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Thread: Discovering Aikido: Principles for Practical Learning

  1. #16
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    Rupert, you and I talked some years back-- at least 10, maybe as many as 15. As a fairly analytical person who trained aikido as a martial art, I found you to be one of the few respectable characters one comes upon in this hobby that fosters so much ... whatever. For that reason, I read your book, just finished.

    Very insightful, and as refreshing to read as it was to read the things you were saying before. With respect: well done.

    There are easily a dozen points that I could pluck and ponder from there, but two seem most salient right now: in all your years, on less than one hand can you count the number of artists who could do "it," and you've got to take responsibility for your art. If that's not gospel, I don't know what is.
    Last edited by Adam Alexander; 2nd January 2021 at 03:47.
    Always the man in whom thought thrusts ahead of thought, allows the goal to move far off.

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  3. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by Adam Alexander View Post
    in all your years, on less than one hand can you count the number of artists who could do "it," and you've got to take responsibility for your art.
    And don't expect them to be able to teach 'it' to you. Just check out their students - none of them can do 'it'. Indeed, they are not even searching, just endlessly plodding through a grading syllabus.

  4. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by rupert View Post
    And don't expect them to be able to teach 'it' to you. Just check out their students - none of them can do 'it'. Indeed, they are not even searching, just endlessly plodding through a grading syllabus.
    Seems to me that the pertinent question is, and always was, "Why would anyone expect them to be able to?" The salient issue there, in my estimation, is self-realization, and the dilemma with self-realization is also addressed in your book.

    Lack of self-realization, not surprisingly, is a lack of knowing what one has to sell. If I can’t accurately assess who I am, how can I accurately convey what I'm selling, when what I’m selling is part of my identity? These are “arts” not because the methods are secret, but because when I demonstrate my technique, I am demonstrating who I am-- we give to the world a pure expression of our identity.

    If we accept that as fact, then we’re also accepting as fact that a mind-body connection exists-- our body “state” conveys our mind state.

    However, as you communicate in your book, the personal, intellectual challenge to the self that is suffered through martial conflict is anathema in the culture of this art, so the psychological pressure necessary to achieve self-realization is not existent in the culture, so the practitioners never develop a martial art that is real-- it’s a dance as artificial as their identities-- the quality of their technical delusions inform of us of their delusions about themselves-- their life is just one long lie.

    If a tree branch breaks under the load of ice, was the tree too weak or the ice too heavy? Are they wrong for telling me the lies they tell themselves, or am I wrong for having believed them?

    Take care, Rupert. I pledged some years ago to not talk martial arts with anyone beyond striking distance. I can’t imagine I’d have anything but a pleasant conversation with you, but I got to get back to living ...
    Always the man in whom thought thrusts ahead of thought, allows the goal to move far off.

  5. #19
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    Just logged on for the first time in a long while. Is there anybody out there! Just to say - my website gets a lot of hits - but these days I get almost zero feedback. Occasionally. I do hear someone say something good. My best 'win' was visiting Kobayashi Dojo in Japan in 2014. Some students had my book out - it was in 'his' collection - and they were discussing it sitting on the tatami. That was kinda cool :-)

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  7. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by rupert View Post
    Just logged on for the first time in a long while. Is there anybody out there!
    I'm still here, but the forum is definitely not as active as it once was.
    Yours in Budo,
    ---Brian---

  8. #21
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    Not quite a ghost town, though some of our folks have passed on and others have moved on. Some of us are still maintaining E-Budo as an active forum so it doesn't vanish, taking all of the archives of valuable budo information and discussions with it.
    The golden days of internet discussion groups may be over, but E-Budo lingers on... Maybe someday there will be a resurgence in talking about Japanese martial arts and culture, and we'll be here to provide that platform. In the meantime, we are getting new members, maybe 5-7 each month, and mainly people training in Japanese martial arts, so that is a hopeful sign.
    Cady Goldfield

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