"Conventional Muscles" and Internal Power

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[Carl Thompson]

Carl:
What's the difference between a "conventional" muscle and whatever other type you're referring to?
If they're skeletal muscles going from one bone across a joint to another bone, they're pretty much the same everywhere, with minor variations for twitch speed, endurance, staining characteristics, etc..

Hello Walter

Conventional is how most of us normally move. In sports it's athleticism and in many aikido contexts, "not using strength" means reduction, by various means, not avoidance. Even full-on faked no touch throws involve some use of the conventional muscles to make Jedi gestures.

The unconventional usage I have come across means the most obvious muscles are flaccid. I mean hanging, or even dangling like Osensei's pectorals while moving powerfully regardless of the attempts of others to prevent the movement. This is kokyu power (Note: Kokyu does not just mean breath). Some of the IP proponents on this forum seem to have cogent explanations for how it's done.

Carl

[Walter Martindale]

Hello Walter

Conventional is how most of us normally move. In sports it's athleticism and in many aikido contexts, "not using strength" means reduction, by various means, not avoidance. Even full-on faked no touch throws involve some use of the conventional muscles to make Jedi gestures.

The unconventional usage I have come across means the most obvious muscles are flaccid. I mean hanging, or even dangling like Osensei's pectorals while moving powerfully regardless of the attempts of others to prevent the movement. This is kokyu power (Note: Kokyu does not just mean breath). Some of the IP proponents on this forum seem to have cogent explanations for how it's done.

Carl
Hmm. Ok. I'm afraid you can count me as skeptical. I've been told "don't use strength" to move, and when things work really well they seem to have needed no effort, but humans can't move unless muscles contract. It may be a 'conditioned reflex' that we don't have to think about, it may be something that's well trained and can be done in a very "relaxed" manner, but movement can't happen without muscle contracting.

I've tried reading some of the IP info but I get confused because of my (long ago) biomechanics research background. I'm sure there's something in it, but I just don't get it.
I've also discussed with some of my sensei in the past "I'm trying not to use my strength." and have been met (by at least one shihan) with "You got it, use it, as long as your technique is good".

Discussing this sort of stuff with an Iwama-type godan today (he's teaching at a school nearby and I was doing classes on my sport - rowing) - and he said - yeah, right, what were the shihan doing when they were young - swing a sword 1000 times a day, then a jo 1000 (or 5000) times a day, and you're going to develop muscle.

Cheers,
Walter

[Carl Thompson]

Hmm. Ok. I'm afraid you can count me as skeptical. I've been told "don't use strength" to move, and when things work really well they seem to have needed no effort, but humans can't move unless muscles contract. It may be a 'conditioned reflex' that we don't have to think about, it may be something that's well trained and can be done in a very "relaxed" manner, but movement can't happen without muscle contracting.

I've tried reading some of the IP info but I get confused because of my (long ago) biomechanics research background. I'm sure there's something in it, but I just don't get it.
I've also discussed with some of my sensei in the past "I'm trying not to use my strength." and have been met (by at least one shihan) with "You got it, use it, as long as your technique is good".

Discussing this sort of stuff with an Iwama-type godan today (he's teaching at a school nearby and I was doing classes on my sport - rowing) - and he said - yeah, right, what were the shihan doing when they were young - swing a sword 1000 times a day, then a jo 1000 (or 5000) times a day, and you're going to develop muscle.

Cheers,
Walter

Thanks for the reply Walter

One thing that interests me about IP practitioners is their attempts to put it in scientific terms, since in aikido it seems to be encoded in animism. But regardless of how it is explained, I would recommend that if you are able to find someone who can do it well, you should ask them if you can feel their arm while they lift a bokken.

Regards

Carl

Carl

[Chris Li]

Thanks for the reply Walter

One thing that interests me about IP practitioners is their attempts to put it in scientific terms, since in aikido it seems to be encoded in animism. But regardless of how it is explained, I would recommend that if you are able to find someone who can do it well, you should ask them if you can feel their arm while they lift a bokken.

Regards

Carl

Carl

It would feel different, the array of musculature that's used is generally different, and it's employed in different ways (along with some additional activators and controls) - but nobody who's really studying IP has claimed that no muscles are used at all.

Still, the difference is big enough that it has confused physical therapists who were expecting something else to happen - and that's partly the point, that confusion is itself a big advantage.

The scientific stuff is interesting - to a point, but too much of it doesn't really seem to help in actually doing this stuff. The old standbys of visualization and imagery that have been used for thousands of years are usually the most effective in that regard. Phil Jackson and the Eastern European Olympic coachs seem to have reached similar conclusions, in many ways (in terms of the value of visualization, not as related to IP).

Best,

Chris

[Carl Thompson]

It would feel different, the array of musculature that's used is generally different, and it's employed in different ways (along with some additional activators and controls) - but nobody who's really studying IP has claimed that no muscles are used at all.

Still, the difference is big enough that it has confused physical therapists who were expecting something else to happen - and that's partly the point, that confusion is itself a big advantage.

The scientific stuff is interesting - to a point, but too much of it doesn't really seem to help in actually doing this stuff. The old standbys of visualization and imagery that have been used for thousands of years are usually the most effective in that regard. Phil Jackson and the Eastern European Olympic coachs seem to have reached similar conclusions, in many ways (in terms of the value of visualization, not as related to IP).

Best,

Chris

Thank you for that Chris

Just to clarify, as I pointed out to Janet, I referred to not using "conventional muscles". I did not say moving using no muscles at all.

Carl

[Mert Gambito]

Just more food for thought on this topic. Various Taoist metaphors are key to creating the sets of physical mnemonics used in various methods of IP/IS training. Traditional five-element theory is one set of metaphors utilized, and muscle is expressly considered in the theory. That said, muscle is interestingly assigned neutral, or balanced yin and yang properties.

[JW]

What's the difference between a "conventional" muscle and whatever other type you're referring to?


