Photograph of O-sensei's feet?
 

Does anyone have a photo of his feet in reasonably good detail? Depending on how they look like, it would be an indicator of internal training.

Re: Photograph of O-sensei's feet?
 

How do 'internal' feet look different?

Re: Photograph of O-sensei's feet?
 

Chris

Maybe internal feet are `pigeon toed ` .just guessing ?

Henry Ellis
Co-author `Positive Aikido`.

http://henryellisaikido-videos.blogspot.com/

Re: Photograph of O-sensei's feet?
 

Pronounced tendon development and thick, looks like the Aun statues. You can see Sagawa's feet in the Japanese copy of tomie no chikara, but the photos are not the greatest.

Re: Photograph of O-sensei's feet?
 

What makes the tendons large and feet thick?

Re: Photograph of O-sensei's feet?
 

Chris, I would be just as excited as you if western science and medicine were to elucidate the nature of the link between internal training and the way the connective tissue changes. But we don't yet have a mechanism, so there isn't that much point talking about it (I know there is still some point, but at any rate we won't get closer to mechanism by talking about it). The point is tendons are a critical type of connective tissue that may be specifically trained. Training results in changes such as thickening. The idea there is roughly that tissue that is trained to handle more load becomes thicker.

As to why it would show up in feet, I'm sure you've read things like Mike Sigman's blog and many people's posts here that talk about how the whole body is involved.

Anyway I think it is an interesting idea to think about the foot as a marker for development.

Re: Photograph of O-sensei's feet?
 

Question:

Why is this the exclusive domain of "IP/IT/IS"?

In old school western physical culture, tendon strength or sinewy strength were commonly referred to. These elements have not been lost in arts such as wrestling, weight lifting, and gymnastics.

Re: Photograph of O-sensei's feet?
 

You are the one talking about exclusive domain.

Re: Photograph of O-sensei's feet?
 

Never said it was, wiry builds are found elsewhere, though you may find people who have thick and wiry feet, but more normal looking bodies.

In order to condition your feet, you have to train so that your feet get very heavy. That is to say that after a few minutes, your feet will hurt due to the pressure. This thickening indicates that a lot of weight/loading is transfered into the feet. One might think that they always have a lot of weight going into the feet, but that isn't always the case. Lets discuss how to do that in some aikido exercises.

Doing warmups is a great time to work on this, so is funakogi undo. In funakogi undo, when you drive your hips, you don't just want that motion to go forwards. Doing so makes the rear foot get light. You need to keep both feet heavy as you perform the motion. Part of that is how you drive the hips forward and back and how you involve the lower back. When driving the hips forward, the motion to drive the lower hips forward doesn't mean that you roll the hips forward with the lower back.

If you do, you will find that drives the motion upwards and makes the rear foot light. Also, I find that leaves my lower back fatigued rather than the hips. Instead drive them forwards by opening the hips. You will feel your legs want to open up too, but don't let them.

When performing aikiken or working on suburi, when you swing, you want your feet to get very heavy. That is to say when you swing, the weight and corresponding pressure in your feet should increase as you bring the sword downwards. If it doesn't, it indicates that your energy is going out rather than down, which means your weight is going forwards and your feet will feel lighter. Thus even when receiving a cut with your bokken during kata, the recieved energy will mostly go into the arms or maybe the upper torso, rather than reflecting off the floor. You do not want to stomp the foot into the ground; obviously that can injure the foot, but its not at all what I am referring to as causing pain in the feet :P

Re: Photograph of O-sensei's feet?
 

Dear Hunter

I'd like to quote this in another thread. For this particular thread, may I ask if funakogi undo and aiki-ken are done with hanmi for your description?

Regards

Carl

Re: Photograph of O-sensei's feet?
 

Yes, that's how I had learned them, though I would struggle to make it through all the aikiken kata today.

Re: Photograph of O-sensei's feet?
 

Every photo I recall he was wearing tabi ...

Re: Photograph of O-sensei's feet?
 

No. Actually, I'm not.

