The Center

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[Mark Jakabcsin]

A topic for discussion:

Move from the center or move your center? Is there a difference? If yes, why? And why/when would you choose to do one or the other?

Take care,

Mark J.

[Adman]

Funny you write this, as I was mulling this over tonight while practicing my breathing.

I "move from my center" (or "one-point"). This is different than the center moving first, as I think I've heard it mentioned. Unless of course you view the center moving first, without any perceptible time lag, between its movement and the rest of your body (if that makes any sense). In other words, total body movement at one instance, without a set-up.

Now, moving the center does not require the body to move. And can be an exercise in itself, or ... a tool.

In any case, I think all this extra breathing is doing a number on my brain. Good questions to ponder, though.

thanks,
Adam

[SeiserL]

IMHO, moving the center is perhaps some of what they have been talking about in the internal aspects, its very subtle and perhaps isolated, standing.

Moving from the center is to initiate full body movement (irimi, tenkan) from the center.

[Mark Jakabcsin]

Following is a paragraph from 'nlp for lazy learning: how to learn faster and more effectively' by Diana Beaver (bottom of page 82).

"When clients come to me with broken bones, we do exercises in their imaginations; the leg may be in plaster but in its imagination it is running, jumping, walking - doing whatever its owner likes doing. All the micro-muscles are at work, and when the plaster comes off, the bone is well healed and the muscle wastage almost non-existent."

So by using visualization we alter or affect our bodies. I find this concept very interesting and wonder to what degree and to what affect can I use visualization in my training and daily life?

There was another post on this thread that the owner quickly deleted, not sure why, but the general jist of the post was that this individual did not know what moving the center meant or if it was even possible. He knew what moving from the center was but not moving the center and thought it might be a simple play on words. Good questions, IMO.

If we use the above information about visualization and apply it to moving the center what affect can be achieved? By visualizing moving the center can it help us move from the center? By visualizing moving our center can we apply the resultant affect into other movements, and if so, to what affect. Hint: The more detailed the visualization (too include feeling, sight, etc) the greater the affect. Caution: This type of exploration is not for everyone. Those interested must constantly struggle to increase the awareness of their bodies, thoughts and emotions.

Just a few thoughts to ponder and enjoy.

Take care,

Mark J.

[ChrisMoses]

IMHO, moving the center is perhaps some of what they have been talking about in the internal aspects, its very subtle and perhaps isolated, standing.

Moving from the center is to initiate full body movement (irimi, tenkan) from the center.

Actually my experience has been the opposite, that the internal stuff de-emphasizes "moving from the center" at least in the sense that I have seen it in aikido. Rather than a strong emphasis on the hara as a focal point for initiating movement, there is an increased awareness of the rest of the body and longer arcs of tension/connection. It's been my experience that when you try to initiate movement *from* the center, the rest of the body lags behind slightly, but moving *through* the center can stabilize the body better. Subtle distinction, but there ya go.

[Haowen Chan]

Is this correct:?

Training the center through methods such as ki-breathing and visualisation of imaginary ether condensing into your hara, trains one's sensitivity with the center and conditions it such that it can better serve as a "junction box" controlling (i.e. direction and power control) of the long whole-body connection vectors.

Of course if your "transmission system" (the rest of the body) is crap (e.g. not relaxed, unable to maintain the state of fully relaxed connectedness) then you've still got nothing even if you have a strong center since the force vectors just get cut off in the tension spots. That's why we train for relaxedness first and foremost.

Please correct my misunderstandings!

[ChrisMoses]

Is this correct:?

Training the center through methods such as ki-breathing and visualisation of imaginary ether condensing into your hara, trains one's sensitivity with the center and conditions it such that it can better serve as a "junction box" controlling (i.e. direction and power control) of the long whole-body connection vectors.

Of course if your "transmission system" (the rest of the body) is crap (e.g. not relaxed, unable to maintain the state of fully relaxed connectedness) then you've still got nothing even if you have a strong center since the force vectors just get cut off in the tension spots. That's why we train for relaxedness first and foremost.

Please correct my misunderstandings!

Well... That's what I've been told in aikido, but I don't buy it anymore. Tension is critical in my view to creating a transmission system (to use your phrase). The difficulty comes in learning what kind of tension to create and how to maintain that tension rather than a goal of eliminating all tension. If you've read Rob's posts on some of the Aunkai methodologies, you are generating quite a bit of internal tension in many of the exercises. Now, as to whether or not that's a part of aikido (or should be) is certainly a huge point of contention. It's a big part of whatever I want to call what I'm doing these days however, and I can make my "aikido" work better when I do it this way.

[Jeremy Hulley]

There needs to be basic, underlying structure to create the existence of "relaxed connectedness>" I think that the Ki Society stuff was intended to build build that but from my limited experience that inforamtion is lost in translation.
At times now I'm playing with how little tension I can hold and still get stuff to work but I am a babe in the woods at this kind of internal training.

[Gernot Hassenpflug]

Hi Chris,

Remember that line from the Seiseki Abe interview where he said O'Sensei's body and muscles would be all flabby when he massaged im, but popped to be as hard as steel when he put his "qi" into them? Yeah!