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Old 06-10-2010, 09:42 AM   #42
DH
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,394
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Re: Ki Aikido - quote from Gleason Sensei

Quote:
Jon Marshall wrote: View Post
Keith Larman wrote:

I find this a helpful reminder to stay humble with it all. Yeah, I'd love to be in the *really, really good* crew, but given my work rate (which may change), I will probably have to settle for less. There is an element of fantasy that I can recognise in myself (who doesn't want Jedi powers?), but people who get super-good at stuff do tend to be quite obsessional. I admire them, but wouldn't necessarily want to be them - they can pay a high price. Still, I'd like to one day make the *really good* gang.

Ha ha,
Jon.
I think those are good comments
To that end, IP/aiki will empower DR and Aikido practitioners without the need to "learn to fight" and will serve to simply make whatever you do martially ...far more viable. And it will do that to whatever degree YOU practice. I am hearing from people that it is changing their aikido and how they see aikido after just one weekend. From there it goes deeper as each person trains.

Common ground
There are some truths that are viable and beyond opinion. Once shown certain things about moving from center, wire framing yourself and others, how to create a stable body, what it feels like in error, where force and power can be as one with absorbing and neutralizing, what it feel like to use balance as a weapon, etc, you can gain a whole new insight into your practice, And it doesn't mean you had to learn to fight.
There are teachers from ICMA, Karate, Aikido, and Daito ryu all training this way now. How is it that they can join in with jujutsu/ MMA people and all find common ground for use within their own respective arts?
Bills comments, while related to his own love for aikido, are more expansive beyond even what he considered. He is meeting teachers from other disciplines who are sharing his same views.

Fighting, or just doing TMA? Enlightenment...really?
It is probably worth repeating that I actually admire the choice that Ueshiba made to make the art more defensive and less stressfull to practice. Further, his visionary approach to what it could do to bring people together worldwide. As most know there is an element to aikido past its martial foundation.
I just happen to believe that a) the aiki power to do that very thing against trained resistance is largely now gone from the art of aikido. and b) you simply cannot teach IP/ aiki in a large format. It just doesn't work. Hence, my decision to teach teachers, in order for them to do the real work in reaching others.
I think enlightenment is too nebulous a goal and cannot be defined. It's an ever moving target so I'm not going there. Budo can but not always will make you a better person for the effort...and in the process you can learn to be martially effective They are not mutually exclusive. I do believe you can have a measure of both, even if it is incremental.
Cheers
Dan

Last edited by DH : 06-10-2010 at 09:49 AM.
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