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Old 01-27-2011, 11:05 AM   #176
jonreading
 
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Dojo: Aikido South
Location: Johnson City, TN
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Aikido training - Why are you searching for internal strength?

Quote:
Nicholas Eschenbruch wrote: View Post
Not sure I agree John (but maybe I am misunderstanding you?) - I see more opposition in this field from people who believe their aikido to be sufficiently martial already (and it may be, I really don't care). Some have invested a lot in the role of the tough guy amongst the bunnies, and hate hearing even the indirect suggestion they may be off-track.

For the more harmony-oriented, they are, in my view, often as happy with their practice as you describe for yours. They lose no sleep over whether anybody else wants to "fight" or be martial. Why should they, it does not interest them.

But again, I may have missed your point.
Sorry, let me clarify one point Nicholas mentions. There are those aikido people out there who have retooled their aikido after years of training because they found something they liked and integrated that concept into their training. For example, I believe Ikeda sensei's aikido today is different that it was 10 years ago (I believe in large part due to his exposure to other arts and instructors like Ushiro Sensei). I admire that Ikeda sensei altered how he was doing aikido to incorporate his new concepts; I told him as much the last seminar I attended because it impacted the quality of the seminar so significantly.

I think we need to understand, even for those more martially competent that others, the next logical step after acknowledging the benefits of internal strength training will be to incorporate it into their aikido. There will be some aikido people out there who will not make this choice. I do not know if I would call it "off-track" as a critique against those who do not make this choice for their aikido; there may be a number of reasons why an instructor or dojo or student does not incorporate IS into their training and I don't think that is a critique against aikido. I think my critique would be more directed at someone who could incorporate IS into their training and did not make that choice because they were not motivated to change their aikido.

Does that help?
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