Hi Walter-
I think this is an important question and lots of people think/guess about it. We don't currently have hard data so that's what we do for now -- think and guess. But there is a proposed answer that is rational. It has to do exactly with how you posed the question:


If they're skeletal muscles going from one bone across a joint to another bone,

That's the "if" in question. Have you read people here refer to terms like "local muscle" and "long muscle?" Of course neither are scientific terms but they are terms that deal with exactly what you described here.

The hypothesis:
Let's say there is only one type of muscle tissue involved, shared by IS and normal/conventional. What is different may be the connective tissue not the muscles. Connective tissue (such as the ECM of muscle, and that muscle's tendons) shows adaptive changes that are correlated to the load that they commonly experience, yes? Also, body-wide sheets of connective tissue (the same type of tissue as this adaptive connective tissue) are contiguous with muscles, tendons, and ligaments. So, it is theoretically possible for a practitioner to train some connective tissue functional connections that span many joints. Thus you can have "regular" muscle tissue pulling on "developed" connective tissue connections in a trained body, where these muscles would NOT as you put it be "going from one bone across a joint to another bone" -- rather, they (the trained novel muscle-connective tissue units) would be going from location to location across many joints. The implication is that a different kind of motor behavior would be possible, by use of these long-range connections that are trained to support high loads, across many joints (ie the length of the whole body).

If that seems too far-fetched, here is an example with a different type of connective tissue: bone. Say you partially outstetch your arm using conventional "local muscle." Now something touches your outstretched hand. You can extend your knee joint of your rear leg and thus apply force to the thing touching your hand. Or you can extend at the elbow and also push the object. 2 different muscles producing the force, vastly different in location relative to the atari. OK this is nothing special, of course we all know this. And it in itself isn't "IS." But it is an example of a possibility that can be explored more thoroughly than this mundane example.

[hughrbeyer]

Even in traditional athletics, it's well known that the body can use different sets of muscles, or a different balance across sets of muscles, to accomplish the same movement.

Going back to my weightlifting days, a bench press can depend primarily on the pecs, anterior delts, triceps, or lats. A common limiting factor is depending too much on delts and tris and not getting the pecs engaged. The common fix for this is imagery: "Imagine there's a rubber band connecting your elbows. As the bar comes down, you're stretching the band. Then as you raise the bar it's pulling your elbows together."

Similarly for squats, depending too much on quads and not enough on hams and glutes. There's a set of visualizations to help lifters get the posterior chain involved.

So I don't see the IS imagery as magic or particularly unusual. Any time you want to get the body to move differently, it seems, people use visualizations to help create the new movement patterns. And the visualizations rarely have anything to do with physics.

[Janet Rosen]

Word.

Even in traditional athletics, it's well known that the body can use different sets of muscles, or a different balance across sets of muscles, to accomplish the same movement.

Going back to my weightlifting days, a bench press can depend primarily on the pecs, anterior delts, triceps, or lats. A common limiting factor is depending too much on delts and tris and not getting the pecs engaged. The common fix for this is imagery: "Imagine there's a rubber band connecting your elbows. As the bar comes down, you're stretching the band. Then as you raise the bar it's pulling your elbows together."

Similarly for squats, depending too much on quads and not enough on hams and glutes. There's a set of visualizations to help lifters get the posterior chain involved.

So I don't see the IS imagery as magic or particularly unusual. Any time you want to get the body to move differently, it seems, people use visualizations to help create the new movement patterns. And the visualizations rarely have anything to do with physics.

[bkedelen]

Even in traditional athletics, it's well known that the body can use different sets of muscles, or a different balance across sets of muscles, to accomplish the same movement.

Going back to my weightlifting days, a bench press can depend primarily on the pecs, anterior delts, triceps, or lats. A common limiting factor is depending too much on delts and tris and not getting the pecs engaged. The common fix for this is imagery: "Imagine there's a rubber band connecting your elbows. As the bar comes down, you're stretching the band. Then as you raise the bar it's pulling your elbows together."

Similarly for squats, depending too much on quads and not enough on hams and glutes. There's a set of visualizations to help lifters get the posterior chain involved.

So I don't see the IS imagery as magic or particularly unusual. Any time you want to get the body to move differently, it seems, people use visualizations to help create the new movement patterns. And the visualizations rarely have anything to do with physics.

I wouldn't go that far. While there are conceivably a nearly unlimited amount of muscle recruitment patterns that can be trained, the number of actual muscle groups you can leverage for a specific movement, not so much. Doing things like spreading your knees while squatting can bring some assistive tissues into the equation, but for the most part movements are mediated by the major muscle groups which are already cleverly positioned for exactly that task.

Even if you could train to not use those muscle groups for movements, which you cannot, it has never been satisfactorily explained to me why in the would I would not want to use my body in the way it was designed. I am guessing all of the double speak about "western", "athletics", and "conventional" boils down to different and effective recruitment patterns more than it boils down to actually using different musculature. That said I can imagine, given that fact that almost no aikidoka could squat their way out of a wet paper bag, people using profoundly incorrect musculature for even the most simple tasks, but that is more of a remedial discussion. Obviously there is great room for improvement no matter where you are in the game.

Taking the pseudoscience angle one step further, we have to consider that it has been strongly recommenced here at times to use non-contractile tissue as an alternative to "conventional" movers. It is quite reasonable that "feeling" like you are using such tissue may result in a non-standard recruitment pattern that could have martial application, actually attempting to use non-contractile tissue for movement will result in no movement, a state with little martial application.

This situation is exactly why people often ask for better clarity on the ideas presented here, particularly those that have the ring of woo.

