View Single Post
Old 03-14-2007, 09:58 PM   #105
Erick Mead
 
Erick Mead's Avatar
Dojo: Big Green Drum (W. Florida Aikikai)
Location: West Florida
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 2,619
United_States
Offline
Disgust Re: Aikido as External Art -or- Where's the Chewy Center?

Quote:
Pete Rihaczek wrote: View Post
...Still I don't think anyone is trying to, or really can, dictate what the "right" path necessarily is. ... To focus Western-style on what actually happens to the body so that you can really learn this stuff seems to deny Ki-as-mystical-energy.
He probably just didn't think that way, so seeing completely eye to eye with him from a Western perspective may not be possible in the first place, and all the post-mortem mindreading and channeling from Westerners is meaningless because we can't truly emulate his mindset.... Doesn't mean anyone has to care, or agree with how some people think it fits into the grand scheme, but there it is.
All we can do is take what is given us and place it honestly in our context. Any more than that is simple pretension. Grand schemes? Well, O Sensei did not seem to have any, at least in any directive sense. He left some hints about some important contexts that need to be addressed and he left to others to place his revelation into those contexts.
Quote:
O Sensei: "Budo Renshu" wrote:
.... if the human mind once takes charge of water and fire in accord with the prinicple of "Water-Fire, Yin-Yang" when your enemy attacks with water you strike with water, with fire then hit with fire. Today it is important to train thinking in terms of scientific warfare. (tr. Bieri/Mabuchi)
There is much more to the fire/water trope and it is worth reading. The significance of this quote is twofold on this point, however.

First, O Sensei had no doubts that his metaphorical (or alchemical) understanding of the operation of the art could eventually be described in Western scientific terms. Second, he firmly believed that it ought to be done by someone following him.

I look to go where he pointed. I do not dispute that he pointed other ways also. Kokyu expands in all directions simultaneously, so there is no conflict or contradiciton in that, at all. I just hope to find somebody farther along to make this particular path a little clearer.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
一隻狗可久里馬房但他也不是馬的.
  Reply With Quote