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Old 08-06-2011, 01:46 PM   #1
Mike Sigman
Location: Durango, CO
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What kind of "spiraling" does Aikido have?

Quote:
Dan Harden wrote: View Post
These two lines are particularly flawed.
"keep the elbows and forearms in that line from the waist in order to maximize the power flow
Actually, the strength is transmitted through the upper part of the forearm."'

[snip oblique shot]

While looking at this we can also examine how it ties in with the all too common specialty of the taiji one-legged-army and the back and forth movement and the erroneous ideas expressed in this dantien, elbow, and hand in a single line.
Here is another Chen Taiji Master class teacher:
"Forward and backward movement do not belong to Chen style. One small wrong movement and the posture is lost. At this time it is up to the spiral of the legs. The spiral of the leg uses on shun and one ni. The power of the hand and of the elbow is also forbidden to be double heavy (both expressing the same power)
And in the same passage:
At this time you must face forward, directly toward the opponent. The shoulder, elbow and hand, must use yin and yang. (expressing opposite power)

There is more to truly explain how this effect is so profound when force is applied to you, but I will just say that the legs, waist, hara, elbow and hand are moving in opposing spirals (always the union of opposites) and never in a line from dantien elbow to hand. That is low level understanding and Ueshiba didn't move that way either.

Morihei Ueshiba's own terminology on movement (now properly translated):
"Face your enemy and move with inside and outside spirals on opposite sides of the body
"The ways of stepping with the feet are outside-spirals and inside-spirals. This is taught in practice."
One of the difficulties in analysing what Ueshiba actually did for his training and application lies with the fact that he was aware/versed in the old Chinese classics, many of which have to do with vague descriptions of the things involved. In other words, one of the things that has to be looked at is whether the words match the original intent, when looking at Ueshiba's writings.

Dan's example of a Chen-style maxim is an example to consider: does the saying really discuss what Dan thinks it does and therefore prohibit forward and backward movement (there is an adjunctive saying about not going up or down, too)? Not really. This is where Shu Ha Ri comes in and the Chinese have more or less the same concept of Obvious, Hidden, and Mysterious. Not to belittle Dan, my point is that it's easy to use old sayings (as Ueshiba did), but the question is "does this really apply as originally meant?".

It turns out that even Okinawan karate (and most other arts, too) all refer to spiralings along the lines of the Ueshiba quote above. Are these the same kinds of spiraling used in the Chen-style Taijiquan? No, although there is a legitimate debate that at one time in the precursor arts of karate (and many other martial-arts) the same type of winding/spiraling was used and simply got lost over time. Because Ueshiba mentions the classical adage about spiraling doesn't necessarily mean that he thought of it and or did it in any way like the Chen-styles Reeling-Silk-Jin.

So the question is really more along the lines of "what did Ueshiba do, when and *how* did he do it, and where did he learn it?" There are related questions to be asked about what Tohei, Shioda, and others knew, when and how did they did it, where they learned it, and so on.

In my personal view there are some things that Ueshiba does (in terms of body movement) that are not quite the same as seen in Tohei, Shioda, any Daito Ryu guys on videos that I've seen, and so on. Over the years I've watched all the videos of Ueshiba (and many others, too, of course) and my impression is that Ueshiba actually used his dantien somewhat more than you'd think at first glance, but he used it in relation to pretty linear jin, not the winding jin. Among a number of reasons I could list, let me point out a couple:

There is no indication of winding training in any drill done by Ueshiba.

The winding jin doesn't work in closely held arms and a high stance. There is an old saying "qi does not go through a bent joing" and in this case they're talking about the aspect of qi that I refer to as "suit" as a way of differentiating what it is.

If someone makes a throw and ends up with one arm up and one arm down, one leg forward and one leg back, that does not mean that they are using "spiraling" power, since that type of posture is common and traditional through many martial arts. I had an Aikido teacher who did the same thing, BTW, and he had no internal-strength skills whatsoever; hence, it indicates not much.

One of the real questions I've had over the years is just what Ueshiba knew. I feel like I have a better grasp after years of reading and watching videos, but it's still difficult to speak with absolute surety in many cases. Does he use "reeling silk" though? Pretty definitely not, so Chen's Taiji is not a good comparison for that reason. Yang's Taiji that uses "Pulling Silk" is probably a much better comparison (of course they also claim to use "reeling", but they don't actually).

2 cents in order to start a rousing discussion. Disagree'ers please start with something like "I think you're wrong because...." as opposed to ad hominems, character assassination, and so forth.

Mike Sigman
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