[Janet Rosen]

Benjamin, I don't think it is psuedoscience at all.
1. Either quads or hamstrings can be used to primarily initiate jumping (Because hamstrings act as both flexors and extensors (effecting knees one way and hips the other). Most guys who play basketball tend to rely more on hamstring activation than on quads activation. Nobody thought to study this until the epidemic of ACL blow outs in women's basketball. A lot of factors were suggested including hormones and wider pelvis but the best studies found that the gals playing basketball were more often primarily engaging their quads, increasing stresses that led to ACL ruptures. When they were retrained to primarily engage their hamstrings as part of routine basketball training the rates of ACL damage at those schools dropped.
2. I thought I had learned to keep my shoulders down when raising my arms, after years of listening to the usual aikido dojo advice and all the metaphors from different styles. Then working with a Pilates rehab person I learned the idea of "go down to go up" AND had a bodyworker teach me to isolate, recognize and activate small muscles at the bottom of the scapula. By activating those and letting my shoulders feel like they were passively dropping (I know it isn't passive but by comparison to how most of us "drop our shoulders" it feels very passive), my arms feel like they effortlessly raise up. I know from a biomechanical point of view those little back muscles and the lats are doing a lot of the work and support work. This is very different in feeling and efficiency from other forms of activating the arms to rise. It isn't woowoo at all. And, no, I don't think most aikido folks would see the difference - my Rolfer sure does.

[bkedelen]

Janet, the quads open the knees and close the hips, and the glute-ham chain opens the hips and closes the knees. You use both for jumping, and if you use your quads as primary movers you jump poorly. If you were taking jumping practice seriously at all, you would find yourself using the glute-ham chain as the primary mover in short order. The athletes in the research you are referencing were shown to have neglected the study of powerful/healthy hip extension, due to some odd gender differentiation starting at an early age, and because they were primarily just playing a lot of basketball. What was the "retraining" you reference that got them moving correctly? That would be the exact (and very basic) weight training methodology that supposedly ruins your internal strength. So in your line of reasoning, the "conventional" movers turn out to be the solution, not the problem. Not a convincing argument.

To your second point, we can always improve and there are some great (and not so great) ideas out there. Yet seeking them out with an skeptic's mind is always a good idea.

As for pilates and rolfing, how is this not about pseudoscience, exactly?

[Janet Rosen]

I do not believe they did weight training to learn a different way to jump. If you simply focus on body usage and learn what it feels like to engage specific muscles you do things differently. I'm sorry you think this is wrong or not doable but it is. I've done it and I've seen others do it and taught others to do it. And I don't understand this "conventional" thing vs. "IS" thing anyhow . We all share the same body. We are all capable of the learning the same things. And I don't understand how or why you think Pilates or Rolfing are in any way pseudoscience when - like IS training - they have empirical track records . So I"m bowing out.

[JW]

Hi Benjamin, I appreciate a skeptical point of view very much. But I am not sure what specifically you are arguing-- do you disagree with any of these specific points, which this thread addresses?

1. The human motor system is plastic, that is, it can be modulated by the individual. So, if a given task requires 3 big muscle groups, the individual can change at will and in real-time, the relative amount of activation in those muscle groups. This is often done using visualizations. The task will thus vary a bit in outcome but as long as the barbell goes up you are happy, thus you are free to vary which muscles get loaded (and thus exercised) more using this method.
2. Due to this same plasticity, there can be multiple "versions" of a given task, like the type of jump before and after retraining in the basketball players. One version may be awkward and inefficient at first but with development can become superior. Strikingly different versions are created not in real-time, but over the course of tissue strength training.
3. Different circumstances may allow the individual to benefit from the ability to do a task with a "version" that is normally slightly inefficient. (Like if you need to jump in basketball but your hamstrings have become injured or fatigued)
4. As a corollary to #2 and #3, you may get stuck in a "crappy" pattern of motor unit activation in a situation where certain muscles (or other, passive load-bearing structures like ligaments) have atrophied.

I don't think any of that is controversial or disputed in the field of motor learning and behavior. It all points to 2 conclusions:
1. There is no single "most efficient way" to do something, except in the specific context of a given physical situation and a given individual's muscular/tissue development. That context is not set in stone so "most efficient way" is not set in stone.
2. There can be very different global patterns of motor unit recruitment, with each pattern having some activation barrier that inhibits switching. The source of the activation barrier is muscular and connective tissue strength, as well as mental habit. As we get comfortable moving a certain way, unused muscles will atrophy and used muscles will strengthen - thus we get comfortable in a certain pattern. But, if certain weak muscles were strengthened, there may be a much better way to do things.

So what is it that is the actual source of disagreement?

[Dan Richards]

So I don't see the IS imagery as magic or particularly unusual. Any time you want to get the body to move differently, it seems, people use visualizations to help create the new movement patterns. And the visualizations rarely have anything to do with physics.
Hugh, if I'm getting that right, I agree with you. The problem with visualizations is that they're open to such a broad range of interpretation - and much of it incorrect or ineffective at accurately transferring the desired quality.

I see the IS community, even those quite experienced, tripping over themselves in an attempt to transfer their knowledge into written form. Peter Ralston is a perfect example. He was frustrated for years by his inability to write about his experiences in a way that would transfer more directly to the reader.

What's often missing is a way to directly communicate experiential knowledge - but it can be done. For instance, with bread making and the forming of gluten, we could write pages of visualizations to attempt to achieve the result of the reader understanding what they should be seeing, sensing, and feeling. Or we could come up with something that's easily accessible in their environment that would easily transfer the desired end result. In the case of bread dough, simply state that the perfect consistency of the dough is the same as the feeling of one's earlobe. That's not visualization; that's direct experience - which also allows for a continuously-available reference and feedback loop to the body.

I recently added the experiment of Passing the bottle: refining sensitivity for more effective technique (http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/showthread.php?p=325259) to accurate allow for people to easily get a sense of the quality of their own body operating more from a level of their own natural energy and strength. It also allows the hands and arms to function more as intelligent antennae - rather than dumb pieces of meat used as a block or barrier to incoming forces, or as a hardened tool or appendage that can actually be used against nage.

