Hip Power

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[Mark Williams]

I'm getting to the stage in my Aikido (six months training!) where I want to move away from having to reply on strength and instead start to use the power of moving my hips.

I'm finding this a little difficult and frustrating at the moment, does anyone have any tips, suggestions, ideas, exercises etc that can help me develop using my hips in techniques rather than trying to use muscle strength?

Thanks in advance,

Mark

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[Edward]

Natural stances and movements will make it easier to use hips than beautiful esthetical stances wich will make you more rigid.

But above all, patience, patience, patience...

[Mark Jakabcsin]

Mark,

Practice moving from your hips in everyday life. Next time you are at the grocery store place you hands on the cart, equal distance from you body, now move through the store without changing the distance of your hands in relation to your body. To steer the cart you must move from your hips. Don't cheat by using arm/hand strength.

When opening push doors, place your hand on the door, making sure your hand is centered with your body, and open the door without extending your arm any further, i.e. push from the hips. Make sure your posture remains upright and your hand centered.

There are tons of drills available in everyday life. Simply think how you can accomplish basic tasks without using your arm/shoulder strength. More specifically your arms extend the range of your hips, however if you attempt to use the muscles in them (arms) you seperate your arms from your torso and can only rely on the strength of your arms.

Moving from the hips requires proper posture and good centeredness so make sure you are always working on those two aspects. Take care.

mark

[achilleus]

I'm finding this a little difficult and frustrating at the moment, does anyone have any tips, suggestions, ideas, exercises etc that can help me develop using my hips in techniques rather than trying to use muscle strength?
Mark,

I found it interesting when sensei pointed out that most of us were using our entire pelvic system around our spines to do hip movement. when in fact the stance of hanmi positions our legs for a much smaller and effective femer pivot from which the power of the hip is derived. its a much smaller action than trying to rotate, say in some form of circular movement. its more of a slight adjustment. i'm not well versed in this kind of anatomy so i still have some research to do, but trying to derive hip power in this manner has yielded better results and when trying to come in on the corner or just offline of the attack it doesn't encourage the tendancy to turn away or to turn to early- rather, keeps your center on uke.

some thoughts.

has anyone else studied this anatomy closer?

DA

[ian]

Lots of bokken practise - best thing

[Kevin Wilbanks]

Try hitting a heavy bag with elbow strikes. There's no way to get a powerful blow without rotating the hips - might give you some ideas. Rigging up a padded target or something made out of tires that you can hit with a bokken might be able to serve similarly, but more aikido-specific. In person, I could also show you some tenkan-like medicine ball and rubber tubing exercises that would help. The commonality of all these suggestions is to set up a situation where there is direct physical feedback - results that you can test for youself without having to take someone's word for it or trying to decipher a bunch of ukemi.

[kung fu hamster]

They say lots and lots of suwari waza helps immensely, so does sitting in zen (with regularity)....

owowowowowow.....

[Bogeyman]

I agree that weapons can be of tremendous help but not all dojos use weapons. Controlling your centerline is big but as Sugawara Shihan says "sink". A lot of beginners I see tend to forget vertical movement.

[mattholmes]

This always bugs me. Perhaps I am just playing semantics; if so, please forgive me. It bothers me when someone says something like "I've been practicing for awhile now, and I think I'm finally ready to learn XYZ." Now, obviously, your training will and should progress as you train longer. However, any basic doctrine of whatever you are studying (hip movement, in this case) that is important at even advanced levels should have been emphasized from the beginning. What I'm saying is, if you can't "do" it right from the beginning, and your uke isn't falling down, you should still be doing it with your hips. I think it's a much better idea to integrate long term developmental steps at the beginning than try to break bad habits later.

I don't mean this to attack you, Mark... I'm just feeling like ranting.

Matt

[Amendes]

I agree with Linda.

Knee walking rellys on your hips.

Practise this offten.

Eventually you will notice you are even walking different.

Once we practise that our footwork imporovse also, which is important.

My Sensi said in the Mall one day.

"I can tell if a person is a martial artist or a dancer, just by seeing them walk."

When asked why he replied.

"We move from the hips and are constantly in ballance. We can stop at any time during or stride and not fall. Where as most people who have no training in thesse areas are on a constant state of losing blanace."

I later observed this too be quite true.

[Gopher Boy]

Agreed.

Lots of suwari-waza and lots of bokken.

When you come down with a ken strike, there should be an element of sinking but also a small hip turn. This is (I believe) the motion that David is talking about. A very effective and efficient little motion.

Get yourself a bokken (it needn't be an expensive one as there will be no contact) and use it whenever you have a spare moment. Ask your sensei or a shodan after class to help you refine your technique and then make note of any pointers. Focus on these things until you see them again.

More bokken!

phill.

[PhilJ]

Bokken is a great way to start learning about the true power behind one-point and your hara. It also teaches you unification at the same time -- if you time it correctly (kokyu), you'll get one helluva sword cut (if relaxed).

After a billion or so... you get the idea. :)

*Phil

[John Boswell]

Mark J. said,
Practice moving from your hips in everyday life. Next time you are at the grocery store place you hands on the cart, equal distance from you body, now move through the store without changing the distance of your hands in relation to your body. To steer the cart you must move from your hips. Don't cheat by using arm/hand strength.
Darn it, MARK !! That was MY IDEA !! :p

No! Seriously! I did that one day in the store and found I had stopped shopping and just started working on my Center! I went to class the next day and told this story to my Sensei... he did his best not to laugh at me. ;)

And Mark Williams... work on Tenkan. I find when I work on doing Tenkan from my Center, it gets better and working from my center improves my Tenkan.

Good luck!

[Gregory King]

Hi,

Being relativly new to Aikido myself I have to admit for a while the idea of getting my hips into action was a real struggle. The excercise our instructor encourages and which in the end has made me realise the potential of using hips dynamically is to stand in stance with your hands at your sides and begin to rotate your hips until your hands are slapping on your back, the arms should be relaxed and be moved only by the momentum of the hips, it is a good feeling when the power of the hips is realised by the sound of a decent slap on the back. Hope this may work for you.

[Mark Jakabcsin]

No! Seriously! I did that one day in the store and found I had stopped shopping and just started working on my Center!
John,

Perhaps this could be a new aiki diet method. Spend hours shopping at the grocery store and end up with zero food in the frig.

mark

[John Boswell]

HA HA!!

Mental Picture: Sensei and their students walking through a grocery store, each person with an empty cart, walking with a good Kokyu Ho hand position on the cart, backs straight, eyes forward, good extension and all wearing Gi and Hakama's!

Think the manager would ask us to leave??? :D