Quote:
Rupert Atkinson wrote:
... I think the aiki we are after is discoverable in our own Aikido context, though it does help to look elsewhere to help get a bearing on it. But once you have a bearing, it is full steam ahead.
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Absolutely. O-Sensei, after all, had the aiki skills and
then created Aikido--in my view, largely as a simpler and more direct vehicle for expressing them than the more complex Daito-ryu techniques. So you don't have to go far to find the application of IS skills--they're hidden in the standard Aikido techniques.
In some ways, I think, what makes the IS applications hard to find in Aikido is that standard Aikido waza is so damn seductive. It's fun to work with timing, leading, motion, angles, and all the rest of it--and with a compliant uke, you don't need more than that to make your Aikido work. You have to work at it--and not accept bullsh*t either from yourself or your uke. Sometimes you have to ask uke not to be so compliant.