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  #51  
Old 08-18-2009, 12:12 PM
Peter A Goldsbury
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Transmission, Inheritance, Emulation 15

INTERLUDE
VI: The Question of Kotodama:
Part 3: Postwar Resurrection: Back to Morihei Ueshiba's Elephant

NOTE. These columns are research-in-progress and a considerable amount of detail is presented. They are not finished essays and I am...
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Last edited by akiy : 08-18-2009 at 11:54 AM.
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Old 04-21-2010, 11:41 AM   #50
jss
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Re: Transmission, Inheritance, Emulation 15

Quote:
Dan Harden wrote: View Post
I don't need the "This is everywhere in Asia" argument put forth by others. That is already known but does nothing to address the point. As I said to Ellis. "In regards to Ueshiba himself getting power from "elsewhere"- thats' great.....Where is the proof?"
Who else beside him (from that supposed study -real or imagined) was known for power in that era?
And what if Ueshiba studied with people that did certain exercises for health or spiritual reasons and Ueshiba used these to build his power in ways not known within DR? His 'teachers' would not be able to demonstrate power, but someone with power (e.g. Ueshiba with training in DR) might be able to use these exercises not realized by the people that taught him.
I know, 'what if' is not proof (I wish I had some actual historical data), not by a really long shot, but it's a possibility, isn't it?
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Old 04-21-2010, 12:02 PM   #51
Peter Goldsbury
 
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Re: Transmission, Inheritance, Emulation 15

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Hello Peter
I believe my interests/concerns were not so course, but rather more specific. I don't see "salesmanship" as relevant in any way as I was hoping for evidence from sources OTHER than them. My concerns/interests are meant to defy or negate the ability for them to personally "sell" me at all.
To use your model...I was looking for an actual vehicle that ran, could be driven and vetted to be trustworthy. Last I knew, people actually got out and independently tested vehicles, and even researched them to avoid the salesmen!

Who? Where? What? Why? and When? ....seems to me to be decent journalistic rules of the road, all meant to negate editorial, hype and "salesmanship."
I was looking for evidence of men with power who gave training to Ueshiba (outside of DR) were actually known for it.
I'm still waiting......
Cheers
Dan
Hello Dan,

I did not mention salesmanship in my post, nor hype. I asked simply whether you would be convinced by whatever arguments they used to persuade you to buy the car (Takeda, Sagawa and Ueshiba might not give any arguments at all; Deguchi might give many) and it is taken for granted that there is actually a car to be sold. In all four cases, I presume you would get in the car and test drive it, check the previous owner's history etc etc. The point about the Fast Show skits is that they never, ever sell a car.

Best wishes,

PAG

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Old 04-21-2010, 05:48 PM   #52
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Re: Transmission, Inheritance, Emulation 15

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Peter A Goldsbury wrote: View Post
Hello Dan,

I did not mention salesmanship in my post, nor hype. I asked simply whether you would be convinced by whatever arguments they used to persuade you to buy the car (Takeda, Sagawa and Ueshiba might not give any arguments at all; Deguchi might give many) and it is taken for granted that there is actually a car to be sold. In all four cases, I presume you would get in the car and test drive it, check the previous owner's history etc etc. The point about the Fast Show skits is that they never, ever sell a car.

Best wishes,

PAG
In the States, we use CarFAX today for the car history before we buy - so, anybody ever heard of AikiFAX? (sorry, could not resist.I will have someone spank me later )
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Old 04-21-2010, 09:40 PM   #53
Ellis Amdur
 
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NOTE: Read Post Slowly - S-l-o-w-ly - or high dudgeon, mistakenly will explode

I've just returned from Japan, where, among others, I had some conversations with a fairly high ranking member of Goto-ha Yagyu Shingan-ryu. Yes, that's the ryu that Ueshiba engaged in about 5 years of a couple times a week training. That's the ryu that John Driscoll pretty convincingly wrote about in Aikiweb, as having probably provided Ueshiba with his later, much used koshinage technique (the only aikido technique that can plausibly be suggested as NOT being part of the Daito-ryu syllabus).
As is probably well known, Akuzawa Minoru derived much of his Aunkai from a branch of Yagyu Shingan-ryu, but this is, I believe, a very different, many generations separated line. I've always thought that Goto-ha YSR did not have internal training.
Well, HIPS yet again!
We ended up discussing Goto-ha Yagyu Shingan-ryu's sophisticated breathing methods, and a set of sword forms that I must have viewed 50 times over the years. And I was told that they are specifically for developing internal power. (!!!!!!) Now, looking at those forms, I can see their potential. In fact, I lust after those forms. I always liked them for their power, but hadn't realized exactly the power they were working. (Anmd I think it's a fair call that most practitioners either don't see it either, or are not putting in the mileage - the same story everywhere.)
Now, before anyone runs with it, I'm talking about the presence in the o erall currculum, not that Ueshiba learned it there.
It is apparent to me from my conversations, not only with this gentleman, but also with other practitioners over the years, that it's largely HIPS to them too. And Ueshiba, to the best of our knowledge, studied the taijutsu, not the sword.
And if he was already so good, why could Takeda handle him so easily? And why are YSR guys listed on some of Takeda's first eimeimokuroku? (Uh-oh, it's catching. The Hardenesk rhetorical question. Damned contageous.).
So, all I'm saying is that the more I look, the more traces - or presence - of internal training I find in almost every ryu. BUT - the more I question people, the more I find that they really WERE much better in the old days, because - as I mentioned in my book - otherwise, Takeda and later Ueshiba would not have been such astonishments. What I hear all too often is: "there were giants in those days."
In short, IF Ueshiba had stayed with YSR AND if his own teacher had the skills that are imbedded in the curriculum, then maybe he would have made his "aikido" from a completely different ryu. But he didn't stay. And there's no evidence that his teacher mastered internal abilities either.
Best
Ellis Amdur

Last edited by Ellis Amdur : 04-21-2010 at 09:47 PM.