I haven't seen anything that someone like Dan Harden writes about where he advocates getting too far down the rabbit hole of various muscles, tendons, fascia, etc.. Getting too far into chemistry when it comes to cooking food can, in most cases, actually result in bad food. The way to good food is being around good cooks, experiencing and tasting good food. Having an experiential base from which to work. That's when constructive conversation and the sharing of ideas works.

Not through visualization, but through direct experience. The challenge - in any kind of writing on movement and performance - is to arrive at better tools to communicate - not ideas - but experiences.

[Mert Gambito]

Hi Dan,

This is so true:
Not through visualization, but through direct experience. The challenge - in any kind of writing on movement and performance - is to arrive at better tools to communicate - not ideas - but experiences.
Frankly, I don't know if you can circumvent the majority of practitioners, when they're starting out, doing IP/IS exercises wrong to varying degrees, since the exercises are not natural or intuitive relative to how people typically use their bodies in everyday life, let alone in martial arts as a whole.

Fortunately, what works in martial arts as a whole seems to be effective for imparting IP/IS as well. Students ardently train during class and solo. When they train together, they use ukemi to provide feedback to refine each others' physical and mental understanding of an exercise or technique. The teacher observes, takes ukemi and fine-tunes as needed.

Words will always be abstractions of experiential knowledge. You're right in cautioning about going too granular: we've found that students tend to make scrunchy faces from information overload and lose the feeling (i.e. the taste in your example) of what they're trying to accomplish. I can't imagine how IP/IS training methods could be written that would result in even 10% of new practitioners getting it right the first time. But, even if that was possible, the face-to-face feedback and fine-tuning would still be needed ongoing for 100% of practitioners.

[bkedelen]

Hi Benjamin, I appreciate a skeptical point of view very much. But I am not sure what specifically you are arguing-- do you disagree with any of these specific points, which this thread addresses?

It is hard to disagree with any of those points, and may I mention that those points are extremely well presented.

Doubtless I am being overly pedantic, but the source of my ire is the claim that novel musculature is being selected, and that against all odds the musculature in question does not span the joints being motivated, does not have contractile potential, or is not consciously mediated. I understand and have experienced that a *visualization* of such a selection can result in unique movement properties, I protest at the confusion between the moon and the finger pointing at the moon.

I am not in the camp of people who believe that strength and conditioning and internal skills are somehow mutually exclusive, so I am also a lot more skeptical of the anti-fitness circlejerk that pops up here from time to time. As long as we stay within the bounds of reality, I am perfectly satisfied. Similar to what Chris pointed out, I am equally convinced at of the futility of making a science or a dogma out of training.

[Robert Cowham]

I am not in the camp of people who believe that strength and conditioning and internal skills are somehow mutually exclusive, so I am also a lot more skeptical of the anti-fitness circlejerk that pops up here from time to time. As long as we stay within the bounds of reality, I am perfectly satisfied. Similar to what Chris pointed out, I am equally convinced at of the futility of making a science or a dogma out of training.
Hi Benjamin

In my understanding, the issue with conventional strength training and internal skills is a question of the amount of focus and awareness that you spend on said training.

In my IS type research, it requires lots of focussed time exploring and increasing awareness of what really is going on within my body - which muscles are moving what, and how are they doing so. How can I achieve more with less effort. It is a total retraining exercise. It can be minutely detailed. OFten it is the mental ability to stay with it that is harder than the physical effort (but not always!). The more time I spend on it, the better I get. If I spend time on strength training then I am more likely to use the results of that strength training (and the methods) than anything else.

For me it is about focussing much more on the process than the results. It is not about lifting a few more pounds than last time. I don't want to denigrate that, but I find it far too easy to just focus on the results and lose focus on how I am achieving them. Obviously if I never achieved any results then that would be a cause for concern too!

I find the same thing when teaching my students about cutting with a sword. I get them to start by really feeling gravity and how to let the sword drop with just its weight - not getting in the way of that (which is what most people do in my experience). Then expand the movement and still focus purely on dropping the weight. Once people can reliably start to do this, then they can add the weight of their arms. Then they can add some "contractions" of muscles, first in the arms, then whole upper body, then with tanden in too. But in my experience this takes months due to retraining patterns of movement.

Invariably they start rushing ahead and use (local) muscle (most often shoulders and arms), which most of the time just messes up the cut - because the coordination is all wrong.

It's all a choice about what and how to train. Find exemplars of the the type of results you want, and see what they did to get there. If you don't like the answer, find another one. Look for patterns. Look for your own internal resistances (mainly mental) to particular approaches.

Some thoughts :)

[JW]

Cool Benjamin, thanks. Well personally, I think it is a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. While I agree that there is a lot of "bathwater" being bandied about (always was and always will be), I sure don't think it is coming from the likes of Hugh and Janet. If there is a baby, making judgements about "circlejerk" and "pseudoscience" may very well end up throwing it out.

I think there is truth to all the things you are arguing against, but of course I am arguing only that there is a core truth, which can become distorted in discussion, not that everything that gets posted is true. The fact that you don't disagree with my above points is a case in point regarding this.
Another example, regarding the warnings against doing traditional exercise:

Strength of muscular tissue is not what is bad. It is the way muscles are coordinated that is an issue. If you use the "regular" way that we humans do, you are basically talking about a huge set of pieces all working together, each doing little things (articulating individual joints). Any practice (ie exercise) that reinforces this organizational principle automatically distances you from learning to do IS. (So OTOH if you already use IS, then by all means you can work out. That wouldn't be a problem and all IS adepts spend a lot of time working out. They just call it "tanren," "jibenggong," "suburi," "zhan zhuang," etc)

In other words a critical goal for a beginner is to learn to use the tanden and a body-wide netowrk of load-bearing connective tissue to move (see my post #7). This is a fundamentally different way of moving than the "local muscle" method you and I discussed here. Achieving this change-over is an important goal, more important than building power, internal or external (although you can't do the change-over at all if there is no body-wide netowrk and no tanden musculature). So, the point is learning to do a different thing, and doing regular exercise will simply inhibit that learning (by reinforcing the old thing).

