to be a specific power method applied to all the techniques, and that said method should be recognizable to Chinese styles as well. In other words it sounds exactly like the things Rob has discussed yet from a completely different source, and the Yoseikan Budo founder's son sounds a lot like Akuzawa from a comparison of their influences and goals. Beyond noticing that there seems to be an obvious parallel, that's all I can say about it, but it would be interesting to know more. For starters, is it known what the Yoseikan source for this movement method is? Where did the founder's son (sorry, can't remember his name) learn it?