Re: Tada lineage
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Alex |
Re: Shioda, Tohei, and Ki Things
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Re: Shioda, Tohei, and Ki Things
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My opinion, FWIW Mike |
Re: Shioda, Tohei, and Ki Things
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Yes, I know the article and have some stuff Inaba wrote in Japanese. There is a book called "Budo e no izanai: Nihon Seishin no Shuuyou". When you next meet KS, ask him if he My own connection with him is through my very first aikido teacher, who is a senior member of that dojo. This was before I met K. Chiba in Chiswick (in the days of the AGB). I remember Sekiya Sensei mentioning two powerful students, Inaba and Noguchi. Of course, they also trained with Yamaguchi Sensei. Best regards, |
Re: Shioda, Tohei, and Ki Things
Hello Mike,
Compare, if you will, the "lightning fast feel for one's empty spot", with the 'explosive power' talked about earlier in this thread. In my opinion, Yamaguchi's trademark was the first and Tada's trademark is the second, though of course they are two sides of a larger whole. Inaba was greatly influenced by Yamaguchi, who never divorced kokyuu training from aikido training in general. Tada Shihan, on the other hand, practised a whole load of standing exercises, which he called "Ki no Renma" and insisted that kokyuu power could come only via very intensive training. As I intimated in a previous post, Tada supplemented his aikido trainig at the Hombu with training outside. In aikido taking ukemi is a good way to sense what is happening and I have done this regularly over the years with both shihans. With Yamaguchi it was like grabbing hold of water. He found the empty spot, but then allowed you to fill it and then controlled your own ki/kokyuu until the next empty spot, and so on. With Tada it is more like entering a whirlpool, since he controls the 'kokyuu field' from the very begining. Tada expects you to keep up with his kokyuu, whereas Yamaguchi matches yours and draws it out, at every step. Does this make sense? Best regards, |
Re: Shioda, Tohei, and Ki Things
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Best regards, |
Re: Shioda, Tohei, and Ki Things
Peter,
It makes perfect sense to me! I can totally relate to the idea of the teacher matching you and drawing you out at every step. That is what Gleason sensei does and teaches quite well. You are constantly receiving as uke and nage. I actually got to train with Sekiya Sensei as my partner in Boston once! When he visited the area (one of his deshi had originally come from the area) he came to the annual Saotome sensei seminar at Gleason sensei's dojo. He had a dark black mustache and a big white afro. It was just ridiculous getting thrown by him. I had no idea what he was doing! He was totally soft and totally powerful. Also, I believe that Noguchi sensei was the person who taught Kashimashinryo to Gleason sensei. He always speaks very highly of them. I'm sure that explosive power is very interesting and useful, and I will continue to research it as a side curiosity while I stick to Yamaguchi sensei's approach. It obviously works quite well without focusing on kokyu divorced from aikido training in general. If someone wants to focus primarily on kokyu, I hope it works for them. (Maybe they should call what they do kokyudo? :)) Rob |
Re: Shioda, Tohei, and Ki Things
Jun, is there a way you can archive this thread in a prominent place on the board?
I'd really like to thank everyone for their contributions! Best, Ron |
Re: Shioda, Tohei, and Ki Things
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Best, Ron |
Re: Shioda, Tohei, and Ki Things
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Actually, this can be looked at on about 3 levels of understanding. At the moment I'm going through a "duh" phase with myself, but the real problem was that I hadn't had anyone actually define the specific part of "aiki" before, the way Inaba did. Using that, I go back and see that Shioda wasn't just "delighting in kokyu tricks", as I earlier said, he was focusing on what "aiki-do" actually meant to him. It's an honest epiphany for me. Not that I missed what he was doing, I missed what it meant in the grand scheme of things because we all get confused in trying to pick out what is the important information when so much is always being paraded in front of us (that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it). I had already decided that what Shioda did was like an exquisite riff on a guitar that I had never thought about, even though I'm a "guitar player" as well. And I was already beginning to concentrate on accomplishing the riff the way he did it. What Shioda did was being missed by his students that attempted to emulate him. They saw it on the first level. The second level would be after you got some kokyu skills and you emulated it on a gross level. The third level would be an extension beyond just the kokyu skills but how you move them outside of your body. Suddenly I see a whole art built around that concept (well, I see it after reading Inaba's enlightening comment) and I see even more clearly than before why just a few techniques are necessary if you have that particular skill. In a way, it's the same basic idea in real Taiji, but I again missed the focus because I was engaged in developing the extent of my powers and overlooked the four-leaf clover. Duh. ;) The point being that "explosive power" is just one way you can apply this concept (or you can just use it to show off) and that's somewhat aside from "finding the empty spot" (which is important, but more complicated than I'm making it). Shioda did somewhat more than just "find the empty spot" but I figured that was accurate enough for the purposes of these discussions. Quote:
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Regards, Mike Sigman |
Re: Shioda, Tohei, and Ki Things
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Alex |
Re: Shioda, Tohei, and Ki Things
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I'm certain that what Tada sensei does is aikido. The point being made was about where to put your focus. My point doesn't have to be taken as a shot any more than say writing about how it would be an absurdity to study aikido and not focus on kokyu. Quote:
I do agree that this is a wonderful thread. Rob |
Re: Shioda, Tohei, and Ki Things
I'm reading the article posted earlier now, and I'm going to go back and re-read this entire thread afterward. The really cool thing is that I get to keiko this weekend with both Utada and Ikeda Sensei at the same time! I hope I can explore some of what is in this thread really soon...starting tonight, in fact!