[ps if the idea of a unique, specialized, dantian-and-qi-based motor coordination sounds like BS, I would like to point out 2 things in my defense: 1) The connective tissue of the body has plasticity that allows it to adapt to load per my post #14, so the idea of "growing" a new system is in that sense not weird. 2) There are physiological precedents for having 2 systems in place that articulate the same joints, where these 2 systems are overlayed in the body. In these precedents, one of the systems consists of muscles local to the series of joints, and the other consists of muscles distant from those chains of joints. The latter, the non-local system, works by employing long connective tissue structures spanning the whole series of joints-- these connective tissues structures are controlled "off-site" by the distant ball of muscle. I am of course talking about the hand (a design we share with the other mammals I think). So the only thing really revolutionary that I am proposing in my description of IS vs conventional motor behavior is that unlike the hand, we don't in general use both systems together in default motor behavior. One (the long-connective tissue system) is atrophied in favor of the other (the local joint control system). The goal in IS is to trade one in favor of learning to use the other.]

[hughrbeyer]

Truth is IS work is not as mysterious as those arguing against it would like to claim. It's a fairly organized body of knowledge with a long history. No two practitioners or schools agree on all of it, but so what--when did two martial artists ever agree on anything? The broad outlines and the training methodology are clear.

All the stuff about fascia and so forth is interesting, but not really the point. Maybe it's fascia; maybe it's not. The work endures, regardless.

One of the things that there's general agreement on is that traditional strength training gets in the way. You can read about Chinese masters 500 years ago complaining about having to give up strength training to get good at internals. And that has nothing to do with focusing on single joints or muscle groups--I know exactly how much of your body you have to integrate to do a squat with any significant weight.

And the training methodology is well understood. It's a lot of solo work, a lot of visualizations, and a lot of hands-on with senior practitioners. And when I say hands on, I mean hands ON--I just read an article by a guy who went to China to train with Liu Chengde and he describes how Liu guided him in the right stance and attitude by pressing down with a hand on his hip pocket. Hip pocket, my ass. So to speak. Anybody who's trained with some of the western experts, including He Who Must Not Be Named, know what that's about.

At this point I'm not much concerned with trying to convince people who haven't gotten on the mat with those who are known to have the goods. Theoretical wanking is going to get you precisely nowhere with this stuff. You don't believe in it? Fine, keep doing what you're doing. And have a nice day.

[Jeremy Hulley]

And the training methodology is well understood. It's a lot of solo work, a lot of visualizations, and a lot of hands-on with senior practitioners. And when I say hands on, I mean hands ON--

At this point I'm not much concerned with trying to convince people who haven't gotten on the mat with those who are known to have the goods. Theoretical wanking is going to get you precisely nowhere with this stuff. You don't believe in it? Fine, keep doing what you're doing. And have a nice day.

Yep..
Hi Hugh...
Hope you are well

[Michael Varin]

Truth is IS work is not as mysterious as those arguing against it would like to claim. It's a fairly organized body of knowledge with a long history. No two practitioners or schools agree on all of it, but so what--when did two martial artists ever agree on anything? The broad outlines and the training methodology are clear.

I don't think you are accurately portraying this discussion. I'm not so certain that anyone is arguing against "IP/IT/IS." And I would say that if anyone was touting it as "mysterious" it would be a few of the "IP/IT/IS" proponents. In fact, if there is an argument against it, it would be that it is not unique, unusual, or mysterious.

One of the things that there's general agreement on is that traditional strength training gets in the way. You can read about Chinese masters 500 years ago complaining about having to give up strength training to get good at internals. And that has nothing to do with focusing on single joints or muscle groups--I know exactly how much of your body you have to integrate to do a squat with any significant weight.

What are these works? Can you tell me where to find them?

That is quite a bit earlier than I understand the word neijia was used with the meaning that you all assign to it here.

And when did we start calling it "internals"? What exactly is included in that category?

[Michael Varin]

In my IS type research, it requires lots of focussed time exploring and increasing awareness of what really is going on within my body - which muscles are moving what, and how are they doing so. How can I achieve more with less effort. It is a total retraining exercise. It can be minutely detailed. OFten it is the mental ability to stay with it that is harder than the physical effort (but not always!). The more time I spend on it, the better I get.

Just to play the Devil's advocate...

Why do you think that this can't be or isn't done with any type of movement? For instance a snatch or a clean?

Isn't this exactly what building skill is about?

[Lee Salzman]

Just to play the Devil's advocate...

Why do you think that this can't be or isn't done with any type of movement? For instance a snatch or a clean?

Isn't this exactly what building skill is about?

I can see it now: Olympic Budo-lifting.

Two opponents, face each other, and MAY perform any of the sanctioned lifts of his choice. Should both execute the lifts, the highest qualifying lift wins.

However, one may opt to instead hoist the weight at his opponent. In the event that he misses his opponent and the opponent completes his lift successfully, his own lift must be scored as zero.

In the event the hoist contacts the opponent, but the other successfully completes his lift, the qualifying lift will be scored as normal, whereas the damage inflicted against him will net a numerical score for the hoister as described below.

Should mutually assured destruction arise that both parties hoist the weight at his opponent, points shall be awarded for the number of disabled limbs. Small-joint destruction does not net any points - however, exceptional numbers of disabled small-joints may net under special circumstances a judges' choice style award point.

In the event that during a normal lift, a lifter actually disables one of his own limbs, he shall net a point for his opponent as if his opponent had damaged him.

Should both actually miss his opponent, and thus a tie arise, the match shall reset and start again.

Somewhere embedded in here, there is a point, I swear.

[bkedelen]

I'm not so certain that anyone is arguing against "IP/IT/IS."

