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Old 04-11-2010, 10:02 AM   #158
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Re: Video definitions, "Aiki" and other terms.

Quote:
Greg Steckel wrote: View Post
I agree from your perspective. However, my point was simply that if you broke Aiki into Ai and Ki, and took those terms in a very broad sense, you could loosely
support more than one view on aiki - simple semantics here.
Hope you don't take this personally, but I'm going to disagree here. As Peter Goldsbury, Josh Reyer, and a few others have posted here on Aikiweb, breaking down some Japanese words into individual components doesn't always work properly.

Historically, we can see this from a passage in A Life in Aikido. It's on page 285 of my book and talks about "Aikido itself is connected to the love of the heart." Same para. "Aiki sounds just like Ai ki (love energy), and the meanings are connected as well." Not the same. Aiki is not Ai ki. They can be connected but one must have a basis of aiki first.

In fact, Ueshiba makes note of them both as being the heart of Budo.

Quote:
Ueshiba Morihei wrote:
I would like people to understand that the first character in the word Budo is made up of characters whose meaning is that the shield blocks the spear. I want them to realize that the philosophical heart of Japanese Budo is both Aiki (unifying the energies of ki) and Ai ki (the ki energy of love and compassion).
It's why I post that aiki is the martial underpinnings of aikido. And aikido is the way of aiki. It isn't the way of ai ki. It's why Ueshiba said people didn't have to follow his spirituality in aikido. A spirituality grounded in the principles of ai ki would suffice, provided one had aiki to connect the two.

I'd like to once again give my thanks to Peter Goldsbury for suggesting this book to me. Thank you! It has a wealth of information in it.

To reiterate the martial and the spiritual and how Ueshiba thought of himself. A Life in Aikido page 293.

Quote:
Ueshiba Morihei wrote:
I could have taken the path of philosophy or religion and reached a respectable level of proficiency, if I had delved into their mysteries. But I felt my calling in life was to follow the path of the martial arts. I am not a man of religion - I am a martial artist.
There is a definitive quality to aiki. Everyone who gets their hands on someone who can use aiki to a decent level understands that definitive quality. They can't reproduce it, but they understand that aiki is not about timing and body placement. There is no support for multiple views on aiki.

Although with ai ki being connected to aiki, there can be many, many different views on aikido ... but the most basic quality of aiki must be there. Jujutsu + ai ki does not equal aikido.

And if you think most aikido has aiki, I leave you with this from the same book. While the para is mostly regarding demonstrations, it shows the concept held by Ueshiba Morhei of keeping "the secret of aiki".

Quote:
Ueshiba Kisshomaru wrote:
True Budo involved struggle, and invoked the stakes of life and death, so he (Ueshiba Morihei) felt that its inner secrets should be transmitted only to sincere seekers. He believed that to show the secrets freely to outsiders would be immoral, a kind of devaluation or disrespect for the art.