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Old 01-20-2012, 12:11 PM   #15
kewms
Join Date: Aug 2002
Posts: 1,318
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Re: "The goal is not to throw"

Quote:
Dan Harden wrote: View Post
If someone can't throw a non co-operative person intent on keeping his center or effectively stop a motivated attacker how and why and by what standard should that be considered a budo?
I agree that it is reasonable to judge the effectiveness of a budo by its ability to achieve this outcome.

However, I don't think it is helpful to think of aikido as something you DO TO another person. That is, I don't think "I must throw him" is the right way to look at it.

In this, as in many such conversations, I think it's important to differentiate between the externally visible outcome -- resisting attacker falls down -- and the internal thought process that achieves that result. The evidence seems to suggest, for instance, that Ueshiba Sensei spent a lot more time worrying about his alignment relative to the universe than the precise angle of torque applied to his attacker's wrist.

Katherine
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