Yes exactly. Obviously I am not arguing against internal training, as it is nearly an obsession for me. I simply don't think there is any mutual exclusivity between being physically capable outside martial arts and being physically capable inside them. That apparently touches on the persecution complex built into at least one internal training orthodoxy, so people can't agree to disagree.

[Mert Gambito]

Yes exactly. Obviously I am not arguing against internal training, as it is nearly an obsession for me. I simply don't think there is any mutual exclusivity between being physically capable outside martial arts and being physically capable inside them. That apparently touches on the persecution complex built into at least one internal training orthodoxy, so people can't agree to disagree.
Certainly there isn't pure mutual exclusivity, given there's varying crossover with non-exclusively-martial practices such as qigong, yoga and shiatsu.

"Persecution". Strong word. Time will prove out why that certain "orthodoxy" is reaching a seeming plurality of acceptance by IP/IS adherents here. In any case, meeting Dan Harden and having an engaging physical and philosophical discussion about the topic is so much more productive than doing so here.

[hughrbeyer]

Yes exactly. Obviously I am not arguing against internal training, as it is nearly an obsession for me

Color me surprised. Given your earlier posts on this thread, this is the last thing I expected to hear from you. <sincere>What internal training do you do? What are the exercises? Where does it come from?</sincere>

That apparently touches on the persecution complex built into at least one internal training orthodoxy, so people can't agree to disagree.

I have no idea what you're talking about here. If you can't, or are not willing to, get more specific, it's probably better not to make such a statement.

[hughrbeyer]

What are these works? Can you tell me where to find them?

That is quite a bit earlier than I understand the word neijia was used with the meaning that you all assign to it here.

I can't give you a cite. The quote was posted on here by one of the people I trust for that and it was, of course, in translation so I can't tell you what Chinese words were used.

[Chris Li]

Yes exactly. Obviously I am not arguing against internal training, as it is nearly an obsession for me. I simply don't think there is any mutual exclusivity between being physically capable outside martial arts and being physically capable inside them. That apparently touches on the persecution complex built into at least one internal training orthodoxy, so people can't agree to disagree.

Isn't this kind of a straw man argument? I can't think of anybody teaching internals who would argue against being physically capable, in or out of martial arts.

OTOH, there are a lot of good reasons why you wouldn't want to do some types of conditioning for a time while working on other types of conditioning.

There are also plenty of good reasons why you would want to work on some types of conditioning over others. It's no different in sports, dance, or any other physical activity, you condition yourself to meet the goals that you're aiming at.

Best,

Chris

[George S. Ledyard]

Watching these discussions evolve over the years is interesting. There still seem to be all sorts of IS / IP skeptics. Now, the IP community , if you can call it that, is better educated on what is understood to be the science of the whole thing (which is itself an evolving body of knowledge). It's as if we think that if we can find a scientific way of explaining what is happening for something that we already know to be true it will make it more true and the skeptics will come around.

While I do have my copy of Anatomy Trains, I didn't need it to know that this stuff is real. Ten years ago I had my hands on Kuroda Sensei while he sent my partner to the floor. The muscles in his arms where I was touching NEVER fired, period. They were totally soft.

Over the years I have trained on a number of occasions with Don Angier Sensei. I could white knuckle that man and he'd have me on the ground and I never felt a thing.

Of course I could say that my own teachers operate on this level but people would discount that because, after all, everyone's teacher is the best around...

But there are enough people who do operate on this level from the aiki community that continued skepticism just feels to me like climate change denial. It's uninteresting and runs completely counter to my own direct experience. At this point there are enough places you can get direct, in person, experience on this stuff that I have no time for folks who keep wanting to have the discussions who haven't had their hands on folks with the skills.

So far, no one has come forward who has felt any of the teachers out there on the circuit and come back saying it was all BS or that they had stopped these guys. I am waiting for that. Then maybe there's grounds for skepticism.

[bkedelen]

But there are enough people who do operate on this level from the aiki community that continued skepticism just feels to me like climate change denial.

I don't think there is a lot of skepticism left here in terms of the value of the skills. In the case of this thread, as students like me get farther down the rabbit hole, we are asking for better explanations of things that are harder to explain, and expecting better answers for things that are hard to defend.

Like any system it can be hard to differentiate which ideas are essential elements that make a system work, and which are just opinions of the teachers that have been hitched to the system for promotional purposes. This often comes up when we start asking harder questions or when we look closely at some of the more inflammatory statements made by progenitors of the system.

[George S. Ledyard]

I don't think there is a lot of skepticism left here in terms of the value of the skills. In the case of this thread, as students like me get farther down the rabbit hole, we are asking for better explanations of things that are harder to explain, and expecting better answers for things that are hard to defend.

Like any system it can be hard to differentiate which ideas are essential elements that make a system work, and which are just opinions of the teachers that have been hitched to the system for promotional purposes. This often comes up when we start asking harder questions or when we look closely at some of the more inflammatory statements made by progenitors of the system.

Hi Benjamin,
I understand what you are saying... For me, what is important is not explanations. What I look for is two things... First, can someone do it when I attack them. Then I know it's not the uke and I can feel it. Second, can they teach other people to do it. If a teacher can say to me "Do this, then do this". And I can feel the results, then I am not terribly interested in scientific explanations. I want body centered "how to" explanations. The folks I get the most out of training with can give me that. The, if someone wants to tell me how it works in terms of anatomy and muscle / motor function etc, that's interesting on some level but really doesn't help ones training all that much.
- George

[bkedelen]

I am in no way saying the information should be provided scientifically. That would be both boring and pedantic. What I am saying is that it is challenging for an educated person to hear hard tk swallow dogma from someone they earnestly wish to believe. Being told that you ought to study eastern orthodox christianity or collect cosmic rays in order to get to the next level then takes on a kind of hopeful metaphorical status. A struggle ensues when a rational person tries to walk the delicate balance between swallowing such things whole (what got Aikido and CMA into its current state in the first place) and discarding the advice of someone with abilities worth learning.

