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Old 02-01-2012, 10:09 AM   #1
David Orange
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Stop My Technique?

It suddenly occurred to me that a favorite phrase, which has been posited and accepted regularly in aikido circles, is actually "backward" from the problem it describes.

The phrase is "stop my technique," as in "If uke knows what I'm going to do, he can easily stop my technique."

Variants include "stopped my technique," "stopping," etc.

So I was thinking about my meeting with Minoru "Ark" Akuzawa and he asked me to do an aikido technique for his attack. He gave some gentle, obvious shomen uchi symbolic attack and I "blended" with it and was "leading" him, when suddenly, "he stopped "following" and the "connection" that I had with him, and by which I was "leading" him caused all my energetic contributions to the technique to rebound back into me myself and I was jolted away from Ark as he suddenly simply stopped.

When I remebered this today, the epiphany was immediate: "He stopped himself." I knew that, of course, but the significance was how it relates to this phrase I see so often.

Saying that uke "stopped my technique" is utterly backward. Uke doesn't stop my technique. Uke stops himself. If he can do that--simply control himself--my technique falls apart on its own.

So now we're at the key point I mentioned, which is where aikido becomes "backward." When I left Japan in 1995, I took the idea that aikido has mainly been taught "backward." This came from application of Feldenkrais awareness to the twenty years I had been actively training in aikido, the final five of those years being in Japan. I saw that the art was taught from technique back into self, as if you study a tree from the leaves into the limbs and finally down to the root. And this would explain why so few people get very far with aikido. The techniques can be made infinite and most people find it very difficult to learn infinity. They would be almost guaranteed never to see past the multitude of "techniques" to the real source of the roots, which is the individual body--oneself. If they taught you first about how your self operates, technique would come easily. But in the aikido teaching system, the plethora of variations of swirling techniques can take one far away from self and make it more difficult to return to one's own root.

Besides the Feldenkrais influence on my aikido experience, Minoru Mochizuki once told me to "look at everything backward" and anyone who knows me can attest to how backward I am. Maybe Sensei was trying to get me to see frontward, like everyone else...because, you see...backward thinking for me would amount to...normal thinking for everyone else...maybe?

Anyway, from this key point, we can go several places and return, so that I can show you a series of connections between aikido and self and the necessity of backward thinking and you can see what it might mean to you. I will appreciate any corrections.

I started to make this thread a post in the Primer on Aiki thread, but while it resonates with things I laid out there, it could also divert that thread with a whole different thrust. Still, this thread will deal specifically with ideas in the Primer thread, so if something here isn't clear, it might be clarified in that other thread.

The thrust here comes from the common idea that uke stops our technique when all he does is stop himself.

If you think about that for just a moment, you can see how odd that idea really is. Our technique is supposed to "take his center," as so many people like to say. Yet the thinking of the practitioners of this art somehow attribute the stopping of our technique to the person whose movement we supposedly control. Now, I knew that Akuzawa stopped himself and I never actually thought of it as stopping my technique. But this moment of fine differentiation explained one of my biggest irritations about aikido: why is the idea of a self-controlling uke so despicable to general participants in aikido?

I think this comes from one of Ueshiba's best-known sayings, which I will paraphrase as "When the enemy attacks me, he has already thrown his center away." Or maybe it was "spirit' instead of "center."

Unfortunately, though this statement is very true in either sense, it was never meant to be an instruction to uke to throw his own center away, but it has been taken like that and teachers instruct new students to attack like an 45 year old smoker who has recently had a car wreck and gotten drunk afterward.

So if you're actively teaching the student to "throw away his center," how hard is it going to be to teach him to have immoveable center?

So right away, this sets up an aikido that's like origami: it folds up. So the student can be both aikido guy and (turn, flip, fold, reverse) voila! Now he's the drunken attacker whose sword strikes and punches go a few inches to one side, while he flings himself like a ragdoll at nage and misses, like the guy who intends to throw himself at the ground and miss, except that he doesn't miss.

And when he is being the aikido guy, uke can "stop his technique" if he knows what technique is coming....

It shoud be simple to see that Ueshiba was not instructing us to throw our centers away to practice aikido. Mochizuki didn't throw his center away. Nor did Shioda or Saito. But now, everyone does.

