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Old 07-03-2007, 09:11 PM   #1213
David Orange
Dojo: Aozora Dojo
Location: Birmingham, AL
Join Date: Feb 2006
Posts: 1,511
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Re: Baseline skillset

Quote:
Robert John wrote: View Post
See, the problem is I don't see how thats a technical description.
It sounds to me more like a description of sempo/strategy.
What we're talking about is more along the lines of taijutsu.
Put another way, kiai is the direct "plow them down, run them over, smash through them" approach. Aiki tailors its movement to the ura of the kiai movement. So while the ura of a punch would include "blocking" the punch with a forearm smash, that still conflicts somewhat with the strength of the punch and does not access the "pure ura" where the kiai leaves a void. Real aiki acts on the void part of the strength of the kiai (it goes where the punch has no power--typically, literally behind the punch). For as Ueshiba says, "I am already behind him." He uses "ura of kiai" only to refer to physical technique, which he never tired of discussing. He hated abstraction (when it came to budo) and he just brushed aside any attempt to explain technique as the workings of ki power.

Quote:
Robert John wrote: View Post
"These days everyone argues about Aiki and what it is. The fact is, Aiki is simply the a state where both swordsman are in stalemate.
The term comes from Onoha ittoryu and implies that both swordsman are in a deadlock.
Aiki from Takeda implied that you were able to affect the other person even in this deadlocked state.
So in Aiki Age when you hold me down and I try to raise, we are in a state of Aiki, which I keep as I affect you."
I've heard that explantion of aiki as well. It's somewhat like, "When the attack comes by surprise, you don't shy away from it, but enter it."

Quote:
Robert John wrote: View Post
The thread is about "Baseline skillset" unless you missed it.
We're trying to talk about the bodyskills implied.
Not the strategic or philisophical underpinnings.
Well, it goes hither and yon and one comment begets another. And one thing leads to another, so it has often verged onto aikido and even specifically to what "I" know or don't know, and the only way I have to address that is from my experience of body skills on the aikido mat and in real life. It goes into swordsmanship and that into strategy. Unfortunately, there's just no way to keep it terribly tightly restricted, so we end up covering varied ground.

Best wishes.

David

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

"Eternity forever!"

www.esotericorange.com
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