by Itten on Sun Dec 10, 2017 12:39 am
I also like Windwalkers analogy. If I may borrow it for a moment? This to me is what “systems” are: a packed parachute delivered to you by someone else. It needs unpacking before it can really be considered useable. I’m a long time Aikido man, along with plenty of cross training, and I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard people say that this or that loch breaks bones. However, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, I’ve seen very few broken bones. Unlike chokes, or even strikes, it’s hard to almost break a bone, so most people are not going to unpack that one. Then there are all the ultimate secret lethal single strikes to meridians and nerve clusters. I still hear people insisting that an upward palm strike to the nose will drive the bone into the brain. Bone, what bone?.,,
So we are left with competition and sparring as the major ways to unpack the parachute, unless you are military, and even then, some of your unpacking will have to wait till it’s not a test jump. Most military guys rely on the experience of those who have survived previous jumps. You don’t get to hear so many stories from the other guys.
Tom: your comments and questioning of what to do with this internal stuff if you get it is something that been keeping me busy for the 10 years. As I see it now, and I’ll just talk about Aikido, you can practice Aikido to develop some aspects of IP, but putting IP back into Aikido, as it now is, seems almost impossible, for me anyway. For example, I have developed a lot more short power over the years of internal training. If practicing outside of the fixed uke/tori format there are many moments where I have to break of the natural flow (yi, chi, li), which is not really leading to a pin but to something more explosive. This is also true with throwing, which tends to become less beautiful but more effective. In other words. For me, there are times when the system is a constraint to the natural expression of the dynamic outcome that belongs to the moment. I believe that this is more true of aikido and tai chi than it is of boxing , wrestling and MMA because of the limitations imposed by style, even though ring arts have to contend with a rule base.
Having had the good fortune to cross train and gently spar outside of aikido I have been able to unpack a little bit of the art but the repacking is starting to look like a bit of a different parachute. Am I then damaging the legacy of O Sensei, who unpacked Daito Ryu amongst other arts, and left out a lot that he thought was no longer relevant, or am I following his path, as Ellis Amdur suggested in “Hidden in Plain Sight”.
I am not sure that “enhanced” aikido or “super” tai chi is the goal. For me, it is the fullest expression of “my” art.
Respect
Alec