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Old 02-24-2017, 09:57 PM   #89
GovernorSilver
Join Date: Nov 2016
Posts: 107
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Re: A defense of Aiki

Quote:
Erick Mead wrote: View Post
Not exactly. NW Florida,. Or Lower Alabama. We answer to anything. Just don't call us late to dinner.

And I have trained with him, but that was before he was doing anything like what Ikeda has been doing for many many years. Ledyard had much of value even so. Hooker, in my experience was hands on, practical, and invested in delving into traditions to find the riches in them, but he did not express a need, at least in my periodic exposure to him, in relating a more western understanding of the art.
Oh, sorry for the confusion.

If you ever do meet Ledyard again, could you ask him to do the uke connection thing to you? You know, the thing that I described earlier when he grabbed my wrist - some "thing" coming up my arm into my body without any visible movement in his - he was just standing there when he did it to me. I would be curious to see if what it feels like is indeed the same as what Hooker-sensei has done.

It's really just out of curiosity that I ask this. I don't think anybody at the dojo I train at can do that, but I love to train there anyway, because the Aikido there is a good match for me. Several individuals there have a good command of Up/Ground "jin"/force vector (it's the most accessible one) but I suspect that's just a product of solid Aikido training under the influence of Tohei and his "keep one point", "weight underside", etc. concepts. I suspect Ledyard was using the Up force vector as a component of what he did to me, but I wonder if there were others too. One of the Taikyoku themes involves a strike that utilizes both Up and Down simultaneously.

Last edited by GovernorSilver : 02-24-2017 at 10:08 PM.
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