So this takes us to the "mind" of aikido. Can you see as soon as I write that, what's coming???? It's backward, isn't it? If you have some seriously backward idea at the very heart of your practice, how is it somehow going to reverse itself into right thinking? Somewhere in the intricate turns and swirls and reversals of the techniques? No. It's only going to get further lost in there, which, again, is why it's so hard to learn the techniques.

Now, this is where the concepts in the Primer thread come in. There I dfferentiated some major separate systems of human being. Like a house has the physical structure, the plumbing, the electrical, the gas and so on, human beings have bones, connective tissue, muscle, ki, mind and kokoro. We have to differentiate between these elements and understand each on its own terms. Wouldn't a homeowner be an idiot to call an electrician to fix his toilet? In the US, maybe...but in Japan, they have electric toilets. So...

But what if a student of a Japanese art reads that the Japanese call electricians to work on their toilets, so when his toilet breaks, he doesn't know enough about his own toilet to know that an electrician should not be involved. But he gets into serious arguments with electricians on the phone and tells them they don't know what the hell they're talking about. Gets mad at his wife.... There's a story of a Japanese karate teacher who's getting too near the wall as he's leading the group in a kata, so he hops back two steps more from the wall and continues the kata with enough room. Years later, he comes back and the whole group performs the kata with the two backward hops...

So because of misinterpretation of Ueshiba's statement of a philosophical/spiritual truth, many people have incorporated the loss into their bodies instead of Ueshiba's real intent of teaching people not to throw their center away. So speaking of the six elements of mind, body, ki, bones, etc., we see where the mental idea of Ueshiba's statement created a confusion of the systems of mind and body. No wonder in such a confused system one can't recognize his own ki. He doesn't know how to use his mind to understand Ueshiba's statement and he doesn't know how to use his body to move and he is confused about how to coordinate that confused system into these intricate techniques that are separate from the self from which the student is also separated. So how can he use his ki? And on top of this, he is trying to use muscles to do the work that should be borne by the connective tissue...and can't control his breathing. And to top it off, when he goes in to a technique...he doesn't know whether he's supposed to do it intentionally.....

And to such a collection of neuroses, an attacker who can stop and start his own movement is understood to be a person who stops me. He stops my technique.

No. He stops himself and I think it is I who has been stopped.

That is just utter confusion, resulting from failure to recognize one's own body and thus to be able to control one's own body. And this results from a willing acceptance of an observation of a special mental truth into a rule for daily physical training. So to correct this, I think the first thing is to recognize that Ueshiba's statement is true and that it is not instruction. Recognize the nature of one's own body: bones, connective tissue, muscle and blood united in a system that breathes. The body has a nervous system that compels it to stand upright and a sensory system that tells it how to maintain uprightness in movement without falling. Any training that takes away from that is bad training. It could be just outright wrong, or it may take away from natural orientation because we have misunderstood it and we're applying it in the wrong way--using the mind to hanlde a ki matter, muscles to do what should be done effortlessly by the bones and connective tissue. We have to apply bone to matters of bone, muscle to muscle, connective tissue to connective tissue and use each system in its proper way, not confusing it with the use of another system. Once that is done, rather than confusing the uses of the various systems, we can coordinate those systems in a harmonious arrangement with each part supplying the exact necessary proportion of the whoe for a given action at a given time. Think of it like a band with drums, piano, guitar, upright bass, sax and trumpet. Each instrument is used in a dfferent way from the others. You might say that the sax and trumpet are very similar and that is because they represent the mind and the ki, which are very similar even though they are completely different. It just points up the necessity of even more careful distinction between mind and ki.

But I guess I've made the point that aikido is taught in a "backward" way and that the solution to make it reveal its deep truth is to reverse the view point into oneself and reach out into aikido from the root of self. Learn how the self really works and how to use the various elements of oneself as they should be used to add up a a whole far greater than what one has as one is.

So let's take one final backward look at that old bromide: Masakatsu Agatsu, commonly translated as "Correct victory is victory over oneself," meaning that one has to somehow defeat himself to correct victory.

Turn that around: Correct victory is to win oneself."

To me, that means that we win the right to be ourselves, free and independent, rather than beholden to doing irrational things for someone else to the point that we don't even know who or what we are anymore. That's no way to live, whether you're cowing to a corporation or to a shihan or any kind of master. You go to a person like that to show you how to win yourself--not to lose yourself to him or her. "What does it proft one to gain the whole world if one loses one's own soul?"

