Thread: Shiko Training
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Old 06-17-2009, 03:40 PM   #21
Mike Sigman
Location: Durango, CO
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 4,123
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Re: Shiko Training

Quote:
Josh Phillipson wrote: View Post
Makes sense, Mike. Thank you.

You pointed to linking w/ Cosmology.
Cosmology includes the massive subset of things that are religious.
Can you put any bounds on what set must correlate with these mental-physical effects? Would and could you say anything about the 'particular way' they must be reconciled?

Yes, I think this is an impossible question; but I want to know what you think.
If you look at Ueshiba's douka, you'll see that a lot of the references are obscured with Shinto nomenclature, but it's still mainly Yin-Yang theory, albeit dressed up a bit with some of the Kojiki references, etc. Incidentally, for all practical purposes, the Kojiki came into being well after a lot of the Yin-Yang stuff was widespread in Asia. The subject is far too complex (and I'm not expert) to treat in a few sentences, but there's a valid question about "which came first, the chicken or the egg" in terms of "which came first, the body skills or the cosmology", in terms of Yin-Yang, Heaven-Earth-Man, and so on.

There is a confusing part of the old Chinese views where the universe is seen as being analogous to human characteristics and human characteristics are analogous to the way the universe operates. That's why there's that valid question of which came first. If the cosmology came before the understanding of the ki skills, what an improbable coincidence. I personally think it was the other way around, but it's too involved to go into here.

Regardless of all that, the "Heaven-Earth-Man" and A-Un (like in A-un-kai), In-Yo, Ha-Heng are the essence of the ki skills pretty much any way you look at it, so the "cosmology" aspect is not an irrelevant add-on to the discussion of the skills (which Shiko is a part of). If you look at Ueshiba's douka and the references, and you also look at the cosmological references to the same things in just about every legitimate traditional martial art in Asia, you'll always see these same things. It's not a religious justification; it's their way of saying "Aha, I know the secrets, too, and our martial art is also built on these ki things". I.e., the ki skills have a far wider impact on Asian martial arts than just Taiji, Aikido, and so on.

FWIW

Mike Sigman
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