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Old 10-01-2003, 09:42 PM   #1
Paula Lydon
Dojo: Aikido Shugenkai
Location: Colorado
Join Date: Jun 2002
Posts: 427
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Question aikido in the way of aiki?

~~Hi all! I went to Aiki-Expo this year and have been thinking about this since. While there, I saw and felt aiki expressed in many different martial arts, a number of them having nothing to do with Aikido. I come from a mixed-bag background, but my current mode of practice is with an Aikido dojo. Has been, mostly, over the last 7 years.
~~I came to Aikido following what I like to call the aiki thread, tugging me along like a cow with a nose ring; afterall, look what it's called! Aiki-Expo was a refreshing reminder to me that I am foremost a student of aiki and do not want my training in Aiki-do ever to interfere with that. It's too easy to settle into a 'style', a 'way', a code of structured movements and even thoughts...and lose the subtle path along which that angelhair fine thread has been leading me.
~~Was wondering if others have had similar thoughts and/or reminders.

~~Paula~~
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Old 10-01-2003, 11:17 PM   #2
PhilJ
 
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Dojo: Aikido Bukou
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Everytime I say, "Geez, I hadn't thought of that" or "Wow, interesting technique" whether at work or dojo or wherever, it reminds me.

But I think the best time to remember how much there is to learn is when you say, "I get it" or "That was easy".

Good question Paula, thanks for making me remember.

*Phil

Phillip Johnson
Enso Aikido Dojo, Burnsville, MN
An Aikido Bukou Dojo
http://www.aikidobukou.com
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Old 10-02-2003, 02:14 AM   #3
Alan Lomax
Dojo: Doumukai Aikido
Location: San Diego, CA.
Join Date: Sep 2003
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Re: aikido in the way of aiki?

Quote:
Paula Lydon wrote:
Was wondering if others have had similar thoughts and/or reminders.
Yes Often.

Warm regards

Alan Lomax
Doumukai Aikido
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Old 10-02-2003, 06:36 AM   #4
ian
 
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Dojo: University of Ulster, Coleriane
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Yep - I'd agree. I now realise that if different versions of me, from every 2 or 3 years of my training, were lined up in a row, none of them would agree on how to do aikido. We have an objective in our mind, but as we learn more this objective changes gradually.

I

---understanding aikido is understanding the training method---
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Old 10-02-2003, 09:32 AM   #5
Greg Jennings
Dojo: S&G BJJ
Location: Springboro, OH
Join Date: Jul 2000
Posts: 1,132
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I don't mean to sound like some of the guys on E-Budo, but what is "Aiki"?

I ask because I don't think we all have the same definition.

Here is a great thread from AJ that goes into this in some detail in the middle posts:

http://143.207.8.139/cgi-bin/ubb/ult...22&t=000049&p=

Although this thread

is obstensibly about "Iriminage", you might want to peruse it. It's a great thread.

Just to show my cards, here is what I said in my post that is relevant to this thread:

The "blending", "harmonizing", "capturing" part of aiki in aikido is well known and is what people are talking about almost 100% of the time. ...

In a sense, it is the first/outer of what I've been taught is "aiki".

The higher/inner level is a collection of strategies for disrupting uke's physical and mental capacity to respond/resist or to get uke to respond in a predictable way.

FWIW,

Greg Jennings
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Old 10-02-2003, 09:40 AM   #6
SeiserL
 
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Learning to "blend" and "harmonize" with life has been a path for me, even in the martial arts.

Came from a real bashing background in the streets of Detroit. Started martial arts, but couldn't get my head into it. Wasn't disciplined. Took it up again in the service, but yet more bashing. Later found FMA/JKD, more flowing and concepts, but still the bashing application.

Always drawn from the heart to Aikido. Finally found someone who could utilize the principles in "blending" and "harmony" to the training and application. Felt like I had come home.

I never feel like I "get it". Its more like I feel like I am resisting it less. To me, that's "aiki" in Aikido and life.

PS: Was great finally meeting you (Paula) at the Expo.

Lynn Seiser PhD
Yondan Aikido & FMA/JKD
We do not rise to the level of our expectations, but fall to the level of our training. Train well. KWATZ!
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Old 10-02-2003, 10:09 AM   #7
Paula Lydon
Dojo: Aikido Shugenkai
Location: Colorado
Join Date: Jun 2002
Posts: 427
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~~Hi Greg,

~~Not a butthead question; a very good point in that (like most things in reality) none of us views anything exactly the same way, we can only struggle toward a close approximation. You will never see the color blue in the sky that I see and even the word is only a klunky tool.

~~From where I'm at in this phase of developement, my take on aiki is that it's when you move outside your 'little' self and are able to blend with the breath of the instant, without any mental/emotional/psychological or even physical debris. On a linear plane you would say that the instant is always arriving and always departing, but ultimately (spherically) there's only that intangible nowness. You cannot grasp it, you can only be it. Aiki is just the word of the moment.

~~The times I have felt this in my life I can count on one hand, but it's been enough to sustain me and keep me following, as though I'm still weighed down by my personal crap and so can't catch up to 'the instant'. All concepts to describe feelings. Like Lynn, I keep working on myself to be less in my own way..(?) Make any sense? Anyway, that's my take on aiki at present.

~~Great to finaly meet you too, Lynn. Wish we'd had time to actually visit together. Perhaps on another encounter

~~Paula~~
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