Ueshiba was certainly "himself" above and beyond all else. He loved to do martial arts but achievement of the full and indisputable right to be himself was his deeper achievement, in my view.

Thoughts?

David

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

"Eternity forever!"

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Old 02-01-2012, 11:01 AM   #2
Abasan
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Re: Stop My Technique?

Since I know you've handled guns before I'll think this one out loud.

How does it feel when you hold a loaded weapon as opposed to an empty one?
How does it feel to hold a gun with one in the chamber and the safety off?

The same gun, but the feeling would be different me thinks.

An uke who is switched on will feel different. And uke who is switched off is different. He can also be considered dead. The only meaningful element here would be if uke Is switched on but aggressive or passive.

Aikido can be done physically and it can be done well. It just gets so much better when you can do it with heart that's all. The training that takes place though is to arrive to the point where you let aikido happen instead of doing it.

Draw strength from stillness. Learn to act without acting. And never underestimate a samurai cat.
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Old 02-01-2012, 11:17 AM   #3
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Re: Stop My Technique?

LOL

Yes agreed.

We connect and move ourselves, moving the other person.

Likewise, if connected, if they stop, we stop.

Compliments and appreciation.

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 02-01-2012, 11:33 AM   #4
jonreading
 
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Re: Stop My Technique?

Where's my like button?

This is consistent with what I have felt from well-structured aikido people too. I just tell them they have bad energy though...
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Old 02-01-2012, 11:49 AM   #5
gregstec
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Re: Stop My Technique?

Gee, Dave, sounds like you don't know if you are coming or are going

If uke gives you their center in the attack, nage can just accept it and do a technique as long as uke keeps giving you their center - a lot of Aikido waza is taught that way. However, as you found out, if uke takes their center back (or does not give it up initially) nage must go and take uke's center and keep it for any technique to truly work. The former is a method where uke remains the attacker and nage remains the defender and the latter is where nage becomes the attacker.

IMO, nage needs to attack the attack and take uke's center while keeping their own - in essence, they become the attacker and stay that way until they decide to stop the exchange - uke has no say in it while their center is not theirs. Sounds pretty simple and logical - but not all that easy; first, nage needs to learn how to control their own center before they can go off in search of other centers to control - I think someone once said that aiki starts at home, etc

Greg
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Old 02-01-2012, 01:15 PM   #6
David Orange
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Re: Stop My Technique?

Quote:
Greg Steckel wrote: View Post
IMO, nage needs to attack the attack
Mochizuki Sensei described aiki as exactly that.

David

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

"Eternity forever!"

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Old 02-01-2012, 05:34 PM   #7
gregstec
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Re: Stop My Technique?

Quote:
David Orange wrote: View Post
Mochizuki Sensei described aiki as exactly that.

David
Interesting - he was one of those pre-war, Daito-ryu guys, right ?

Greg

Last edited by gregstec : 02-01-2012 at 05:39 PM.
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Old 02-01-2012, 08:27 PM   #8
phitruong
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Re: Stop My Technique?

Quote:
Greg Steckel wrote: View Post
IMO, nage needs to attack the attack and take uke's center while keeping their own - in essence, they become the attacker and stay that way until they decide to stop the exchange - uke has no say in it while their center is not theirs.
Greg
isn't aiki making nage and uke one unit, sort of a four-legged animal, like a donkey? if one unit, where is the attack?

"budo is putting on cold, wet, sweat stained gi with a smile and a snarl" - your truly
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Old 02-02-2012, 01:40 AM   #9
Rupert Atkinson
 
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Re: Stop My Technique?

Hi Greg, I don't know who you are but what you do is what I do so I understand what you mean.

Quote:
Greg Steckel wrote: View Post
Gee, Dave, sounds like you don't know if you are coming or are going

IMO, nage needs to attack the attack and take uke's center while keeping their own - in essence, they become the attacker and stay that way until they decide to stop the exchange - uke has no say in it while their center is not theirs. Sounds pretty simple and logical - but not all that easy; first, nage needs to learn how to control their own center before they can go off in search of other centers to control - I think someone once said that aiki starts at home, etc

Greg

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Old 02-02-2012, 06:45 AM   #10
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Re: Stop My Technique?

