Hairy Aikido arms

[Please visit our sponsor:]

[mksteppe]

Hi,
I have a request for those who have developed the "hairy arms" I have seen on some practitioners. I am new to Aikido and am a physician. I recently spoke to a Dermatologist friend of mine who is interested in seeing some photos of this phenomenon. I would greatly appreciate it if some of you with this could send me a digital photo of this as an attachment. I will not use any of these photos without your express permission. My email is marilyn_steppe@yahoo.com. Thanks in advance.
Jun--I hope you read this.
Marilyn

[Janet Rosen]

huh? i'm a nurse who has done aikido for over 10 yrs and have never heard this phenomenon mentioned. could you please describe it?

[Neil Mick]

It's the tendency for students of Sensei's named "Harry" to imitate his technique. Esp worrisome if he spells his name wrong, or if he doesn't use his hips. :D

[Frp]

I presume you mean growing hair on the inside, or underside, of your forearms, where people usually grab. I've got it on both arms and I was not like that prior to Aikido. I know my Sensei has the same thing but only on his right arm, which is the only side people grab. He was once asked if was a bear in a bar in Japan.

I'm not one of those guys that became an ape once they hit thirty, so I'd love to know what its all about.

I don't have the technology to send you photo's, sorry.

David Wade

[markwalsh]

Grabbing stimulates the hair follicles - you can see the thumb distinctly on mine. I knew someone who did head massage and apparently this also makes your hair grow more there.

As you get older it overstimulates them and you get weird bald wrists - most 5th+ dans in the UK have this.

Oh, and I'm not sending pictures you could be any old perv :-)

[Brad Pruitt]

Is this really serious because I'm a hairy guy and I just can't imagine.

[mksteppe]

I had it pointed out to me by some of the long time folks in my dojo. As a physician I immediately became curious about it. Now I'm wondering if it happens in all Ethnic groups. My Sensei also has it to some degree, but I know Ikeda Sensei has a rather pronounced version. I'm interested in talking to as many people as I can, and getting info on Ethnicity and how long it takes to develop it. I have been told that some women develop it as well. It obviously has something to do with the friction and stimulation of hair follicles, but why? I can assure anyone that I am NOT as "pervert" and I can be looked up on the national database of physicians.
Any help would be appreciated for this currently informal scientific investigation.

Thanks,
Marilyn

[Roman Kremianski]

I don't have the technology to send you photo's, sorry.

You don't have $40 for a digital camera? :uch:

[batemanb]

This subject has been discussed previously here

http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10095&highlight=hairy+wrists

:)

[mksteppe]

Thanks for the link to the previous discussion. It just shows that the forearm/wrist hair growth is quite prevalent. Now if I can just gather some pics to show my research oriented Dermatologist friend we may come up with a valid explanation.
By the way, shaving doesn't stimulate hair growth.

[Karen Wolek]

I'm a blonde haired, blue eyed female....and I have no wrist hair. I never noticed it on anyone before, either, in the 4 years I've been practicing.

But you know in class tonight, I'll be checking out everyone's wrists! ;)

[James Kelly]

One major variable here is how you train. Many people of many styles may never see the effects of forearm stimulation because their style doesn't do that much 100% wrist grabbing. Ikeda sensei asks his uke to grab as hard as they can and does primarily wrist grabs and he trains a lot all of which can account for the pronounced effects.

I suspect (from observation, but no hard data) that ethnicity in only involved in the fact that baseline hairiness is indicated by race so the effects are easier to see on, say, Japanese men who tend to have less hair on their arms to begin with.

I know from personal experience that when I'm training a lot, my arms are decidedly more hairy, but, I'm hairy to begin with so I doubt a casual observer would notice the effects.

And that's all I'm going to say about body hair on this fine day...

[Mark Mueller]

Beware! This is just another Aiki ruse! It used to be "Grab my wrist" but it has gotten a lot more sneaky...."Hey, Check out all the extra hair on my wrist" then POW!

[Janet Rosen]

wow. who knew?! i love aikiweb....

[Neal Earhart]

This thread is really freaking me out...I feel so "simian"... :freaky:

[CNYMike]

I presume you mean growing hair on the inside, or underside, of your forearms, where people usually grab. I've got it on both arms and I was not like that prior to Aikido. I know my Sensei has the same thing but only on his right arm, which is the only side people grab. He was once asked if was a bear in a bar in Japan.

I'm not one of those guys that became an ape once they hit thirty, so I'd love to know what its all about.

I don't have the technology to send you photo's, sorry.

David Wade

I had a lot of body hair before jumping back into Aikido; if more has grown on in different places since March of '04, I haven't reallt noticed a difference. (Although when we do kata dori, I have or make a point of extending the gi sleeve for my nage or he/she grabs the hair through my clothes and it HURTS!)

If I've noticed anything it's the "slippery arm" that develops when nage is really sweaty. Then uke has to hang on for dear life! Happens more often in the summer.

[crbateman]

I've gotten hairy EARS... Maybe I'm LISTENING to too much Aikido... :D

[Mike Hamer]

Hmmmmmm hairy arms eh???


