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Analysis of Aikido techniques and practice with the aid of Physics
As far as I know there's only one interesting book that deals with the Physics side of Aikido, 'Ratti, Westbrook':Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere', but it's just a description with nice illustrations; the few other essays I've met spend just a few and usually wrong words, using terms like 'lever' that are not correct. So I'll try to have an exchange that can make our knowledge of Aikido richer and also, I think, stimulating.
Aikido is different from other martial arts because its core, harmony between man and nature's energy, encompasses also the opponent: so there no fight between enemies.
From a Physics point of view this is quite convenient, since it allows to resort to Relativity: Tori becomes the center of reference, and Uke is the only one which moves (in order to take Tori's movements into account you have to add the same movements to Uke, just reversed.
And this frame of reference allows to simplify all the Mechanics, to the point that you may derive general laws: the main one is conservation of Energy. It means that in Aikido Techniques there's no waste of Energy, and this is a beautiful result, since it confirms that Aikido is actually a way of harmony with Nature.
(The details can be followed in my paper quoted in the Introduction)
The technical form of all Techniques is based on Tensors (a Tensor is the combination of more Vectors); in our case Tensors correspond to Rotations, one or more, or a combination of.
This helps us to see that the most essential technique is irimi-tenkan, which gives way to all other techniques.
08-30-2024 08:34 AM 