Quote:
Greg Steckel wrote: View Post
IMO, nage needs to attack the attack and take uke's center while keeping their own - in essence, they become the attacker and stay that way until they decide to stop the exchange - uke has no say in it while their center is not theirs. Sounds pretty simple and logical - but not all that easy; first, nage needs to learn how to control their own center before they can go off in search of other centers to control - I think someone once said that aiki starts at home, etc
As my former jo sensei once said (after I said, "You make it look so simple!"): "It IS simple. It ISN'T easy."
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Old 02-02-2012, 06:48 AM   #11
gregstec
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Re: Stop My Technique?

Quote:
Phi Truong wrote: View Post
isn't aiki making nage and uke one unit, sort of a four-legged animal, like a donkey? if one unit, where is the attack?
IMO, making an aiki connection with another is a process with steps involved - as has been said: "aiki in me before aiki in you and me" Attack the attack is a step in the process. Essentially, you go and get uke's center and make it part of yours that you control - once that connection is made and kept, two are now one and there is only one center; which is yours - neat thing is that once you have aiki in you, you can put your center anywhere you want to Make sense?

Greg
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Old 02-02-2012, 06:52 AM   #12
gregstec
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Re: Stop My Technique?

Quote:
Rupert Atkinson wrote: View Post
Hi Greg, I don't know who you are but what you do is what I do so I understand what you mean.
Hi Rupert, most times I don't know who I am either - so we have something in common thanks for the reply.

Greg
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Old 02-04-2012, 01:30 PM   #13
Rupert Atkinson
 
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Re: Stop My Technique?

I think I have progressed through three main training approaches. First, for years too long, I trained the techniques. Technique, technique, technique, etc. and thought that would get me where I wanted to be. Nope. Then, I focused on what I call lines of power - the direction of the attack, the defence, the balance, the way/direction uke grips, and so forth, and thought that would get me where I wanted to be. Nope. And now I am focusing on uke's energy and am finally getting somewhere. You can liken it to either taking balance or energy - but it is the same thing - and it seems to be what Gregg (see above) explained. You need to 'have them' from the first instant. At first, it is hard to create a whole technique and far easier to do a shorter version of everything. In time, you learn to keep uke's balance for longer (before throwing or immobilising) so as to make the aikido shapes work properly. But in reality, self-defence, it works far better to keep everything short and sharp. I am still working on it but am finally getting somewhere. It works against both static and dynamic attacks and I like to find people who resist because it seems to work no matter what. There are some people I can't do it on and it is they I like to seek out as I see it as the best, honest, way forwards. So, yes, please stop my technique (not good for beginners though). Still trying to figure it all out ... but not relying on anyone to show me. And Minoru Akuzawa anihilated me too - because he is 100 times better than me, and the answer is easy: athough I have really up'ed my own training in terms of fitness, he trains a lot harder than most anyone I have ever seen. Don't blame him for stopping you; don't label it as anti-aikido becuase then you won't deal with it; you have to learn to deal with it becuase it is real. If someone stops you, you need to find a way to re-initiate their movement, and if you were good at it, they wouldn't have stopped you in the first place. I'm still working on this too.

Last edited by Rupert Atkinson : 02-04-2012 at 01:36 PM.

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Old 02-04-2012, 03:04 PM   #14
Mario Tobias
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Re: Stop My Technique?

Quote:
Rupert Atkinson wrote: View Post
I think I have progressed through three main training approaches. First, for years too long, I trained the techniques. Technique, technique, technique, etc. and thought that would get me where I wanted to be. Nope. Then, I focused on what I call lines of power - the direction of the attack, the defence, the balance, the way/direction uke grips, and so forth, and thought that would get me where I wanted to be. Nope. And now I am focusing on uke's energy and am finally getting somewhere.
Hi Rupert,

Interesting. I have gone through the same phases as you. I only realized that focusing on techniques don't work. Bottomline, techniques in themselves don't work. I guess we are undergoing the phases of shu-ha-ri.

Last edited by akiy : 02-04-2012 at 04:15 PM. Reason: Fixed quote tag
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Old 02-05-2012, 02:17 AM   #15
Carsten Möllering
 
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Re: Stop My Technique?

Quote:
Mario Tobias wrote: View Post
... I guess we are undergoing the phases of shu-ha-ri.
But isn't shu ha ri process that takes place within the certain, given techiques?
Sure there is the phenomenon you can move freely, without any technique or creating a "new technique" every second. But as far as I understand this is not the indicator of having reached a "ri-stadium".