That seems to me to be the topic we are discussing when we try to peek behind the curtain after we have been initiated into internal training practices. Such a peek will always seem impertinent to the system's leaders because it may reveal that a subset of their instruction is actually proselytization.

[Walter Martindale]

At least a few people have said that if you can't explain something so that a child can understand what you're explaining, you don't understand it yourself well enough (it's attributed to Einstein, but I haven't confirmed that).

I don't doubt that something's going on. I've been bashed to the ground by Kawahara (late 8th dan shihan) and not known what happened, didn't feel any tension. Been put to the ground by a sensei in the Hiroshima police dojo, by Takase sensei in New Zealand, Masuda sensei from Aikikai Hombu (but in New Zealand) without feeling any muscular tension. Grabbing the late Tohei (from Chicago) sensei felt like grabbing smoke. I'm struggling with the name of the shihan in Nagoya who visits NZ frequently, but he's also biffed me around while it felt like I was holding a banana in a gi sleeve.

But what were they doing? What do you get when you cross an elephant and a rhinoceros? (elephino)
Can I do what they were doing? I don't know. Can I explain it? Not a chance. I haven't (to date) read an explanation of any of the IS info that makes sense to me. Just "IHTBF"... and "Do a seminar with Dan Harden" (love to but currently not in a position to do that)... and similar "explanations."

Walter

[Chris Li]

But what were they doing? What do you get when you cross an elephant and a rhinoceros? (elephino)
Can I do what they were doing? I don't know. Can I explain it? Not a chance. I haven't (to date) read an explanation of any of the IS info that makes sense to me. Just "IHTBF"... and "Do a seminar with Dan Harden" (love to but currently not in a position to do that)... and similar "explanations."

Walter

Dan's actually posted some very detailed explanations over the years, as some other folks - Mike, too, has posted some good information on his blog. Most of the information is actually out there from other sources anyway, and has been for years.

Like anything else, it will make more sense with a common frame of reference. If you're trying to explain Aikido to someone who's never done it then eventually you get to a point of diminishing returns - they just have to go try it out and see for themselves.

Best,

Chris

[Chris Li]

I don't doubt that something's going on. I've been bashed to the ground by Kawahara (late 8th dan shihan) and not known what happened, didn't feel any tension. Been put to the ground by a sensei in the Hiroshima police dojo, by Takase sensei in New Zealand, Masuda sensei from Aikikai Hombu (but in New Zealand) without feeling any muscular tension. Grabbing the late Tohei (from Chicago) sensei felt like grabbing smoke. I'm struggling with the name of the shihan in Nagoya who visits NZ frequently, but he's also biffed me around while it felt like I was holding a banana in a gi sleeve.

Sorry, I should have included this in my last post.

It's interesting to note the list of "mysterious teachers" above (Sawada is the one from Nagoya, and there is some interesting back story there that I won't go into) - all of who are apparently acceptable to the conventional Aikido community even though they do mysterious things with little or no explanation.

Masuda, for example, I've known for over thirty years and have translated for on many occasions, but he has never once, in the time that I've known him, given anything approaching the detail and clarity of explanation that you'd get from some of the IP folks that are criticized for their lack of explanation.

And yet - that's generally accepted in the Aikido community for a hombu shihan (I like Masuda, and this isn't about him personally - it's just a symptom of the situation).

Best,

Chris

[Carl Thompson]

It's interesting to note the list of "mysterious teachers" above (Sawada is the one from Nagoya, and there is some interesting back story there that I won't go into) - all of who are apparently acceptable to the conventional Aikido community even though they do mysterious things with little or no explanation.

I for one would be interested in the back story to Sawada. I gather he was a student of both Chiba and Watanabe. What do you mean by they are "apparently acceptable" to the conventional aikido community? What mysterious things? Are they relevant to the title of this thread that I inadvertently started?

Carl

[Walter Martindale]

Sorry, I should have included this in my last post.

It's interesting to note the list of "mysterious teachers" above (Sawada is the one from Nagoya, and there is some interesting back story there that I won't go into) - all of who are apparently acceptable to the conventional Aikido community even though they do mysterious things with little or no explanation.

Masuda, for example, I've known for over thirty years and have translated for on many occasions, but he has never once, in the time that I've known him, given anything approaching the detail and clarity of explanation that you'd get from some of the IP folks that are criticized for their lack of explanation.

And yet - that's generally accepted in the Aikido community for a hombu shihan (I like Masuda, and this isn't about him personally - it's just a symptom of the situation).

Best,

Chris
Perhaps these folks can do what they do without calling it anything special? I rather suspect it's learned over thousands of hours of training. Just like someone who raced bicycles many years in the past can handle hills better than someone who's just as fit but didn't race bikes when younger - motor recruitment patterns (also called muscle memory) - Judo people who seem quite relaxed while their partners in practice work their tails off (I had an experience like that once - the guy I was practicing with was working SO hard and I wasn't even getting warmed up...

I don't really think that shihan have any magical powers. Many who purport to teach aikido are actually not very good at TEACHING.. Show and tell, yes, but not teaching. I don't understand why "IS" is anything different from "well developed skill and trained responses" Elite athletes "look" relaxed when they're setting world records - it's not magic, it's very well developed movement patterns, being able through intense, focused training to sense and anticipate others' actions - Gretzky or Crosby in ice hockey, Yamashita in judo, Ueshiba O-Sensei.

Anyhoo. Count me someone who's confused about the whole thing. And at my age, and with a crushed patella, I don't anticipate having the chance to figger it out...

[JW]

I don't understand why "IS" is anything different from "well developed skill and trained responses" Elite athletes "look" relaxed when they're setting world records - it's not magic, it's very well developed movement patterns, being able through intense, focused training to sense and anticipate others' actions -

OK so in general, if you are doing something, practice it more and you get better. No one would take issue with that - the problem is whether or not someone is doing a particular thing or not. If not, practice won't improve that particular thing. First you have to start doing it.

