Domo arigato gozaimasu Stanley Sensei for bringing this to the public. I was fortunate to be able to train with Linda Holiday Sensei, 6th dan, a student of Hikitsuchi Sensei, in Santa Cruz CA, a wonderful experience at a truly wonderful dojo.
It's so interesting isn't it? When we cross cultures and see what a 'strike' means... No one in the Western world these days 'strikes' like that with a shomen uchi or a yoko-men uchi, unless they are swinging a bat or something and really want to kill you. People use their fists and yes they hit with them but quickly retract their arm when they miss. And even when they don't miss, they will strike with all other limbs in strike "combinations." The idea in boxing, kick-boxing and MMA is to do as much damage to the other person as is feasible within the rules. Anyway, cultural differences aside, it is most interesting to make the claim that there's a relationship between 'not being touched' and 'being one with Nature (or the Universe).' One of the most common symptoms of traumatized individuals is a lack of sensation on the skin: i.e. numbness. In short, they cannot be touched. Their soul, in a sense, has abandoned its body and they feel a disconnect between their body and themselves. Traumatized people aside, the doctrine of human rights which assigns dignity to individuals recognizes the privacy of an individual, the inviolability, or sanctity if you will, of each person. As such, we in the West also have this notion of 'untouchability' in our culture but it is the untouchability of respect, although leaving them alone to do as they please is also an aspect of it. Thus, there is also something here very similar to untouchability in India, although the idea there has something more to do with pollution and dirt, the untouchables are rejected from the mainstream because they are said to be polluted and polluting, impure people. What's interesting about all this is the notion of what is pure and what is impure. Pure pugilists do not believe in aikido because they say 'it's a 'watered down martial art'... it's 'a historical remnant of an originally stronger combat art,' etc. In short, they don't buy the notion that Hikitsushi proposes, namely the claim that he can't 'be touched.' The notions of the pure as listed above are all different though. The pugilist has hierarchy and competition in mind: pure boxing is what works, everything else doesn't and is inferior, some kind of contemptible watered down thing.. Aikidoka appear to have a notion of purity which is akin to human rights. Everyone deserves to be left alone because there is something we recognize is inviolable, worth of dignity and respect in each person. In short, the pure is within and is not competitive so much as about a realization of equality as a deep spiritual level. Having said that, let's go back to H's "see, he can't strike me" idea...well, it's interesting isn't it that he gets the guy to try to hit him in the stomach. Well, anyone who does any of the striking arts would know that that move is a bit silly precisely because it opens up the face of the striker as target. Why then doesn't the attacker try to hit H's face with a punch? The face is a more vulnerable target and with the jab it is closest, especially to someone who isn't defending his face with his arms... Having said all that, boxing too derives from sword work or rather knife work, so behind differences in appearance the strategies are both the same, basically 'parry and punch' or 'parry and stab.' Sometimes in aikido the parry is not evident because our arms are kept down and the attacks are drawn out. But the same idea holds.