As far as I understand, shu ha ri are different levels of doing the seemingly very same.
There's a video of Endo I posted recently. The outer movements are (nearly) exactly the same like now. But what is "in" his technique is different. Can see it clearly. (I think it was just you who said so?)

Or looking at koryu: The kata don't change through transmission. When looking at videos of Sugino, isn't there something we call "ri" to be seen when he shows the very old patterns of his style?
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Old 02-05-2012, 11:10 PM   #16
Carl Thompson
 
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Re: Stop My Technique?

Quote:
David Orange wrote: View Post
So I was thinking about my meeting with Minoru "Ark" Akuzawa and he asked me to do an aikido technique for his attack. He gave some gentle, obvious shomen uchi symbolic attack and I "blended" with it and was "leading" him, when suddenly, "he stopped "following" and the "connection" that I had with him, and by which I was "leading" him caused all my energetic contributions to the technique to rebound back into me myself and I was jolted away from Ark as he suddenly simply stopped.

When I remebered this today, the epiphany was immediate: "He stopped himself." I knew that, of course, but the significance was how it relates to this phrase I see so often.

Saying that uke "stopped my technique" is utterly backward. Uke doesn't stop my technique. Uke stops himself. If he can do that--simply control himself--my technique falls apart on its own.
Hello David

I've been meaning to catch you discussing Akuzawa sensei in relation to Mochizuki Sensei for a while. From what I gathered in my very limited time training with the Seifukai, stopping technique was not so unusual there. I got shut down big time during my first practice. A lot of the time it was by people physically weaker than me so I was/am interested in "how" I got shut down. It's been a while since you were kind enough to teach me a little about the history of the Seifukai, but I was wondering if you could elaborate a little more in the light of recent discussions in the aikido community.

How does Akuzawa Sensei compare to Mochizuki Sensei? I didn't get to train with Mochizuki Sensei himself, but I did get to feel his direct students such as Sugiyama Sensei. I realise Seifukai/Yoseikan is a sogo budo but I wonder how you would compare the feeling of training with someone like Mochizuki to Akuzawa Sensei. What I personally want to know is, do you think the IP/aiki of Akuzawa Sensei is something that's completely absent from Mochizuki Sensei's aikido or something that simply exists on a more profound scale in Akuzawa Sensei's Aunkai Bujutsu? Or is it more complicated than that?

Kind regards

Carl
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Old 02-06-2012, 09:10 PM   #17
David Orange
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Re: Stop My Technique?

Quote:
Lynn Seiser wrote: View Post
LOL

Yes agreed.

We connect and move ourselves, moving the other person.

Likewise, if connected, if they stop, we stop.

Compliments and appreciation.
Thanks very much. Coming from you, it means something.

David

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

"Eternity forever!"

www.esotericorange.com
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Old 02-06-2012, 10:00 PM   #18
David Orange
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Re: Stop My Technique?

Quote:
Carl Thompson wrote: View Post
From what I gathered in my very limited time training with the Seifukai, stopping technique was not so unusual there. I got shut down big time during my first practice. A lot of the time it was by people physically weaker than me so I was/am interested in "how" I got shut down. It's been a while since you were kind enough to teach me a little about the history of the Seifukai, but I was wondering if you could elaborate a little more in the light of recent discussions in the aikido community.
Past the raw beginner stage, Mochizuki's students gradually increase the resistance to make you do the technique right and to let you know if you're not doing that. There's some good shots of just that in the several clips I posted on another thread, of Washizu Sensei's gyokushin ryu aikido, which is pretty much the same as seifukai, which is pretty much the same as Mochzuki Sensei's old Shizuoka yoseikan budo.

