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Old 07-03-2007, 08:29 PM   #1209
David Orange
Dojo: Aozora Dojo
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Re: Baseline skillset

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Robert John wrote: View Post
Youre missing the point and misunderstanding what I meant.
But if it helps Ill spell it out, Reeling silk is "a" form of kokyu/jin/qi use, there are others.
Sure. And there are peculiarly Japanese forms of that as well, influenced by Japanese culture and work styles, and yielding the peculiarly unique Japanese arts as silk reeling produces the unique forms of tai chi.

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Robert John wrote: View Post
No not really, actually he made the distinction (reeling silk and pulling silk--DO) before in several other posts here on Aikiweb, if anything hes been consistent in his definition
Didn't see those.

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Robert John wrote: View Post
if you're going by that logic, the only person you could receive absolute affirmation would be Ueshiba, as far as Aikido goes anyways.
Of course. But Mochizuki Sensei was as close as I could get to Ueshiba and now he, too, is out of reach.

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Robert John wrote: View Post
Anyways we could play that game all day. In fact I could one up you by taking a couple quotes from Sagawa who said that anyone that described the skill of Aiki in philisophical terms as being "soft in the head" and "being so hoplessly stupid they could never dream to achieve aiki in 10,000 years." Does that invalidate Mochizukis skill? No.
Of course not. He didn't use "philosophical terms" to approach aiki. If you mean "the ura of kiai," that's a purely technical description, like all that he did. He did give another description once: basically, "If you are attacked by surprise, you don't shy away from the attack, but enter it: aiki attacks the attack."

Of course, that could also apply to kiai, which is why it's necessary to differentiate that aiki is the ura of kiai and takes "the opposite" approach--which is????

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Robert John wrote: View Post
But you should be able to understand whats going on in your body without relying on someone else's terms.
I didn't rely on any terms at all. I didn't try to explain what was going on "in my body" except that I remained upright and unmoved and the opponent lost his balance and posture and fell into my kansetsu waza. So I never thought about describing what was going on inside: I just went by the feeling and never tried to describe it as long as it worked.

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Robert John wrote: View Post
You keep on dodging the question David...you wont describe the body skills in a coherent manner.
hmm....that's sounding philosophical to me--something I avoided. It seems...I don't know...soft-headed?

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Robert John wrote: View Post
Lets put it this way, if you understand the specific components that need to be worked on, maybe you could make the "next" leap in terms of skill.
Well, I never said I couldn't improve or be improved or that no one was better. But someone earlier attempted to quantify my level by explaining that I was not on the third level (or the fourth???--sounded way philosophical to me), at which you move through the opponent as if he were not there--even so far as to have no tactile sense of his being there.

Later, I realized that that sounded a little like what I've experienced when breaking objects, like bricks. I go right through them and when I do it right, I don't even feel the brick: it just parts before my hand and I feel nothing. So maybe he missed the point. Not that I can't be improved, mind you. I do refer to the aunkai website and I'm interested in what it says and I do want to meet Ark and feel what he does. Sounds very interesting.

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Robert John wrote: View Post
All guys thatre accomplished and have these skills that ive met know exactly what theyre working on in their body.
Well, again, you're talking "these skills" and I'm talking specifically about aikido.

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Robert John wrote: View Post
Anyone that says, well I just do it without thinking about knowing what I was working on I call BS.
And to what level of judo can you tell them that? sandan? rokudan?

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Robert John wrote: View Post
Sure you might inately grasp some aspects of the theory but youll never be able to fully utilize or develop it. I dunno, tanren seemed to be a pretty new idea to a lot of members on this board.
I've got a guy you should visit in Holland. He says tanren training is the underlying aim of all traditional budo training. See if you can push him around. He came up the traditional way.

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Robert John wrote: View Post
Anyways, hopefully youll be able to conjure up a decent response, sans the mochizuki nutriding and explain things in your own terms .
And I'll be able to do that when I start using your terms? I didn't use any terms at all but to say that Mochizuki Sense said of me, "Anta wa aikido o daibu wakaru. (You pretty well understand aikido. or You understand aikido for the greater part.)"

I never said I understand what you do, but Mochizuki Sensei said that I understood what Morihei Ueshiba was doing: aikido.

David

Last edited by David Orange : 07-03-2007 at 08:36 PM.

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