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Old 06-03-2008, 09:36 PM   #36
Mike Sigman
Location: Durango, CO
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 4,123
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Re: new Ellis Amdur piece on aikido journal

Quote:
Peter A Goldsbury wrote: View Post
... but it seems that both Dan Harden and Mike Sigman agree that O Sensei definitely had 'the goods' about internal training.
I'd have to say that nowadays it seems obvious that a number of Japanese ryu experts had 'the goods', popping the bubble (misperception) that I had 3 or 4 years ago. The problem is that 'the goods' were there all around many of us who spent years studying various Asian martial arts, but we didn't see them because we couldn't conceive of something that basic and that 'large' that we could be unaware of. I.e., the number of westerners who were blinded by a conceit of sorts and whose conceit was reinforced by their fellow westerners who also had the same conceit is staggering.
Quote:
It seems to me that M Ueshiba was committed to waza, right from the beginning of his budo training, but he seems to have become aware of the crucial value of internal training in parallel and alongside his training in waza: the two seem to have complimented one another.
Sure. If all it took was internal strength, there wouldn't be so many martial arts... internal strength would be all that was practiced.
Quote:
The issue for aikido is how you do internal training as well as waza, not whether you do internal training as well as waza.
It's not just Aikido where this is a problem of great import. Slowly a number of different styles are beginning to see the problem. The real problem is that it's very different to try to put "internal strength" into movements that have already been repetitiously patterned for years in a way that doesn't use internal strength.

FWIW

Mike Sigman
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