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Old 03-22-2013, 08:54 PM   #22
Dan Richards
Dojo: Latham Eclectic
Location: NY
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 452
United_States
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Re: Relate to your mind as a clear spacious sky and to the thoughts as clouds.

Quote:
Graham Christian wrote: View Post
If you want to discuss observation techniques used in Aikido or even useful in Aikido then you would first have to remember Aikido is an action discipline not a sit in a cave discipline.
You keep sticking to the idea that there's some sort of cave-sitting, navel-gazing discipline suggested here, when I'm talking about something that's quite active and dynamic.

Graham, have you actively worked on the technique of self-observation before? And if you have, could you tell a little about how you ran into the idea and what your experiences were?

And since you mention aikido as an "action" discipline; what those actions are and are not comprised of has a lot to do with the practice. There are some actions that people make that need to be turned into non-actions. And other non-actions that people make that need to be turned into action.

Discovering those switches, and becoming conscious of them is a big part of the art. As is which switches need to get turned on and which need to get switched off.

A large part of aikido is making the various switches conscious on the part of the practitioner. And it's only then, that they would have the ability to consciously decide whether or not to turn specific switches on or off.

So, what we're talking about is active and practical.
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