Perhaps it's because the practictionor is extending positive ki from his arms and this is turn affects hair growth...

aw fooey, I dont know...

:square:

[Leiv]

Perhaps it's because the practictionor is extending positive ki from his arms and this is turn affects hair growth...

Could aikido be the cure for baldness?

[graham]

Could aikido be the cure for baldness?

I can see me tonight: "Hey, grab my head!" :)

[Ecosamurai]

Lol, beat me to it I was just gonna say something about head grabs :)

As to the hairy wrist stuff, a common hair pattern in both males and females is for hair to grow thicker and longer as it approaches from the elbow toward the wrist. Chimpanzees also have this by the way.

I doubt that there is any real effect of aikido on this except that rubbing and or massage increase bloodflow to the surface of the skin which may mean hair grows a little more than usual. I'd be willing to bet that should you see that your wrists are becoming hairy as a result of katatdori thats the cause and that if you stopped training for a while the hair pattern would return to its previous state.

Mike

[aikidoc]

I've been doing aikido consistently 4 + days a week since the early 1990s and don't notice any difference in my arms. I do have my sleeves at 3/4 instead of all the way to the wrist. Perhaps its the gi itself?

[Avery Jenkins]

Good Lord. What a topic. I can't believe we're using up all those electrons discussing this.

I'm a physician too, training for about 15 years, only hair things I've noticed is some bald guys at the dojo and the loss of leg hair from shikko. It's mostly caucasians around here, so maybe it is an ethnic thing.


Avery

[j0nharris]

I can see me tonight: "Hey, grab my head!" :)
Ha- One of the women in our sister dojo was testing for her shodan last week, and one of the techniques Sensei called was Shihonage from having her hair grabbed on the top of her head :eek: -- in han mi han dachi (sp?)
She actually did it quite well, considering that none of us had ever seen that technique before!

[Ron Tisdale]

No way hair loss is an ethnic thing...

Everyone who knows me is chuckling right now... ;)

Best,
Ron
Good Lord. What a topic. I can't believe we're using up all those electrons discussing this.

I'm a physician too, training for about 15 years, only hair things I've noticed is some bald guys at the dojo and the loss of leg hair from shikko. It's mostly caucasians around here, so maybe it is an ethnic thing.


Avery

[James Kelly]

Could aikido be the cure for baldness?
Ikeda Sensei makes that joke all the time...

[Dennis Hooker]

People have grabbed me so hard over the last 40 years that the hair has been squeezed into my wrists so much it is starting to come out my ears.

[JohnSeavitt]

Heh. The scientist in me wants to point out that most folks show more body hair with age (as above). It might not be the forty years of having my wrist grabbed - it might just be the forty years, neh?

John

"Data is not the plural of anecdote."

[Russell Pearse]

Hi:

We train in Iwama style where we emphasize strong grip and the hairy arm effect is well known. Our sensei is Japanese and consequently tends to have less body hair, except for his wrists where he has two strong bands of hair.

I have been training for about 8 years now and after about 4 or 5 I noticed that the hair on top of my wrists had become denser and darker than the rest of my forearms. Also the hair growth on the inside of my wrists has spread to almost link up all the way around. My wife often jokes about it...

I don't think that there are any more hair follicles in this area than the rest of my arms, but it seems as though the individual hairs are thicker and grow longer than the other hairs on the rest of my forearms. It is as though the body is reacting to the friction and stimulation much in the same way that skin grows callouses at points of wear and tear.

As I said it is quite common in our dojo. I will do some asking around to see how much other people have noticed the effect.

Cheers,

Russell

[raul rodrigo]

After ten years of practice, my wrists did get hairy. But I never would have noticed if not for a thread on Aikiweb.

[CitoMaramba]

A search on scholar.google.com for "hypertrichosis" and "aikido" yields no results. Neither does the www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed.

Perhaps the dermatologist who is requesting for photographs is planning to publish an article?

[Don_Modesto]

I noticed hairy lower forearms when I was training in Japan. My relatively hairless Jpn training partners had 7-8 thick wisps of black hair where we grabbed each other for KATATE DORI/RYOTE MOCHI, etc.

My hairier arms got hairier while training there, but the effects have worn off now and there is no darker/thicker hair on my forearms anymore.

[dps]

As to the hairy wrist stuff, a common hair pattern in both males and females is for hair to grow thicker and longer as it approaches from the elbow toward the wrist. Chimpanzees also have this by the way.

I doubt that there is any real effect of aikido on this....

MikeNot Aikido but karate.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGmMIMsyoG4

[Leiv]

A few of the sensei and I were talking about this phenomenon after practice a few days before I registered here. A couple of them claim to have it happen to them. I will see if I can get some pictures of their wrists. How in Gods name am I going to explain to them why I want to take pictures of their wrists?

[Leiv]

I can see me tonight: "Hey, grab my head!" :)

HA! I am trying to imagine tai-no-henka done with ones head!

[mksteppe]

Thanks so much for the info. I knew I wasn't crazy although some of these responses are to say the least...interesting.

Marilyn