Quote:
Gerald Lopez wrote:
Yes! For those who are sensitive enough, you can feel ki on day one.
It depends very much on whether the teacher understands ki or not.
There is nothing mystical about it, ki has been used as a concept for thousands of years, in virtually all cultures.
The teaching of ki changes students' aikido from merely mechanical movements to graceful flow. Obviously this takes time. I have found that, while a beginning student can feel ki on day one, it takes several months or years to understand it and to practise it. It is a felt understanding, not one that can be learned intellectually over a weekend.
Thank you for sharing, I can see it has triggered a variety a responses!
Best regards,
Gerald
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www.mindbodyaikido.com |
Hi,
So, what is it then, this Ki ?
You say, it's a concept, which means an abstract or generalized idea.
And you say, it's a felt understanding.
In written Japanese we find two logographs:
氣 is the traditional Chinese character and also the old Japanese kyujitai kanji
気 is the Japanese shinjitai (new character form) kanji, simplified from 氣 (米 → 㐅) in the 1946 Toyo kanji list.
In fact, it's a polyseme. It can take on a lot of meanings, which may be related.
A meme to which other memes have to be added to make it more precise.
In Western athletic training, the classical view of Qi/KI hardly matters. In physiologically oriented experiments, in which Asian martial artists stated, to concentrate their Qi/Ki in certain parts of the body, e.g. in their arms or legs, thermal imagers showed that there was an increased muscle tension right there, which was prepared for particular performance. From a purely physiological point of view, Qi /Ki could therefore also be described as a simple muscle tension, which is deliberately controlled by nerve impulses and, above all, concentrated.
Best,
Bernd