Originally Posted by
Benkei the Monk
....So it seems that aiki is more a concept than a school. So you can see aiki as a principle that you can reconduct to many aspects of martial arts. if they are in a jujutsu form and you apply aiki they became aikijujutsu, if kenjutsu you apply aiki in kenjutsu. Aikijutsu is the art of applying aiki in many fields, isn't it? This is a very interesting point of view. in this way Daito ryu, named at very beginning only jujutsu by Takeda Sokaku sensei, is a ryu where aiki is extensively taught, but not the only koryu (as stated for Yanagi ryu aiki bugei as Threadgill sensei stated)
Do I properly understand ?
No expert am I, but I think we must factor in Ueshiba Morihei. It was at the suggestion of Ueshiba's guru, Deguchi Onisaburo, that Takeda changed the name of his art to "aiki"-whatever. I suspect that this is not due wholly to any technical resonances with the prevailing concepts of aiki, but rather due to what has been characterized as "phonetic etymology," i.e., punning.
The aiki of aikijujutsu and aikido are rendered differently; AJJ renders aiki as a compound with a singular meaning (something causing confusion or imbalance or distraction on the part of UKE); aikido renders aiki as two distinct terms with two meanings ("matching/harmony" and "spirit/will/intention," et al.)
This is typical language play surviving from the medieval period in the New Religions (Omoto, et al., e.g., "Aikido is love"-"love being pronounced in Jpn as "ai"). Indeed when you read current scholarly accounts of medieval religion, they almost apologize for the emphasis on language inflicting such technical verbiage on the unsuspecting readers as metaphor, paranomasia, metonymy, synecdoche, etc. I suspect often the purpose of names was not meaning, but aspiration.
Don J. Modesto
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
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