WVMark wrote:Ashura wrote:There are some people around who claim to teach "aiki" or some body method similar to "aiki" with some success and some real skills but always within a determined environnement. I have never denied that working on the body would greatly enhance one´s skills. I simply want to point out to the skills shown in a dojo do not necessarily translate well in a live confrontation wether it is a competion or a street fight.
Ugh. From the founders taught techniques to solo training won't make you an MMA champ to Deguchi, you're moving all over the place. All without any supported research. I've layed out two detailed documents with supporting research. The world has shown that millions of people training techniques from Modern Aikido have not reached any level of aiki abilities. I'm told it's a similar situation in Daito ryu. Twice told tale. The masses get techniques. Only a few select get the secrets. Takeda said not to teach the secrets of aiki but to a few. Sagawa, Tokimune, Horikawa all followed those footsteps. Kondo outright states it on his website. Ueshiba was the only one to break that tradition and teach the secrets to more than one or two.
That secret was Daito ryu aiki. It changed the body. Once that process was started, all those techniques started to make sense.
All without any supported research. Well, thank you for that one. Don´t worry, supported research are on their way.
Just to make things clearer: are you talking about the secrets or THE secret? Because it is indeed very different. Mr Kondo, whom you cite and quote, seems to talk about secrets. Would you say that Mr Kondo possesses aiki? You do not seriously believe that the quote on Mr Kondo´s web site is accurate and reliable?
There are a lot of information in your post which are not clear. You said: Takeda said not to teach the secrets of aiki but to a few. All right, when did he say that and to whom? I thought that aiki was a body method, a way to train the body in order to change it from within, how many secrets are to be taught?
I think you are confusing a lot of things. Aiki or whatever the name is a body method which is developed in a certain way throught specific solo and paired exercices. Secrets are more like Heiho (strategies) and it is true that there are quite a lot of "secrets" (some would call them practical experience and good sense) within Heiho. Tokimune got a lot of them directly from his father and compiled them in what is called the "Tokimune notes". Those notes cover of lot of different fields from the martial arts to the Mikkyo.
If Sokaku only taught the secrets of aiki to one or two, who are they in your opinion? Sagawa makes it clear in transparent power that he was not the choosen one but that he could grasp aiki nevertheless further adding that he and only he really got it as opposed to all the other imitators and that he even surpassed Sokaku in his mastery of skills. The imitators in question would be among others: Ueshiba Morihei, Takeda Tokimune, Yoshida Kotaro, Horikawa father and son, Hisa Takuma, Matsuda Toshimi and so on. Who was the lucky on? How did all those people eventually get skilled? Were they skilled by the way? What does it mean to you? Please specify.
The people below were all awarded Kyoju dairi from Sokaku from 1902 to 1941.
Sato Kanmi
Shimoe Shutaro
Harada Shinzo
Mikami Tomiji
Sagawa Nenokichi
Yoshida Kotaro
Ueshiba Morihei
Asano Seikyo
Sagawa Yukiyoshi
Matsuda Hosaku
Miyano Hikojiro
Mae Kikutaro
Horikawa Taiso
Sato Seishiro
Sato Keisuke
Hisa Takuma
Yoshimura Yoshiteru
Yokoyama Eijiro
Nakatsu Heizaburo
Akune Masayoshi
Kawazoe Kuniyoshi
Takahashi Jun'ichi
Kusumoto Koichiro
Tonedate Masao
Harada Jozaburo
Togawa Tadae
Uchida Suematsu
Tei Kaichi
Yamamoto Kakuyoshi
As you can see, there are some big names in this list, more than one or two as you imply it. By the way, in order to get this licence, knowledge and, I assume, mastery of the following techniques was required: Shoden (today called Hiden) Mokuroku consisting of 118 omote techniques + an unspecified number of ura waza, aiki no jutsu, Hiden Ogi and Goshin´yo no Te, all catalogues with omote and ura waza.
So secret (Body method) or secrets (within the rechniques, strategies, suggestions) or a combination of the two? Body method and techniques? I think that you do not have a clear picture of those aspects which is not surprising since you are obviously not familiar with Daito-ryu teaching methodology. Supported research is fine but time spent on the mat with the right people in the right places is even better.
Aiki is refined body mechanics. Sagawa, whom you mention all the time said: "you render your opponent powerless through an internal action that is not visible on the outside". The internal action should work with a completely relaxed body and a strong lower body fondation (mostly strong hips and legs). Solo training is meant to train and master the internal action not visible on the outside and the strong fondation. Some exercices are very famous and the japanese magazine hiden did publish several articles with detailed explanations about them in the past.
Once again, I´m not denying the value of those body changing methods nor that they will not enhance dramatically one´s skills. I have never said that, like I never said that you could get aiki from techniques only. Here again, there might be a semantic confusion between technique and form. May be, you are refering to people working on the form only, thus learning choregraphies while techniques are much deeper than that.
Even Sagawa thought that techniques were of value:
You students don´t realize that that there can be many different ways to apply the techniques you already know. You limit yourselves to the what you have been shown. If you only become aware of the different applications for the first time when I point them out, it proves that you have not been thinking.
Back in the past, things like karate and boxing did not exist, so even in Daito-ryu there were no techniques specifically to fight those forms. Today, you must find ways to counter the moves of these and other martial arts. It is commendable to preserve what´s good about the old ways, you must, however, discard what is ineffective and developp your own techniques. Otherwise, there is no evolution, no progress.
Whenever a technique does not work right, I´ll lie awake at night trying to figure it out. But you students don´t give it so much thought, do you? You don´t try to find out why it did not work. If you spend time thinking, you will discover ideas on your own. I can teach you the form but I can´t teach all the little details. You must discover those through your own effort.
I was frustrated when a technique did not work. I would stay up all night solving the problem. I could not sleep because i was so motivated to find the answer. How could you ever become good at this art if you become accustomed to your techniques not working?
When I could not beat someone, I would not sleep until I could figure out what to do. But today´s students immediately stop thinking about why they lost.
You will fail if you think that what you have got is good enough and refuse to study other arts. You will become the frog in a well. I can´t tell you bhow much sumo and boxing I studied. Among other things, I set ou to discover their moves, develop effective counter moves, and figure out how to improve these techniques.
As you see, even for Sagawa it was not all about the body, research on techniques was an important part of his training regimen.
A lot of people do not realize that it took these men decades of hard and dedicated work even after they were told „the secret“. When we talk about Sokaku, Ueshiba or Sagawa, we are talking about the accomplished martial artists but not about their journey into the martial arts and their evolution throughout the years.
Sagawa claimed to have understood aiki whern he was 17 and to have reached his peak when he got 70 years old. This evolution took place over 5 decades of hard work. As you might know, Sagawa was very wealthy and did not need to work to make a living so he could train without having to worry for financial issues. This makes a huge difference. How many hours a day can we dedicate today in our „modern society“? Here lies the biggest problem in my opinion. There are skilled people, even extremely skilled people, some might call them geniuses but we should stop believing that they are all mighty and invicible and that they can apply their skills at will without effort or struggle.