Chris Knight

I've been training internal strength since April 2012,

I took the chance to meet one of the aforementioned proponents of Aiki, as soon as money and family commitments would allow, and can honestly say was one of the best investments I could have made.

Having only studied Aikido for 3 years, I had a nagging feeling that people were onto something when posting on Aikiweb out Aiki and internal strength.

Having only been to one "Aiki" seminar, it took me about 2 minutes to see the potential and potency of this training, if done correctly.

Although a newbie to martial arts in general, I've studied hours of dvd and youtube footage and get out when I can to meet teachers. All I can say is when I saw the Aiki teacher perform an aikido technique, his whole body spiralled from his feet to his hands, I've never quite seen movement like it, and from that moment on, I wanted to get his body skill.

The other noticeable benefit was that this teacher could move like Ueshiba, remaining stable and pivoting around a central point - continuously, sounds simple, but observed very rarely.

I want to be able to store the power generated, so when people grab you in a dojo, they're already connected, via your body/mental conditioning. I want power on demand, being able to make atemi's from any position with a fully connected body. Easier said than done.

I have had a bad back for 10 years, of which after 4 months of training on average 4-5 hours a week, it has gone. No chiropracter, physio or doctor could diagnose an accurate problem, never mind provide a pain relief or cure.

I just wish I had the time to commit to this training even more, as the more this is practised the better the results, like most things IMO.