Yin/yang in Taiji
 

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XOTM4OTc3Mjg=.html

http://www.56.com/u40/v_NDI1NDAwMjE.html

A couple of clips from a taiji context.

Re: yin/yang in taiji
 

He has control of the person as soon as he's touched or grabbed. Second vid has a nice portion where the guy puts hand on his chest and still gets bounced away. Pretty cool stuff.

Re: yin/yang in taiji
 

Thanks Mark, glad to see someone appreciates it!;)

Re: yin/yang in taiji
 

Definitely! Thanks Allan.

Re: yin/yang in taiji
 

How did he 'get control'? How did he bounce the guy away? What does this demonstration tell you about how he trains his body?

FWIW

Mike Sigman

Re: yin/yang in taiji
 

Some other clips for comparison/contrast:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vaogb-2vdrU
(Wei Shuren)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX4QWlCbxoI
(student of Wei Shuren)

Re: yin/yang in taiji
 

I can't really tell ... Seem like somehow the 'attacker' either has good structure or structure is established by the 'pusher' (in the attacker) otherwise there is nothing for the power to "go into". Kind of like one cannot push with a rope very well since there is no structure to convey the force.

Re: yin/yang in taiji
 

Exactly. But to truly attack you, doesn't an attacker have to commit forces into you? What is jin/kokyu but the ability to manipulate the forces that an attacker puts to you, in combination with the forces that you yourself are able to generate? I.e, once you know how to do it, it's a statics analysis. Go back and look at all the "ki" demonstrations as statics analyses and they're fairly obvious as such.

If Uke is, as you mentioned, "like a rope" then no forces can resolve in a hard statics analysis because Uke is not a committed part of the structural whole. I.e., when you see Uke's flying away from Tori's movement, they have obviously allowed themselves to be a committed part of a whole structure.

FWIW

Mike Sigman

Re: yin/yang in taiji
 

Do you mean kinda like this? :D

http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/attach...3&d=1208097999

Re: yin/yang in taiji
 

Hmmmm.... that's about as clear as one of the Apocrypha (which can be translated to mean anything you want, particularly after the fact).

Mike Sigman

Re: yin/yang in taiji
 

No. Plainly applicable.

It is Coulomb's arch of tangent spheres which I have posted long ago -- it is stable in compression under its own weight in one -- and only one -- line of thrust, conforming to that typical shape. Anything else collapses without resistance -- "like pushing on a rope"

How applicable? Cut the diagram in half vertically. Turn the right half 90 deg. clockwise and attach its bottom to the top of the left half -- the resulting line of thrust is typical of that of the human body in hanmi extended in tegatana facing right exerting or bearing a lateral load to/from the right. Maintain that profile (technically called the "funicular line") in response to applied load and the structure will bear it compressively until its material fails. Collapse it -- cleverly -- with exceedingly small deviations from the line, and you can direct the resulting plane of action -- which involves rotation(s).

Re: yin/yang in taiji
 

Ah.... I made an understatement. I have this picture in my mind of a Sensei yelling encouragingly to a student, "Use Coulomb's arch" and suddenly a moment of Satori embraces the student.

Or maybe not.

;)

Mike Sigman

Re: yin/yang in taiji
 

One slight push into the paper, on any ball, and the whole thing collapses. Unstable equalibrium is not to be strived for except in the attacker.

Re: yin/yang in taiji
 

Ah, no. That explanation is only for the student who asks, after getting it, "But why?

Re: yin/yang in taiji
 

"Why" is nice, but unless a teacher shows a student "how" it becomes an impasse. The diagram is nice, but I say "how?", IF the diagram is germane. And of course when I ask whether something is germane, I'm talking about specifics. I.e., it's easy for someone to say to a student whom they are leading by the nose that "it's just simple physics" or "it's just Coulomb" or whatever. I say "so how, specifically is it done?". I could say "it's simple energy equations (or 'angular momentum' or whatever general term of choice) and that is meaningless in the same sense that so much of Asian martial-arts theory is couched in obscure language that can be spoken by both people who really know and by people who only think they know.

Showing someone a cool diagram or video or animotion doesn't do a lot. "How" is the question.

Remember that O-Sensei also used very nice metaphorical language in his doko, yet the very skills he showed against Tenryu can't be duplicated by most Aikidoka... even ones that claim to be 'teachers'. O-Sensei did it on purpose; others do it in pretense of knowledge they don't have, so it's hard for a beginner to know who is whom.

FWIW

Mike Sigman

Re: yin/yang in taiji
 

There is a lovely "pinky-nikkyo" that shows"how" but reveals little as to why it works -- the two points cannot be severed anymore than we fight on one leg.

Essentially, training this sort of thing progresses in this way (I'll get to the yin/yang thread topic presently, so bear with me). This is the first level:

1) identify the feel of the stable line, in any configuration

2) identify the feel of the departure from the stable line, in any dynamic

3) feed action into the shape of the collapsing line

This is in various modes what aikido calls kokyu tanden ho -- tui shou is very much concerned with same points. A slightly modified image from the pushed rope is that of metal cable -- you can push a little on it, in a very narrow range of positions, but outside of those it collapses -- but in a very typical coiling configuration depending on its internal stress -- point 3 is learning the coiling/uncoiling behavior, after departure from the line.

The next level learns to drive this interaction without an initial dynamic. Since we can feed into action that has tipped the stability cliff, action that provokes a departure will allow the driving of collapse, but only if we use yin-yang principles -- to provoke collapse up -- start down and then feed into the reaction. to provoke the left -- start right, etc. The recognition of the line together with learning its static manipulation creates inherently better structural stability.

This leads to understanding the two sides of the body working the opposed coiling and uncoiling tension/compression lines applying the "feed" action magnifying the collapse -- in phase and anti-phase relationship -- to apply left-right or up-down simultaneously, (tenchi) creating an almost instantaneously buckle. The mastering of phase and anti-phase on both sides of the body leads to understanding the place in between them that they, in interaction, are provoking -- the 90 degree opposed stress or resonance interaction that creates the shear that is the cause of the coiling/uncoiling behavior. Once this is perceived, the applications can become much smaller yet more energetic.

As with a coiling cable, it is the initial stress state within the body itself that directs the "handedness" of the coils that result when collapse is begun. The amount or degree of that stress is irrelevant -- only its sign (left/right clockwise counter clockwise, etc.) and correct orientation of action relative to it matters to proper application.

The stress of the coiled cable can be reversed and with it the hand of the coils -- so can the stress within the body -- that coiling hand is all downhill and the opposite hand of coil is all uphill. Asagao and sanchin both illustrate the same opposed coiling stress principles, and the manner or shape of the continuous reversal.

Re: yin/yang in taiji
 

Let me use a simple example to make my point about how "how" is a problem. If we look at an old video of Ueshiba being pushed on (while not allowing himself to be moved), we could use many of the descriptors you just used to generally say why Uke was unable to move Ueshiba... and while the general description would be technically correct, it would totally miss the point about Ueshiba using "the Divine Intent" and how he himself did that. I.e., that actual "how" to do these things is totally being missed with these broad descriptions that use very general physical principles like "angular momentum".

If an Uke is not *correctly* shown the actual 'how', he usually winds up doing some incorrect facsimile of the real physical skill. Once something wrong is imbedded into the coordination, it's fairly hard to change. I used to try to change people who'd been led down some wrong road, but I've given up. It's better to just work with fresh minds. Let the people who already know all the answers just keep on truckin', I allus sez. ;)

FWIW

Mike Sigman