Not that this helps the thread in any way at this point, but it is often said that "IP/IT/IS" is only understood by a few, comes only from a specific culture, produce unusual power, and is not contained within "athletics."

So if it is not exclusive, where else do we see it?

Re: Photograph of O-sensei's feet?
 

In this photo, one foot is relatively clearly shown:

Re: Photograph of O-sensei's feet?
 

Awesome, Mert.

I have never seen that photo!

I don't think that you can see any particular tendon development. I don't even think Morihei's legs look that big at the time. But, great find nonetheless.

Hunter,

Do you see what you were looking for? Why or why not? What do you take away from this?

He looks quite old, by the way. How long before his death was this taken?

Re: Photograph of O-sensei's feet?
 

The photograph was taken in the new Hombu Dojo, which was opened in 1968, which is one year before Morihei Ueshiba passed away.

Re: Photograph of O-sensei's feet?
 

Link to the original Aikido Journal page featuring the photo of Ueshiba: http://blog.aikidojournal.com/2011/1...tanley-pranin/ (as Peter stated, the setting is the new hombu dojo, and was taken the year after the dojo opened).

I'll set the table for Hunter by posting a pic of Minoru Akuzawa, who also rarely is photographed in bare feet it seems.



Rob John has mentioned that Ark has developed the traits Hunter pointed out regarding the feet. Dan Harden has stated that the wrists and ankles tend to thicken over time when following Dan's training methodology.

Re: Photograph of O-sensei's feet?
 

Thanks Hunter

I asked because of your Aunkai influence. I understand that Akuzawa Sensei's system does not use hanmi.

Carl

Re: Photograph of O-sensei's feet?
 

kind puzzle about the feet and internal thingy. i have ate chicken and duck feet at dimsum places before. i have internalized most of it. does that count? my aikido seemed to work better the more chicken feet i consumed. it might be related. :)

Re: Photograph of O-sensei's feet?
 

Hi Matt,
I have noticed a change in my body over the years.My waistline has got thicker.I put this down to serious training in Indian /Chinese /Greasy spoon joints.Does my thickened waistline indicate that I am becoming a master of i/p or simply I am just a guzzler of too much junk food?Only thing I notice about my own feet are the arthritic big toes and at the moment elongated toenails. Cheers, Joe.

Re: Photograph of O-sensei's feet?
 

One thing I will say is that both Morihei's and Akuzawa's feet look healthy in contrast to Akuzawa's uke's feet, which look mildly deformed. All to common in the modern, post-industrial world due to our healthly habits like wearing shoes and sitting in chairs all day.

Again, not sure this has anything to do with "internal." I am still hoping to hear from Hunter.

Re: Photograph of O-sensei's feet?
 

What about sumo wrestler's feet - with all that stomping?

Any good examples?

Re: Photograph of O-sensei's feet?
 

It's how they use that tendon strength.

There may be some traces of IS in ancient wrestling when Hercules lifts his opponent off the ground, breaking his ground connection, at which time the opponent lost all his strength.

However, in IS, the tendon and sinew are seen as part of a whole complex web unlike I've ever heard it described in athletics.

Further, in IS, this entire "connective tissue" system is the medium of "ki" in the body. Ki flows through the fascia/connective tissue. This also explains why some acupuncture points are on nerve points but others are not. The western approach is that these must be imaginary points and that only the nerves have any capacity to conduct energy, and that can only be electrical energy. But ki is in the whole connective tissue complex all the time. Traditional approaches moved and balanced the body in specific ways to shift the efforts from muscle to the connective tissue via ki movement.

That's a big difference in usage and the quality of the results can't be attained by Western sports and athletic methods. Otherwise, judo would have improved remarkably after its inclusion in the Olympics. Instead it became more like wrestling and less like an Asian fighting art, this according to Minoru Mochizuki.

So the use of the connective tissue in IS is completely different from Western sport and athletics.

David

Re: Photograph of O-sensei's feet?
 

Thanks for that, David.

It's a great topic for another thread (in fact, I think I'll start one). But how, in the context of this thread, does it address anything in my post?

Let's re-read.

and,