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Old 08-09-2013, 06:59 AM   #29
RonRagusa
Dojo: Berkshire Hills Aikido
Location: Massachusetts
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 824
United_States
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Re: to ki or not to ki

Quote:
Krystal Locke wrote: View Post
That sounds more like good biomechanics to me. The ability to arrange the body so that incoming force is borne by aligned skeletal structure rather than resisted by muscular contraction. Is ki just good physics?
Ki is, in part, good physics and biomechanics. But it goes beyond both insofar as the mind plays a vital role in the development of mind/body synergy. The same exercise can be performed by the same people and yield completely different results depending on the degree of mind/body coordination of the person being tested. Some exercises require that the person being tested purposely adopt positions that are inherently unstable in order require a higher degree of mind/body coordination to deal with the incoming force.

For me, the descriptive terminology is not as important as acquiring the ability to feel what works and then be able to replicate the feeling at will. Once I can do that, I can dispense with the descriptive component altogether and trust correct feeling; cutting out the middleman, so to speak.

That said, you may have other ways of expressing what's happening and if they're helpful in moving your abilities forward then who am I to argue?

Ron

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