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Old 07-09-2007, 10:53 PM   #1337
David Orange
Dojo: Aozora Dojo
Location: Birmingham, AL
Join Date: Feb 2006
Posts: 1,511
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Re: Baseline skillset

Quote:
Ellis Amdur wrote: View Post
David - Araki-ryu uses the five elements as a schema the same way it is used in China - although the way they use it is different in detail, given the different parameters of combat and movement that they were focused on.
I was fascinated by your description of this in your article. I have read that the old generals studied I Ching and Sun Tzu but I haven't seen such a detailed example of how those Chinese ideas carried over into a thing like kiai. I have seen them applied to accupuncture and shiatsu, though both of those are obviously sourced in China.

Quote:
Ellis Amdur wrote: View Post
And one thing about the five elements, they are also broken down as variations of yin-yang. (As are the eight trigrams, btw). The five aspects are yang internal and yang external, yang external and yin internal, yin external with yang internal, yin internal and external, and something else as the fifth - yin "rising again" to yin.
That's something I'd like to hear more about.

Quote:
Ellis Amdur wrote: View Post
The formulation you suggest with kiai as yang and aiki as yin is similar to the type of yin-yang you seen on the Korean flag, two solid fish with no "eyes." So if you make kiai and aiki synonymous with yin and yang - which is not their classical usage, the understanding being that each tinctures the other to varying degrees - you have a much simpler formulation of reality.
I only understand yin and yang with the eyes--as parts of a whole, which aiki and kiai would be--omote and ura. Mochizuki Sensei made a kata called "hyori no kata" or "omote/ura kata". Every attack had an ura, which led into a counter technique--which had its own ura and led into a counter-counter technique, which had its own ura, and allowed yet another counter technique. A fantastic kata. He meant, by that kata, that aiki and kiai are in constant interchange, which is like yin and yang--when considered as parts of a whole. Mochizuki Sensei did sometimes use the Star of David—upright and inverted triangles united—as another symbol of yin and yang.

Quote:
Ellis Amdur wrote: View Post
I'm not saying it's wrong - but I'm saying it does not reflect the interplay of "energy" - "force dynamics" - however you want to call it - that is inherent in discussion of internal training (ki/kyoku) and kiai (the additional aspect of manipulation and control of the other.
I hope these comments made that clearer. I think I understand your point. But we have many examples of kiai, even silent, being able to stop or control someone at a distance. And we have Takeda's statement that aiki overcomes the opponent mentally at a glance. Peas in a pod, hand in a glove...it seems to me that kiai and aiki must go together and that the nature is that aiki follows and clings to kiai.

Thanks.

David

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

"Eternity forever!"

www.esotericorange.com
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