Its funny, I've been reading Mike's writing off and on for quite sometime now, and trying to figure out some of this stuff and how it relates to my keiko here and there. But this is the most productive thread for me on this subject I can think of. In a sense, his 'challenge' to the art was very valid for me...I studied 'smash mouth' aikido for some time...not realizing that that wasn't what my teachers were teaching. Some of us just catch on slowly. I'm not convinced the problem is with the teachers so much as it is with the students (like me). Good reading you again... Best, Ron |
Re: Shioda, Tohei, and Ki Things
Mike Sigman wrote:
>I would still point out that even O-Sensei stressed atemi, even >though many Aikidoists think everything can be done by magically >"blending with your opponent". Every really good Aikidoist that I've >ever seen uses checks and hits when he can't "blend" with even >cooperative attacks, so I'd at least offer the opinion that the >perhaps false goal of blending may not be totally on target. Oh, yes, I agree with the atemi. I was just trying to explain that, as an uki, when you get "tossed around like a rag doll" by someone good, that they can use either a physical atemi or what some people call "ki". Right now in my understanding, I view them both as atemi (in the previous instance that I was talking about). One is physical and one is something else that I don't have a great understanding of yet, but I've been on the receiving end of both. :) Mark |
Re: Shioda, Tohei, and Ki Things
Getting back to the idea of developing Kokyu power, I thought of the below-styled thought attributed to Tada Shihan. I also note that Tohei's instructions for ki and kokyu seem pretty vague, but added to Tohei's cloudiness was a similar obscure comment in "Aikido Shugyo" about just training and it will happen. Here's the Tada comment via Peter :
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Like the development of any skill, you start out with simple steps and go forward (Inaba has some good recommendations involving Sumo, etc., but that's not much of an option to westerners). At first there's not much there (hence a lot of people miss something without immediate and obvious results), but after a while it blossoms into something extraordinary... and within reach of some of the manipulation skills that Shioda, Tohei, and others show. Notice above in Inaba's comments which were translated at first as "power", but then shifted to "energy". Granted, after a while this skill seems unique and powerful and mysterious enough to perhaps warrant the use of the word "energy", but "power" is an adequate-enough term to start out with. Inaba goes on to recommend: If you take excess energy from the upper body and train the lower body as in sumo wrestling, and if you train the energy of the lower abdomen, you will develop your center energy. You use that power wherever necessary. That comment just above pretty much sums up what is probably the best approach and the most accurate comment of what ultimately happens, in the main (there are a number of other things that get involved, but this is the important part). In all kokyu training the basic idea is that the strength of the lower body is transmitted through the relaxed upper body and the "hara" or "Tanden" area is the control point. The trick is that the upper body must be very relaxed so that the mind learns how to handle this new way of movement and to assign "paths" by recruiting lots of small muscles (and the "ki", but that's a complexity we don't need for this suggestion of how to start on the road to this skill)... i.e., you want to avoid use of the strong upper-body primary musculature so the body-mind can re-train. Inaba Sensei suggests something like Sumo, but the idea is to train in a way that uses the lower body and not the upper body... in *all* your movements. So naturally this form of movement "with the center" is something you need to do full time in order to effect the most rapid transition to true "center-powered" movement. Also, if this power is truly to be powerful, you need to strengthen the legs and hips (suwari-waza, anyone?) and you need to learn to let the power flow up not only from the legs but from the ground on which the legs rest. You don't lift anything when you use this kind of power, you push things upward with the ground. Anyway, that's the best place to start if you're like I was when I joined Aikido and wondered what the first step should be in order to develop this odd sort of power. Go back and re-learn your movements so that every bit of the power your upper body expresses is powered by the lower body. Pretend that your shoulders have been moved from where they are to just below the shoulderblades... i.e., to operate these new shoulders you'll have to use your middle and back rather than your current shoulder muscles. It feels weird and not very productive at first... but isn't that true of most attempts to learn a new skill? FWIW Mike Sigman |
Re: Shioda, Tohei, and Ki Things
Just as an off-note -- what you posted that Inaba Sensei wrote is very close to the same thing that a friend of mine says. Only he studies Yoga. Weird.