If no one teaches it, then all we can do is try to imitate. Problem is, we may think we are doing a good job imitating but we are doing it totally differently. (In other words, "local muscle control" versus "global body control" that utilizes the tanden and a whole body's worth of developed connective tissue.)

At any rate my comments only apply if you think you may possibly not be doing it already. I don't know why I initially had that feeling 5 years ago, but upon investigation I became convinced.

But yes, if you are already doing it, then putting in the training time is all you need.

[bkedelen]

I wish I had your confidence. The willingness to declare myself to be on the right track has successfully eluded me for many years and across many different tracks.

[JW]

It's more like, having become convinced I was on the WRONG track, I changed what I do. Doesn't mean it is dead on now, it is just the best course that I can see. My plan is to keep checking in and keep improving my course.

[Chris Li]

I for one would be interested in the back story to Sawada. I gather he was a student of both Chiba and Watanabe. What do you mean by they are "apparently acceptable" to the conventional aikido community? What mysterious things? Are they relevant to the title of this thread that I inadvertently started?

Carl

I meant the "mysterious things" that Walter referred to - ie, being thrown without knowing what happened.

By "apparently acceptable" I mean that I often see conventional Aikido instructors who are well known and popular in the community - but don't really give much explanation at all. That stands in stark contrast to some of the IP teachers around today.

The Sawada stuff - maybe if we go drinking sometime... :D

Best,

Chris

[Chris Li]

I don't understand why "IS" is anything different from "well developed skill and trained responses" Elite athletes "look" relaxed when they're setting world records - it's not magic, it's very well developed movement patterns, being able through intense, focused training to sense and anticipate others' actions - Gretzky or Crosby in ice hockey, Yamashita in judo, Ueshiba O-Sensei.


Of course it's not magic - no one, including Dan, has ever said that it is.

Forging a Japanese sword isn't magic either, but the chances that you'll be able to forge one with no knowledge of forging by imitating the movements that you see in a documentary without explanation are....vanishingly small. It's not quite as simple as just banging on a piece of steel with a hammer.

Some things are done differently than they're done in ice hockey, or in Judo, isn't that true for any physical activity?

Best,

Chris

[Carl Thompson]

The Sawada stuff - maybe if we go drinking sometime... :D


I think I'd enjoy that. He's certainly game for a rumble isn't he? :D

[Walter Martindale]

OK so in general, if you are doing something, practice it more and you get better. No one would take issue with that - the problem is whether or not someone is doing a particular thing or not. If not, practice won't improve that particular thing. First you have to start doing it.

If no one teaches it, then all we can do is try to imitate. Problem is, we may think we are doing a good job imitating but we are doing it totally differently. (In other words, "local muscle control" versus "global body control" that utilizes the tanden and a whole body's worth of developed connective tissue.)

At any rate my comments only apply if you think you may possibly not be doing it already. I don't know why I initially had that feeling 5 years ago, but upon investigation I became convinced.

But yes, if you are already doing it, then putting in the training time is all you need.

You get good at what you're doing whether or not it's a "good" performance - it has to be directed or "deliberate" practice - that means learning the actions that constitute "good" performance in whatever it is. If you're training a "bad" movement skill over and over again you get really good at doing that "bad" skill, which is unfortunate, and a severe waste of time. I've seen athletes with amazing physical tools struggle for years to overcome poor technical skills that were developed - extremely well developed - early in their sport career. You need to be lucky when you start, to find someone who helps you learn "good" skills so you don't have to fix them.

Training is also specific to the activity being trained. A GREAT judo athlete may not be great at gymnastics or Kempo or Kali, but they have an athletic ability that will assist them in learning the other activities, so they may become better at the new activities than someone with no former background in sports/MA. A GREAT aikido person may or may not be any good at (say) target shooting but they have a good chance to develop those skills because they know how to focus, train, relax, and so on, perhaps more than a couch potato who really likes twinkies (which are still made in Canada, BTW, I just don't know what they taste like).

I don't doubt that IS training is valid; I don't know if I have "IS," whatever it is, but if I do, whatever I have hasn't been called that. (I probably don't, fwiw). Ennyhoo. If I can get my knee working (the surgeon's office called today and postponed the consult.. Grrr.) properly again I'll see how much I can do about getting back into aikido and then perhaps will seek tutelage in IS... My curiosity is piqued.
W

[Budd]

Hi Walter,

If you find yourself coming across the border to the Buffalo area of the US, let me know and we can meet up informally. I can try to show you some of what's being discussed in terms of IS kinda "as it's own thing" as well as how I'm trying to express it in the movements of aikido. I agree with the general discussion in that it's a combination of building skill in using muscles a bit differently, while also conditioning the collaboration of the muscle-tendon-bone cooperative so that it builds in overall "strength". To me, the pure IS model is that it's a combination of skill/strength. Different martial arts may focus on different aspects of that skill/strength combo, but that's where sometimes it gets difficult to differentiate between internal strength, the techniques of a martial art and the ideal overlap between them.

Best Regards,

[Walter Martindale]

Hi Walter,

If you find yourself coming across the border to the Buffalo area of the US,
Best Regards,

PM sent.
:D

[JW]

Hi Walter, I agree 100% with that post. I guess my point was something like this:

Within one strategy of coordinating the body, there are infinite specific skillsets (different sports, activities, etc) as you mention. If there are 2 strategies of coordinating the body, then you can have sport #1 done with coordination strategy #1 or coordination strategy #2.

So, if learning a new activity within one coordination strategy can be a little bit hard. But you have much less work to do than learning an entirely new coordination strategy. In which case, you have to learn how to sit, stand, walk, reach, etc, with the new coordination. Once you have that then more fun things like martial arts are much easier.

Anyway that's a bit of thread drift I think. In terms of identifying what is "conventional" vs "internal," I don't have much more to say than my previous "combinations of local muscle action" vs "tanden-controlled body-wide tensile web" descriptions. Good luck in Buffalo!