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Old 04-22-2010, 12:54 PM   #54
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Re: NOTE: Read Post Slowly - S-l-o-w-ly - or high dudgeon, mistakenly will explode

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Ellis Amdur wrote: View Post
So, all I'm saying is that the more I look, the more traces - or presence - of internal training I find in almost every ryu. BUT - the more I question people, the more I find that they really WERE much better in the old days, because - as I mentioned in my book - otherwise, Takeda and later Ueshiba would not have been such astonishments. What I hear all too often is: "there were giants in those days.
Geez,

The more I lean about this stuff, the more discouraged I get about the future.

It seems that Tekeda and Ueshiba were among a very small group of fanatics who practiced, tested, and refined incessantly and obsessively -- and that's the secret to becoming as good as they were.

It almost doesn't seem to matter how one learns or discovers the internal skills. In fact, it almost seems like the IS stuff is a natural outgrowth of the obsessive practice and quest for skill that drove these elite martial artists. AND those guys were outliers in their own time and culture.

Oh well.

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Old 04-22-2010, 02:04 PM   #55
Ellis Amdur
 
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Re: Transmission, Inheritance, Emulation 15

"outliers" -See Malcolm Gladwell. Baseline idea - genius is practice - minimal - 10,000 hours. Appr. 3 hrs. a day for 10 years.
Of correct practice. Which easily determines, beyond anything else, who will achieve anything in this area (NOTE: people may object, citing prodigies like Mozart - Gladwell points out his first compositions that are regarded as genius were after he was 21 years old, and that time period figures out to about the 10,000 hour mark.

Best
Ellis Amdur

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Old 04-22-2010, 03:42 PM   #56
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Re: Transmission, Inheritance, Emulation 15

Outliers is an excellent book. Well worth the read.

Pat
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Old 05-11-2010, 06:10 PM   #57
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Re: Transmission, Inheritance, Emulation 15

Hello Josh,

I finished reading Snow Crash last night. This was a quick first reading, with the aim of making a response in this column, and the second reading will be slower. Have you come across Nicholas Ostler's Empires of the Word? Although rather different in style than Stephenson, it presents a history of language that sets ancient Sumerian in a context that is rather more robust than that of Snow Crash.

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Josh Phillipson wrote: View Post
Hello Dr. Goldsbury,
I wanted to submit the name of a book to you: Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson.
Some of the ideas, I thought, were interesting, maybe even relevant or related to Kotodama. I don't know a whole lot about this area, but the ideas struck me as related. Frankly, I don't mean for this post to be taken all that seriously, but rather in the hopes that it is interesting..just for the ideas, and to be taken only for what they're worth. A kind of comparison of what I took from both the book, and from this installment of TIE.
PAG. As far as I can see, Stephenson presents another version of Nakazono's Sumela Mikoto mythology, but in different wrappings. Nakazono employs the trope of a life of struggle, via successive masters (including Ueshiba), and with a strategic reading of the secret Takeuchi Documents--known to very few and revealed to far, far fewer--along the way, to present kotodama as his unique answer to all the problems facing the world. With Stephenson we have the Sumerian myths, neatly presented by the Librarian--who is able to fend off the difficult questions because he is a program, but in the form of a computer virus based on the supposedly unique language (Nakazono, again) that the Sumerians are alleged to have spoken around 4,000 BC.

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Josh Phillipson wrote: View Post
I thought it was very interesting about the 'lower level' nature of the code. Like language for us; is a 'mode' to communicate information. Pictures, and video certainly, as we have seen and heard...each more efficient than the next. But carrying information in 'more parallel' kind of way. A different 'mode' but still building in that way. The book's idea that there was a different 'way' to communicate.
Directly to the hardware. It is 'firmware' language that is directly appreciated by another 'interpreter' (meant in a computer-science, kind of way). In some way, I think 'touch-experience', can be a completely different 'way' to communicate information. It accesses a different level of awareness, perhaps.
PAG. Stephenson has certainly done his homework about the Bible and the Tower of Babel story, but seems to have neglected doing any linguistics or pragmatics. Similarly with the Wachowski brothers. I think if they had, they would have seen the difficulties involved with a supposedly unique language, that operates in a different way from any other known language. Nakazono and the Japanese kokugaku scholars brush these difficulties aside, partly because they believe the Japanese language to be unique in any case. The problem I have with Stephenson is that he has to present all the evidence of his unique language in metaphors, as you yourself have done in the above paragraph. Of course, he goes one further than Nakazono in that his language can be used by people who have no clue what they are talking about.

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Josh Phillipson wrote: View Post
Thank you, and with much respect,
Josh P.
Not at all.

PAG

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Old 05-13-2010, 07:27 AM   #58
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Re: Transmission, Inheritance, Emulation 15

Peter,

An even more interesting take from Neal Stephenson on language is Anathem. The concept of Platonic realism vs mathematic formalism is a key plot device.

Regards,
-Drew

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