Mark |
Re: Shioda, Tohei, and Ki Things
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FWIW Mike |
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Re: Shioda, Tohei, and Ki Things
Shaun, why don't you post something meaningful? Tell us something about your 'other ways to do it' rather than these silly posts with all the smileys. I.e., if you have something substantive to contribute, please do so.
Mike Sigman |
Re: Shioda, Tohei, and Ki Things
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Hi Mike, I was just acknowledging your conclusions. The smiley face is just agreement. As I have made the mistake in the past, in this case I just didn't want to add anything that had the potential to draw you into a conversation of semantics. As for if I have something substantive... Yes, that would be the part where I mentioned the benefit of clarifying what you meant in the last portion of your last quote in my post. I liked the first part of what you said there, but felt that others would benefit by fleshing out the details of the latter part. . PS - might we see you at the Aiki-Expo? . |
Re: Shioda, Tohei, and Ki Things
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If someone is taking a force and responding to it in a certain way (i.e., "aiki"), there are multiple variations of aiki or its immediate aftermath that various individuals might utilize. If they do a good aiki technique (as Inaba defined it), then their following and finishing moves may well differ, but that doesn't mean much about the propriety of the aiki technique. In other words, regardless of different feelings *within* the technique of Tada and Yamaguchi, it doesn't necessarily imply they do anything other than aiki. Quote:
Mike |
Re: Shioda, Tohei, and Ki Things
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Getting back to the topic at hand I think I get what you are saying. That is that "aiki" (by the definition given earlier) can be manifested by individuals in various forms of techniques. One can witness someone like Abe-sensei utilizing it with his very subtle and hardly visible movements just as well as someone like Tada-sensei with his larger, sharper, and "explosive" movements utilizing it as well. It's more about what that power is and where it originates from more than the visible form it takes through an individual's technique. |
Re: Shioda, Tohei, and Ki Things
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1. If an Aikidoist has a strategy and tactic of "blending" with an attack and then converting the attack into a throw, etc., it is a nice strategy, but it's not particularly different from a number of other arts' strategies. It also does not explain the times when a punch, body-check, etc., is used. This is pretty low-level as a definition, but in actuality it is what you see most often. 2. If an Aikidoist knows how to generate and use kokyu strength in the above strategy and tactics, it is a lot better, although it really doesn't distinguish Aikido from a number of other martial arts, in principle. 3. If an Aikidoist can instantly manipulate or place his kokyu power in such a way that it combines with uke's force and negates it (as part of the start of the technique), it is a very high-level martial art and worth all the hoopla. Since kokyu and its manipulations would be the power behind checks and punches (in relation to timing, etc.), then the "aiki" is still there and the art is still a legitimately superior art. My opinion, FWIW Mike |
Re: Shioda, Tohei, and Ki Things
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Sorry I wasn't more specific in either of my first two attempts. You originally said, Quote:
Looking at your further comments, something else came up for me that I wanted to talk about… Simply speaking, Aiki may be looked at as the relationship between things. It is true that being able to do this, in the manner you specified in your post is a rare and high level thing. It is also true that without this being present, there is no aikido - and on that you and I have never disagreed as far as I can tell, regardless of semantics, or our personal styles of writing. I guess my point is that while what you have pointed to is the precursor to aiki, it is only when it is extended out to include harmonizing with another that it actually becomes aiki. In many ways this may be looked at the next level of aiki, but I believe it is more accurate to state this is where the state of aiki actually begins. To illustrate my point, the moment that uke stops his attack, nage, seeking to maintain aiki, must also cease in his harmony of the attack. This is simply, "a mirror reflects what stands before it" or mushin, if you will. Of course, the nage can still harmonize with uke's new state and in doing so he preserves the state of aiki. However, it is just that there is no aikido in a vacuum, or in a cave, and by extension, one cannot practice aikido by himself. This is a significant point along the path one must follow towards understanding where ki & kokyu end and aiki and ultimately aikido begin. One can have all the power of ki and kokyu harnessed within themselves to the Nth degree. But, so what? That doesn't mean that they can create a state of aiki, or be able to maintain that state throughout a particularly lengthy encounter with a determined attacker. Of course, if you agree with me there, then I would be interested to get your thoughts on my next point. This is where I will take head on the question you have as to the originality, or uniqueness of aikido. I am certainly not out to prove it in that light, nor am I able to do so should I even choose to try. However, that doesn't mean that I don't feel that it is original and unique, or that regardless of my feeling, or yours for that matter, that it isn't original and unique. You wrote: Quote:
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Re: Shioda, Tohei, and Ki Things
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I've found that when practising suwariwaza kokyu-ho, if I manage to tune everything out except the sensation of the contact of my toes with the tatami, the technique becomes almost effortless. I'm still working on extending this to standing practice. Alex |
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