extension/letting techniques develop

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[tim evans]

How can you as a beginner train to prepare for this and what is extension I hear yamada sensei fails blackbelts for this.:D

[niall]

Tim that sounds like two different questions to me. Great questions but difficult questions. Extension lets your techniques be large and powerful (as opposed to too small and too compact). Imagine holding a stone in your hand and circling it around your head. Now imagine it's on a string and you're swinging it around your head - it becomes many times more powerful. So try not to get fixed on the uke or the attack.

Letting a technique develop is more of a timing and rhythm question. So don't rush to finish the technique (but don't let it go on too long either). It's quite a subtle question. Many irimi techniques deliberately do not let a technique develop.

[dps]

Extension is continuing your movement through and beyond uke.

In baseball, when hitting the ball with the bat, you do not stop the bat upon contact with the ball. You continue your swing through and beyond the ball.

Letting the technique develope is practicing, practicing and more practicing the technique with your mind on good posture, good balance and good movement.

David

[Aiki1]

While good points, to me there is a difference between follow through and extension, and enlarging one's technique and/or movement so it is bigger, and extension.

To me, extension starts within oneself, releasing tension and allowing one's feeling to begin to extend beyond oneself (from one's center.) In my world, I would say it's about feeling one's Ki/energy and allowing that to release outward, but there isn't any need to go there, I think feeling is a good enough term for most people.

Once a person knows the bigger feeling that results from this release, it becomes the vehicle for how one connects to another person. When this happens, you can (as we call it) track their intentions and actions/movements, and then allow techniques to develop.

Usually, to learn this kind of extension, one need find a teacher who knows it and can induct you into the process and experience of it.

So, although I also think you are askiing two different questions, they are related.

[mickeygelum]

...Zanshin...:rolleyes:

[Nafis Zahir]

How can you as a beginner train to prepare for this and what is extension I hear yamada sensei fails blackbelts for this.:D


Just Train!

[RED]

I hear yamada sensei fails blackbelts for this.:D

He sure does lol :D

Yamada Sensei loves the big movements. According to my understanding... and from having Yamada Sensei yell at me "Extension, this is why I fail black belts." That extension is a big part of the big movements he is so famous for. That's at least what I gathered from it. Big movements, cover a lot of area with as few steps as possible, and don't let uke break into your personal space.
When I saw Yamada Sensei, it was like he was the axel of a wheel. Uke just spun around him, with a great amount of distance from him. They couldn't break into his personal space. He took big concise movements...Uke was running around 5 steps for his every one. I think it is his extension that amplified uke's movement... sort of like how the edge of a wheel travels a greater distance than the center of a wheel. That's at least what I gathered from it.

[Aiki1]

I personally don't think what he's doing is simply making big movements. I think he is "extending" and one of the results of that can be big movements, if one chooses that path. Just by "making one's movements big" I don't think gets you there, because it isn't the essence, and in this case, reverse engineering doesn't necessarily mean one gets to the same place. In fact I think that's one of the reasons the essentials of Aikido get lost these days, because people tend to practice what they think is going on, but what is actually going on is much deeper. Thus they end up with "extension = big movements" instead of "extension can lead to big movements"….

Nothing personal, just my take on things.

[RED]

I personally don't think what he's doing is simply making big movements. I think he is "extending" and one of the results of that can be big movements, if one chooses that path. Just by "making one's movements big" I don't think gets you there, because it isn't the essence, and in this case, reverse engineering doesn't necessarily mean one gets to the same place. In fact I think that's one of the reasons the essentials of Aikido get lost these days, because people tend to practice what they think is going on, but what is actually going on is much deeper. Thus they end up with "extension = big movements" instead of "extension can lead to big movements"….

Nothing personal, just my take on things.

Oh no you get me wrong. I agree with you entirely. Big movements is just one aspect of how he gets his results.
However, I think big movement and extension can be incestuous. Good extension gets you big movements...and frankly big movements without extension is just a guy dancing around in a skirt. lol

[Aiki1]

I think big movement and extension can be incestuous. ....frankly big movements without extension is just a guy dancing around in a skirt. lol

I'm never wearing a hakama again.... :(

:)

[RED]

I'm never wearing a hakama again.... :(

:)

lol... a 6th dan once told me "there's a reason our federation doesn't allow men to wear hakama until black belt.... I mean would you make fun of a guy with a black belts pretty pleated long-skorts!"

[phitruong]

personally, prefer small techniques. hate to chase after the buggers. rather just drop him/her/it at my feet, cover the head with my skirt, then beat the living daylight out of the buggers.... oh wait, we supposed to fight fair, right? oh damn!! :)

[RED]

personally, prefer small techniques. hate to chase after the buggers. rather just drop him/her/it at my feet, cover the head with my skirt, then beat the living daylight out of the buggers.... oh wait, we supposed to fight fair, right? oh damn!! :)

lol, I never understood why people wanted some one trying to kill them at their feet.

[Jonathan]

How can you as a beginner train to prepare for this and what is extension I hear yamada sensei fails blackbelts for this.

I think that extension is mostly (or at least, first) a matter of the mind. I urge my students to extend ki before they ever physically contact uke, to stand with their mind directing their internal energy outward from their body like light energy from a light bulb. Doing so creates an assertive but not rigid quality of movement in nage's technique, a relaxed strength in their physical frame, and an unbalancing effect in uke that cannot be manifested any other way.

Along with more conscious control of ki, using your breath to energize your actions will aid extension also.

And, as others have said, train - and train some more.

[ruthmc]

How can you as a beginner train to prepare for this and what is extension I hear yamada sensei fails blackbelts for this.:D
Hi Tim,

To me extension is simply one of the tools one can use to break uke's balance :) In a way it's the easiest to explain / demonstrate as it's so visual!

I think 'letting techniques develop' refers to allowing your Aiki tools (eg extension) to break uke's balance, rather than trying to muscle techniques on people. There is a natural point at which uke will be unable to stay upright, so it's a case of having the patience to wait for the point in the technique where this 'sweet spot' occurs, rather than trying to rush or force it..

At this point in my (limited) teaching it's easier for me to show it than to write it down in words, so I hope this makes some kind of sense ;)

Ruth