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Old 08-29-2011, 04:16 PM   #26
Janet Rosen
 
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Re: The continuing Aikido or Non aikido aiki debate and what is or isn't aiki

Quote:
Lorel Latorilla wrote: View Post
Janet: Wow, very interesting. Can you point me to links that discusses that?
Nope.
Just based on my decades of knowledge/reading/etc.
Some of us have memory banks from long before there was an internet

Last edited by Janet Rosen : 08-29-2011 at 04:16 PM. Reason: sp

Janet Rosen
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Old 08-30-2011, 08:19 AM   #27
Lorel Latorilla
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Re: The continuing Aikido or Non aikido aiki debate and what is or isn't aiki

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Janet Rosen wrote: View Post
Nope.
Just based on my decades of knowledge/reading/etc.
Some of us have memory banks from long before there was an internet
Have you made connections as to how these small guilds produced masters or is it simply a thing of "resourcefulness? And if it is a thing of "resourcefulness" how were some of these painters "resourceful"?

Sorry for putting you on the spot.

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Old 08-30-2011, 09:22 AM   #28
Janet Rosen
 
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Re: The continuing Aikido or Non aikido aiki debate and what is or isn't aiki

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Lorel Latorilla wrote: View Post
Have you made connections as to how these small guilds produced masters or is it simply a thing of "resourcefulness? And if it is a thing of "resourcefulness" how were some of these painters "resourceful"?

Sorry for putting you on the spot.
(Sorry for thread drift.....)

Well they were NOT guilds, that's the point.

It is easy to research the Academy system of France, which to some degree was the successor to the guilds, and to then research the 19th century anti-Academy movements that we like to call "the Impressionists" and "the post-Impressionists" but who were never formally organized per se.

When mastery of painting ceased to be a something organized and graded by either a guild system (apprentice - journeyman - master) or an Academy, when there was no longer a single body of artisanal techniques leading to depiction of sanctioned subject matter in prescribed aesthetic terms, then technical mastery could be achieved by various paths. I would suggest that in this context, disciplined repetitive practice is a requirement more important than having A Teacher.

Gee maybe we are looking at the difference between koryu and non-koryu arts...maybe its not thread drift!

Janet Rosen
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Old 08-30-2011, 09:39 AM   #29
Lorel Latorilla
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Re: The continuing Aikido or Non aikido aiki debate and what is or isn't aiki

Great, Janet, I have no knowledge about that stuff so I'll research it tomorrow. Thanks.

BTW where is Dan? He was complaining about the discussion not evolving into a talk about Shu-Ha-Ri and ownership lawl.

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Old 08-31-2011, 12:48 AM   #30
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Re: The continuing Aikido or Non aikido aiki debate and what is or isn't aiki

I had a post about the Impressionists all ready, but my iPad ate it.

Anyway, there was a show of Impressionist still lifes at the Boston MFA a few years ago that was really fascinating. These guys would all get together and paint, so you would have multiple views (in multiple styles) of the same subject. And so you could see the difference between Camille Pissaro's apples (say), which practically glow, and some other guy whose apples were just colored circles.

More recently, the de Young in San Francisco had a pair of exhibitions from the Musee d'Orsay that really drove home the extent to which the Impressionists all knew each other -- as friends or rivals, or sometimes both -- worked together, depended on each other for artistic and sometimes financial support... a very different, and much more collaborative model than the rigid hierarchy of Master and Students.

Trying to drag all this kicking and screaming back to the topic, I think the influence O'Sensei's students had on each other doesn't get enough attention. When the uchi deshi weren't actually in The Presence, what were they doing? How much of what makes "good aikido" is due to the actual instruction, and how much to the learning environment? Especially in a modern American dojo, which is *never* going to be as hierarchical as *any* traditional Japanese institution.

Katherine
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Old 08-31-2011, 06:12 AM   #31
Ellis Amdur
 
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Re: The continuing Aikido or Non aikido aiki debate and what is or isn't aiki

Well, according to Terry Dobson, the uchi-deshi in the sixties hung out together, ate together, and after practice, tried things out: sumo, defense against knives, this and that.

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Old 08-31-2011, 07:59 AM   #32
Ellis Amdur
 
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Re: The continuing Aikido or Non aikido aiki debate and what is or isn't aiki

Actually, I should make that clearer. I mean freestyle testing techniques. Randori.

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Old 08-31-2011, 10:19 AM   #33
hughrbeyer
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Re: The continuing Aikido or Non aikido aiki debate and what is or isn't aiki

Just a note on the post-impressionists... when the Academy system broke down, some of the craft of painting did too. You can't just layer any paint on any other paint--some works, some doesn't, some works in one order but not in the other. I had one art teacher who said of one post-Impressionist school, "Some people say this is great art. Others say it's junk. I say it won't last another fifty years, so it doesn't matter."

Drawing the parallel to martial arts training does suggest a warning.
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Old 08-31-2011, 11:05 AM   #34
Lorel Latorilla
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Re: The continuing Aikido or Non aikido aiki debate and what is or isn't aiki

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Just a note on the post-impressionists... when the Academy system broke down, some of the craft of painting did too. You can't just layer any paint on any other paint--some works, some doesn't, some works in one order but not in the other. I had one art teacher who said of one post-Impressionist school, "Some people say this is great art. Others say it's junk. I say it won't last another fifty years, so it doesn't matter."

Drawing the parallel to martial arts training does suggest a warning.
Good point Hugh. I think we should be wary of the dangers of "martial arts shopping". People going to this seminar and that seminar, with teachers who disagree perhaps at the level of principle will just bring about confusion.

One thing I failed to mention is that people need to be really clear on what their training goals are, and seek out teachers that will help you with your goals. If you think bodyskill is just something "cool" that you can add to your aikido without really trying to understand why you're doing bodyskill exercises, I don't think you will get very far. For example, my goal is to have a soft enough body to express aiki skills and other unusual bodyskills that will give me an upperhand in hand to hand confrontation. But also my goal is to find out how to efficienctly use my physical and cardiovascular systems to run, climb, carry weight, etc--in other words, learning how to execute military skills in the most efficient way. By clarifying my goals, I would learn how what it is I need to seek, and what it is I need to skip over. This is why I would not dedicate myself to training MMA and go into competition (perhaps I would do so to test what skills I have gained through solo training) and why I should keep studying Systema. This is why I question training methods like Crossfit and not buy into the hype of it all.

I'm being coached--online nonetheless--by this Israeli soldier that does Systema, but I am also training on my own doing solo exercises. Since my goals is to have a soft body that allows me to have subtle unbalancing aiki skills and a skill to do non-telegraphed strikes and to run, climb, and carry weight in the most efficient way possible, I am forced to look for cross-pollinations between the martial arts systems I am studying. I find that the relaxation and tension control methods in Systema is helpful in clarifying the importance of, say, structure in relation to the ground and gravity. Also, the awareness of tension in Systema will help me pinpoint to my tension problems when I engage in, say, horse stance. Or the awareness of my body and the efficiency of movement that I gained through bodyskill training is efficient for me in my jogging, because I can more or less "forget" about the technique--or at least not too pay too much attention because any mistakes in form is auto-corrected through analysis and continuous training in bodyskill drills--and focus on my breathing and work on that to make steady and full breathing a separate skill.

What I am trying to say is that once your goals are made clear, the principles themselves are made clear for you to adopt or to ignore.

Last edited by Lorel Latorilla : 08-31-2011 at 11:08 AM.

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