Poll: If you had to choose, which of these two qualities would you characterize your

AikiWeb Poll for the week of September 2, 2007:

If you had to choose, which of these two qualities would you characterize your aikido as having more of?

• I don't do aikido
• Yin
• Yang
  

Here are the current results.

Whoever made the question doesn't understand it.

Yin or Yang? Opposites, duality.

Male or female? Still male.
Up or down? Down.
Hard or soft? Hard.
External or internal? External.

But I am getting a little closer to the center balance point or seeing when to be one and when to be the other.

I voted Yin, because it seems to me that everyone begins with yang, and over time, their edges get smoothed and become more cirsular and yielding.

In gassho,

Mark

Rupert Atkinson wrote: Whoever made the question doesn't understand it.

Jun often makes up polls with questions he already "knows the answer" just to start something or sorta 'prime the pump'...

I voted "yin". The attack is always "yang" no matter how much energy/force has put into it. IMHO, in response to the attack, in internal art such as aikido, the amount of force/energy should always be less than the attack's.

David Y

Apologies, I do not understand the question.

What is the definition for Yin and Yang?

Rupert Atkinson wrote: Whoever made the question doesn't understand it.

I think that's why they said, "if you had to choose." Beyond that, it made sense to me. Certainly there are both involved in everything, but if there can be foods which are more yin or yang in nature (as I've read in more than one source) then it makes sense to me that most anything else can too. Few things are perfectly in balance: expansive/contractive forces may include equal and opposite reactions, but that doesn't mean we can't meaningfully describe something as being more yin than yang or vice versa.

My aikido has more yang, but I'm trying to be more balanced.

Neither, but I listen to the YinYang Twins.