Quote:
Carl Thompson wrote: View Post
How does Akuzawa Sensei compare to Mochizuki Sensei? I didn't get to train with Mochizuki Sensei himself, but I did get to feel his direct students such as Sugiyama Sensei. I realise Seifukai/Yoseikan is a sogo budo but I wonder how you would compare the feeling of training with someone like Mochizuki to Akuzawa Sensei.
I couldn't compare them. Sensei was in his 80s when I was at his dojo--71 the first time I met him--and he didn't get out and do too much wild stuff. Ark is younger than I am by a good many years, and what he does is very different. But is there something inside the yoseikan techniques that is not visible? I can say that when I first met Mochizuki Sensei in Montreal in 1980, he put me in an elbow lock and I had the weird sensation that I could not move any part of my body, including the other arm, which was free. He just seemed to lock me into a whole-body lock through the elbow. But he acted as if he hadn't done anything at all and I never asked any questions about it. When I was at the dojo, a lot of those guys were much stronger than you would think, feeling how their bodies did technique, and once Kenmotsu grabbed me by both hands, two-on-two from the front, and I couldn't move in any effective way. I could move my feet and my whole body, but the point where he held me didn't move, he didn't move and I couldn't move or escape the hold. Looking at the gyokushin ryu clips, I noticed Washizu holding someone in a similar way. The guy could wriggle ineffectually, but he couldn't move.

http://www.geocities.jp/wyttksaiki/douga/douga01.html

For example, see the sixth clip down on the left side. The aite is a white belt, but if you see how Washizu holds him with very little effort and a relaxed posture, that's the kind of thing I mean. So I think they actually "had it" but they just didn't show it very overtly. I think what happened was, they would grab you like that and let you see that you couldn't move and you were supposed to say, "Sensei, how do you do that?" and maybe they would tell you and maybe they wouldn't. But since I didn't ask, no one told me and I just thought it was something you could develop just from going to classes. Definitely, though, this was not directly taught as part of technique training.

Another thing that impressed me was when Akira Tezuka, contemporary to both Washizu and Kenmotsu, sheared a makiwara post off at the floor with a low kick. I don't know exactly what happened but there was a huge heavy bag strapped to the makiwara post and I saw Tezuka looking at it and then he just suddenly did a little ankle-level kick to the heavy back and the makiwara post sheared off at the floor! Tezuka could really put it on you. He was a great person in many, many ways.

Quote:
Carl Thompson wrote: View Post
What I personally want to know is, do you think the IP/aiki of Akuzawa Sensei is something that's completely absent from Mochizuki Sensei's aikido or something that simply exists on a more profound scale in Akuzawa Sensei's Aunkai Bujutsu? Or is it more complicated than that?
I guess I'd have to say it's more complicated. If they had something similar to Ark's, they didn't often show it and they didn't teach it openly, which, I think, is consistent with martial arts through history. Maybe you had to notice and ask and just keep watching more carefully and work it out for yourself, or maybe they would teach it directly if you asked. Washizu did tell me once that you can tell if someone has aiki by looking at their fingertips, but I was never able to work out exactly what he meant. I hope I someday have the chance to discuss that with him in person.

Anyway, I'm certainly glad that we have people like Dan, Ark and Mike to make us face the fact that the "art" and "technique" of aikido is quite capable of hiding very deep information and power while the practitioner appears just like everyone else.

Hope that's helpful.

David

Last edited by David Orange : 02-06-2012 at 10:04 PM.

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Old 02-06-2012, 10:58 PM   #19
Carl Thompson
 
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Re: Stop My Technique?

Quote:
David Orange wrote: View Post
I guess I'd have to say it's more complicated. If they had something similar to Ark's, they didn't often show it and they didn't teach it openly, which, I think, is consistent with martial arts through history. Maybe you had to notice and ask and just keep watching more carefully and work it out for yourself, or maybe they would teach it directly if you asked. Washizu did tell me once that you can tell if someone has aiki by looking at their fingertips, but I was never able to work out exactly what he meant. I hope I someday have the chance to discuss that with him in person.

Anyway, I'm certainly glad that we have people like Dan, Ark and Mike to make us face the fact that the "art" and "technique" of aikido is quite capable of hiding very deep information and power while the practitioner appears just like everyone else.

Hope that's helpful.

David
Yes! That was very helpful.

Thank you very much.

Carl
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Old 02-07-2012, 11:30 AM   #20
ChrisMoses
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Re: Stop My Technique?

Great post David.

It's an interesting distinction between "blocking" and "stopping". When uke "blocks" a technique they inherently are applying force against the the directions that nage is attempting. This often creates alternate vulnerabilities which are fairly trivial for a decent practitioner to adjust into another technique. When you are able to really just "stop" a technique, this is not the case. Rather than simply trade one vulnerability for another, uke is able to reduce nage's influence over them without reacting against nage.

Chris Moses
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