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Old 05-08-2010, 11:18 PM   #66
niall
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Re: Yoshinkan and "aiki"

Quote:
Dan Harden wrote: View Post
1. What does your Kokyu [ryoku] training do to you?
2. What does it do to the person touching you?

Is Kokyu everything? You said your teachers "Told you to pursue it at all costs" or somethig like that.

3. What will kokyu [ryoku] NOT do to your body?
4. What will Kokyu [ryoku] NOT do to the person touching you?

Teaching that breath power is all and aiki is kokyu-ryoku is your training model, not mine.
Dan thanks for that clear and reasoned comment and your interesting questions. I would suggest that you substitute your term aiki for kokyu ryoku and you will have your own answers. Yes I think kokyu ryoku is everything - is aiki everything for you? Looks like we might be saying the same thing.

With regard to training models catching/finding/developing kokyu ryoku (aiki in your vocabulary) is the goal, not the method, of training. There's no easy way to get it. The only way I know is through many years of hard sincere training and shugyo.

Have any of your teachers in Japanese budo used the word aiki? As I said it's not a word normally used in Japanese. I have never heard it used outside that movie! Maybe after O Sensei used the words kokyu ryoku people in other ryuha were reluctant to use the same term?!

But I'm quite happy to give you specific answers to your.questions (I am using the term kokyu ryoku, not kokyu).

1.If you can get kokyu ryoku (aiki...) everything becomes very easy. You don't think about body movement or the attack or what to do. You just do it. As I said in an earlier post - lifting your arm - without consciousness (mushin) - might be all.

2.The person touching you feels a powerful irresistible force and becomes helpless - almost like a marionette - BUT it feels wonderful for them too. It isn't intimidating or harmful. They follow the irresistible energy also because they want to (even if they don't realize that).

3.Sorry I don't understand this question. Kokyu ryoku when you get it is the same as breathing - what can breathing NOT do to your body?

4.Going on from question 2 kokyu ryoku will NOT give the person touching you any feeling of aggression, any pain, any harm or any negative feelings. Following on from that it will not cause destruction or any damage.

Let me ask and answer one final question that perhaps you hadn't considered.

5.What does kokyu ryoku do to the people watching.

The air changes. It seems to get clearer and purer like at the top of a mountain. I was the uke for Sadateru Arikawa Sensei (one of the world's foremost budoka) for more than ten years. At those times there was a sharp tension in the air. The watching students realized that something special - incredible even - was happening.

Here are a couple of links to short biographies of Arikawa Sensei - and he is also mentioned in these forums. The French one is more comprehensive.

http://www.aikicam.com/index.php?opt...=248&Itemid=56

http://www.aikidojournal.com/article?articleID=518

I'll go into what kokyu ryoku is in some more detail and as simply as I can in a blog post one of these days. Thank you.

we can make our minds so like still water, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life
w b yeats


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