R H

Thanks for the response Mike.

I suppose I am heading in the following direction: if "I" go into these dojo's thinking they are all doing the same thing, then it becomes inherently more difficult for me to notice the actual differences. The end result is that I will not be learning the art that the teacher is teaching.

After much time with these teachers and much time to reflect later, I realize that there are distinctions that are important to the arts in terms of strategy, intention, form and finally principle. There is also overlap, which I state above.

These are Kobujutsu, so there is a lot more that goes along with them than just body skills. If I am not careful to see them separately while studying, I may well miss some important things. It would be better to get the Menkyo in them all and then reflect back on them to see if it was the same or not, in my opinion.

From your previous post, it seems that you and I have somewhat different goals in our training (but there is overlap - we both want to improve and have living, effective skills). I think it is the differences in our intentions that makes our perspectives necessarily different in regards to how we observe arts.

I can give you an example based on publicly accessible (non-secrets) of Yanagi-ryu (the little that I know of it). Yanagi-ryu tends (not always) to use a lot of linking to progressively lock the skeletal structure then use a sudden drop in body weight to finish the movement. This is not the case with many other aiki dojos and high level teachers. There are other ways used to break balance and other ways to finish the movement.

If I had freedom to speak more precisely, I could give a better example, but basically, there is more than one way to skin a cat, but in the end we are all skinning cats as it were.

Finally, I agree that it is a mistake to assume that the arts are totally different things. But going the other way, I also think it is a mistake to view them as being the same. The reasoning I am using here is that not every teacher explains where you are misunderstanding (althought some certainly do) and will expect you to learn through the awareness that comes with a clear and open mind. In fact, in Japan most do not explain much at all. As I don't want to miss anything, I just prefer to keep them separate in my mind until I am at the top of the mountain. I guess from a training perspective (in a formal dojo), I don't see the advantage of holding the view that it's all one thing - yet.