Re: "stance of heaven (and earth)" and IS
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When they 'lean in' they can counter the force; oppose it. You would feel 'resistance' build up. When they deflect, they lose posture, do not control distance any longer. If all that works so well why does every single martial art place one foot in front of the other (boxing, kendo, fencing, karate, kyodo, kungfu, wrestling, mu tai, bagua). The only one I can think of that does not do so is sumo, at least when they start. But even then look carefully what happens on contact (bodies turned, arms put rotating force in opponent) No sir, nice try, but no cookie. Perhaps I am just ignorant stubborn, whatever. Mind you, the exercises are valuable and have their merit, but no more than striking a boken a hundred times. |
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There are other reasons to turn stance slightly sideways, that have nothing to do with balance. Making a smaller target for strikes. But at the same time, you trade the opportunity of having equal distance to launch an attack from either side. I find myself using either to taste. Attachment 927 |
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People are vastly harder to push over in this configuration than you would think. Or otherwise my practice would go a lot easier than it does. This structure is strong enough for me to drive in and break hooks on my arms, or drive in with my legs, and get under even while another person tries to do likewise, without losing balance in any direction. Even people with little training seem to get this pretty easy against resistance. Pay not attention to the center axis, which we aikidoka are wont to focus on, but on the peripheral lines of the body, and how the approximate those green arcs, i.e. if you push on the hand, from either side, it goes down to the feet, not necessarily between the hands. Or pull on one hand, no problem, just extend with the other side. No harm, no foul. But this configuration is also extremely stable from the sides, so long as this configuration is not achieved by twisting the spine, hips, etc. but rather by orienting smooth bridges through the body. |
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If a stance is weighted forward, then it's easier to be drawn off balance (and overextended) forward. If weighted backward, then it's easier to be overwhelmed by a strong attack. A neutral stance isn't vulnerable to either. If your weight is on one foot or the other, that foot will be more difficult to move. I'm not sure I understand your last question. Katherine |
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Once you're stable in a shoulder-width square stance, being stable in hamni is relatively easy. Then the challenge becomes keeping that stability as you move. Katherine |
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In particular it comes in really handy when you need to freeze in a very awkward and unbalanced position while sensei explains something. Those opposing forces work wonderfully for keeping me from collapsing in a heap prematurely. :p IHTBF. |
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I can relate to proper posture/stance and direct applied forces to the ground in hanmi or squared stance. And indeed not lose balance when that force is suddenly removed. I objected against shoulder width stance (feet on same line, not one in front of other) and then still be able to do that without losing posture Off course these are exercises, not martial skills. I have stated in a reply above that your body remember (muscle memory). How would your body know what to do when you keep changing the use of your body? The comparision with boken work you do not agree on? That too is merely exercise and has no martial value...it is an exercise to maintain posture, strike correctly, relax. |
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And then again, the more sideways you turn, even while you gain stability/mobility from some places, the lateral movers of the body, you lose some in those principally forward-backward movers (or up-down movers, if you want to call them that), so it is not a simple stability for mobility trade, it is in fact trading mobility in one place for mobility in another. As mentioned earlier in this thread, it is not about bracing things, it is about moving things. This is Newton's third law of motion in action, not figuratively, literally. Everything is pushing off of something else wish slight changes in direction at each step until, a force that was going one way at one contact, ain't going there at the other. And on the other hand, it points out the body is not, apparently, one point, but a large collection of individual joints/levers which can be organized into more than one action at the same time. Biomechanical engineering for fun and profit. There are wider principle on display there, though, that bear a striking resemblance (though not an equivalence), to things in discussion here and that I have learned elsewhere, just on different axes, writ larger, and running through different paths in this case. But yin-yang/in-yo, jin, harmonies, and other stuff. So in a sense, maybe Ueshiba did do it, in his own way, and you're looking to much into the external details of it, rather than the higher level organizing principles? |
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In general,
Thanks for the constructive comment you all gave. I made quite a bold statement and feel nobody got offended (nor was such intended!) and everyone stayed helpful. Cudos. |
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Actually, one addendum I want to make, look at the beginning of this video, you'll see what I mean:
Youtube: arm drag I didn't watch the entire video, so I can't vouch for its contents, but look at the first couple seconds. |
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The external details are a window that show how well the underlying principles are understood. This is how teachers judge their students. Do not tell me, show me. Let me attack you and feel what you try to do. |
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But yes, I think, I know what you mean. And in my first years of aikido I learned it exactly like you. Then - with a new teacher - not only the position of the axis shifted, but also the way to organize the body changed. You experienced that being stable is not only an issue of where you have your feet, didn't you? So if you can not be pushed over standing with parallel feet, don't you think a "similar effect" can be shown, standing in hanmi? Quote:
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When I wrote "weight" in quotation marks, I meant this "dowstream" wich feels like weight but isn't really (sorry, can't do better in english words). In the hara/tanden/center ... /pelvis ... there is a connection to the upper body and arms and the force is kind of lead and distributed by this area. So ... I hope you could follow to this point ... the feeling of this flow and distribution of energy is different when your body axis is in the middle or in front third or in the rear third of the of your hanmi. In the end I think it doesn't matter. But in my experience I just feel it better and can use it better when not standing symmetric. Maybe this way of doing things is influenced by the experiences of my teacher in kenjutsu. But I'm not sure whether in this point there is connection. Again: Thank you for thinking about my questions and answering! |
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So are we to move as if burdened with a sandbag weight that we plop from place to place, or are we rather movers from top to bottom, where moving away from the ground is a pleasant side-effect, rather than the goal? The answer to this question is relevant to the question of how you move in such a way that parallel or uneven stance, one-side weighted or double-weighted, etc. does not significantly effect the outcome. Gedanken: if there were no gravity, and you were in essence in a walled room in outer space, how would you move around using the walls? This is not a theoretical question and applies to ground fighting all over the place. |
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I'm sitting in a bureau which I share with my colleague. I don't dare to follow your advice right now ... Quote:
It feels more like bouncing off the earth than like jumping. Quote:
It's the center that goes. And for this you are right, the weight or position of the feet doesn't matter I think. Quote:
But I dont see the contrdaction - if it was one - to my cited statement? What do I not understand? |
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The mental image I just had is that you suddenly got from behind your desk and started jumping. Much to the amazement of your colleague. :D
in the no gravity room: think bouncing... |
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But, what would shifting your center, and not moving with the feet/legs or hands/arms, mean in an environment where you could not push just off and then rely on gravity to fall back down and forwards? If you just tried to shift your center forward, weightless, what would happen? But like all gedanken, it's just a hastily thought up way of pointing out absurdities to help us re-examine what we take for granted. Bonus gedanken: those walls are now made of perfectly frictionless ice. Now what? :p |
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