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Old 03-08-2007, 12:53 PM   #933
Mike Sigman
Location: Durango, CO
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 4,123
United_States
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Re: Baseline skillset

Quote:
Fred Little wrote: View Post
Developing the baseline skill set is making the body an appropriate instrument.

Playing a tune or using the baseline skills are related but somewhat distinct skill sets.
Fred, let me mention another thought that is often in my mind.

While we have filmclips of O-Sensei, Shioda, and others performing in public, we don't have films of everything they could do. Some of Ueshiba's off-film deeds we find in the occasional anecdote, some of them sounding almost godlike, but not necessarily all of his power(s) are known or recorded..... traditionally, he would have reserved some things. My point goes something like this: We know Ueshiba obviously used ki/kokyu skills that most westerners are not using in their Aikido (because it's on film, in writing, anecdotes, etc.), but we don't know the full usage of his "musical instrument".... i.e., we don't know for sure what techniques we could arguably say, "this is a valid use of the ki/kokyu skills because Ueshiba used it".

One of the things I've done is go over the available filmclips of Ueshiba to see what powers he evinced so that I could generally define which of the ki/kokyu powers are in the Aikido of Ueshiba. As an example, the shaking-power fa-jin releases found in some Chinese martial arts are not seen in Aikido (even though they use the same basic ki/kokyu skills), so I wouldn't consider Aikido techniques to properly contain those types of power releases. Would you agree with me in that position, or would you debate it?

What I'm getting at is that I personally don't think that powers outside of what Ueshiba could do (and that is a question mark) legitimately belong in Aikido. Yet, if you have the instrument, there is this possibility that you might play a new tune rather than just the old traditional ones. See what I'm worried about?

Regards,

Mike Sigman
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