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Old 05-28-2012, 07:25 PM   #97
Chris Li
 
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Dojo: Aikido Sangenkai
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Join Date: Dec 2000
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Re: Spiritual and i/p

Quote:
Tom Verhoeven wrote: View Post
I did not imply that Dan Harden was a beginner. I am not familiar with Aikido-L. I expressed my surprise to find someone, that I had not heard of before, not only to researching the same things as I had, but claiming that he completely understood it.

The way things are presented by him and students of him like you, suggests at the least that you claim or think that Dan Harden is the only one researching this and or the only one who got it (where have I heard that before). I tried to point out that that is not the case. A bit more openness would reach more people than being so adamant.
Neither Dan nor I have ever said that he was the only one - but he is one of the more accessible at the moment. We just had Sam Chin out in Hawaii, and I'd recommend him absolutely as well, he gets to Europe quite a bit.

My point is that Dan is not recently arrived on the scene, nor have these discussions, they've been going on in public forums for a number of years.

Quote:
Tom Verhoeven wrote: View Post
The way you present your findings show the same pattern. As if none of these subjects could not be found elsewhere, while there is a pile of books written on Shinto by people with more academic expertise then you have shown us. This would still be fine in my book if your interpretations and suggestions were not used as facts in different threads. "Facts" that are meant to support the position of Dan Harden as the only person that got the message of O Sensei.
That I call a hidden agenda.
I'm not an academic - and it really doesn't have that much to do with Shinto. I don't represent anything anywhere as "fact", it's all my own opinion (although I show where it comes from). There is no secret organization with a hidden agenda. There's no non-secret organization either - just Dan and people who are friends with Dan and like training with him.

Dude - it's a blog, not a little red book.

Quote:
Tom Verhoeven wrote: View Post
You stated that you dismissed the shihan that you have met in Japan. You stated in an response of one of my posts that you dismissed Hikitsuchi sensei as having an understanding of O Sensei's teaching. That must mean that you think that you have an expertise on this matter that is well beyond that of these shihan. Otherwise I would call such an assumption arrogance or misguidedness. I did not judge your experiences, but I am disagreeing with this kind of attitude.

As far as I am aware I have given you plenty of clarifications in every response. But at times you are trying to press me in a direction that I do not want to go to, I will not be used for your hidden agenda.

Tom
Well, for example, when the pro baseball players came to visit Morihei Ueshiba, baseball had to be explained to him. So yes, there are always going to be things that I understand better than another person, regardless of that persons expertise in any particular area. We also have the benefit and perspective of seeing the effects (and lack of effects) of Morihei Ueshiba's transmission over three and four generation to large numbers of students.

And after more than 30 years in Aikido I think that giving an opinion on other people's Aikido is far from unreasonable.

I think that it would be a dangerous world if we just assumed that everybody with more experience or knowledge is automatically correct in everything.

There is no secret agenda - even if there were, what would it be?

Best,

Chris