Thread: 6 Directions
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Old 10-14-2013, 09:52 PM   #70
Mert Gambito
Join Date: Jun 2010
Posts: 202
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Re: 6 Directions

Quote:
Alfonso Adriasola wrote: View Post
Hugh, I dont agree with your definitions. I have met Gleason sensei and taken ukemi for him. He never said anything about silk reeling being what he does. I did not see any silk reeling movement from him. He did talk about aiki and izanami and izanagi, and asagao and aiki age and aiki sage; a lot.
I never heard him say Peng or Peng Jin, and he did not talk about 6 direction training either. I could clearly feel he used Jin ( what I call AIki) ; he was very able to do Aikido with it; and he and Ikeda sensei feel really really similar. It seems like technical terms from different chinese arts (yiquan, taijiquan) are being used to talk about related matters but not in the way people in those arts use them.

What I see here described as 6 directions sounds a lot like 'keep one point'.
I checked my notes from Bill's workshop in Hawaii, and I don't see references to "silk reeling" either, but there are references to "six directions", and "spirals" and "spiraling": terminology used by Morihei Ueshiba that is conceptually related to silk reeling (though if anyone feels that's open to discussion, I suppose we're in the right forum for that).

I agree with you regarding his ability to express aiki. One of the things I noted in meeting Bill was that he is adamant about expressing internal power within the context of aikido; and as a teacher using his understanding and interpretation of, and ability to express aiki to help enhance and polish a given aikidoka's understanding of the art as the student has come to cherish it -- vs. bolting on anything to aikido. Given his aikido CV, and via seeing his interpretations of waza and taking ukemi for him, I think he's a fine ambassador for the mission he's undertaken.

Mert
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