Shaking/bouncing

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[mathewjgano]

One of the aspects which stands out to me about Aikido has to do with yamabiko, or vibrational quality...as I understand it, at any rate. In my training I noticed a whole lotta shakin' goin' on and the more I practice it the more interesting it becomes. What I tend to do when playing around with the idea is to relax or tighten different areas and see how the momentum shifts through the body. If I focus on what I think of as controlled relaxation (relaxing, but not "too much"), I start to feel interesting vibrational articulations through my body.
Most of us are familiar with furi tama and tekubi shindo and I've heard of a few others alluded to here and there. 1) What kind of "vibrational" exercises do you practice and 2)what are you focusing on while you do it? 3)What kinds of benefits are you perceiving? 4)Additional thoughts or comments are appreciated.
Take care,
Matt
p.s. please refrain from commenting on anyone else's practice/experience; this is entirely about articulating your own practice.

[mathewjgano]

So in doing tekubishindo undo today I felt tingling lines based on where I was trying to activate. I first imagine I'm sucking a pingpong ball into each hand, more or less centrally located, just above the heel of the palm. I expand my palm trying to feel the pull on this "pingpong ball" as I shake up and down above my head. I try to relax whatever begins to feel muscular strain while maintaining the bouncing action. When I throw my hands upward, my body moves up with it, so my whole body is bouncing as part of the movement.
Mentally, I keep coming back to focus on those "pingpong balls" and hara, trying to hold their respective feelings at the same time in my mind.
...Anyway, FWIW. Mine is not even close to an authoritive understanding; just sharing what I'm trying out. My hope is to map out different approaches to these simple exercises, which I believe have deeper ramifications than simply "warming up."

Some supplemental examples I found online:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjN0aBkwG_o (@4:10 = tekubi shindo undo)
This is the only one I found which offered some kind of description for application.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-kdMVzQ-zU
Here's an example of tori fune undo followed by something that has similarities to the Chinkon Gyo I've practiced.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFoqBMdUO6M&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PLB303AE94F0E1A358
Another example including the Chinkon Gyo similar to the Tamura Sensei example.

[chillzATL]

we do a seated version of furitama and standing tekubi shindo as part of warmups in every class. My only focus when doing them is to relaxedly connect my body, initiate movement in the center and get that movement out to my hands. That's my current best interpretation of the exercises. Oh and I'll initially start on the inhale to build a slight pressure, helps in the connection, but then breathe normally and try to maintain that same connectedness.

[dave9nine]

we do a form of seated tekubi shindo (didnt know that was its name, so thanks :) )
my sensei lets the hands shake low and then high (a little above head level), then low, then hi.
recently, he told us to use the vibration to feel for an integration between our backside and our front.

every once and a while i do a seated furitama (didnt know that name either!)
--something i picked up in my early days before i came to my current dojo.
i remember that the creation of vibration was described as a good way to calm ones nerves (center), e.g., an antidote to 'butterflies in the stomach."
also, i like to incorporate sound in the breathing-out--i find it helps encourage the vibrations and makes it much more 'feel-able'.

[Erick Mead]

1) What kind of "vibrational" exercises do you practice
A) tekubifuri, B) furitama, C) "shaking off" the hands (no idea if everyone considers this distinct from tekubi furi (shindo in your terminology) but I do); and 4) incorporating the latter application in funetori undo with core-driven action

2)what are you focusing on while you do it? In the first two getting the whole body to vibrate sympathteically in resonance with the hands, but only using the actuation in the arms to cause the shaking. in the second two to drive the vibrations to the extremity and rebound

3)What kinds of benefits are you perceiving? A) It makes the body sensitive to remote movement in any other body in contact, IOW it develops the sense that allow one to "feel' how far one has driven an instability into a partner's structure in kokyu tanden ho. B) It develops striking power (fajin the CMA would call it) C) it teaches you how to deploy a resonance in the body and project it from the body to trigger flexor/extensor reflex actions in an opponent; D) it immunizes or provides counter-reflexive defenses to having an opponent attack your flexor/extensor reflexes triggered by the same means

4)Additional thoughts or comments are appreciated.
Resonance allows one to trigger reflexes in the opponents body causing instability (kuzushi) -- this training is absolutely vital to learn that.