could not respond to the Kokyu Rokyu thread
http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/showth...932#post317932 since moi has no experience whatsoever so i thought i would just do it here in the ill-informed section
*warning: IP/IS and aiki stuffs coming through*
i used to think that kokyu rokyu and ki can be had once you go through the usual aikido training and if you do it long enough, you get it. then i ran into a couple of IP/IS folks and they shown me that's not the case. there is a systematic way to train for those. there are two ways of breathing.
1. Buddha or normal breathing where your stomach expand on the inhale and contract on the exhale
2. Taoist or reverse breathing where your stomach contract on the inhale and expand on the exhale
The normal breathing usually associates with health and welfare (not the kind your wait in line at the social security office). it uses to increase oxygen intake into your blood stream.
The reverse breathing usually associates with power, i.e. generate power or absorb power for short period of time. it's not for health, because it will increase your blood pressure and if you do it too hard and often enough, you will have hypertension which isn't a good thing in the long run.
if you read Mike Sigman blog
http://mikesigman.blogspot.com/ in the section of "Suit and Balloon man model", the process behind it uses reverse breathing (most of the time, not all the time) to help create a full body connectivity which unify your body so that you do "one moves, all move". the weak portion of your body is your trunk. it has a dynamic inflatable balloon or two built-in, i.e. your lung and stomach (to some degree). by using breathing, one can inflate the "inner tube" of your trunk to create extra stability and whole body connectivity, similar the tires on your car. this help greatly when you need to do aikiage or aikisage. this help your absorb and channel quite a bit of force into the ground, just like the tire on your car channeling the pressure from the weight of the car and passenger to the ground.
what about power generation? the reverse breathing sequence has some inherent power portion. when you inhale, your center/hara/dantien moves up along with the stomach compression. when you breath out, your center/hara/dantien drops down along with the expansion of the stomach. the expansion of the stomach also acts as the stabilizer and power channeling to the ground. the center/hara/dantien droping carried your body weight with it which slams straight down to the floor. that's the power generation, i.e. your entire body weight slam straight down, and if your arms happened to be fully "connected" to your body, your arms will have the weight of your body with it. This is the essence of the furitama exercise, i.e. shaking your hara/dantien up and down like a car piston which in turn vibrating the rest of your body. in the east, hara/dantien considered as the seat of one soul. shaking the soul = shaking the hara/dantien. shaking your arms in order to shake the rest of your body isn't it, it's the other way around.
it's really physics and biology and some voodoo magic with a side of green bean and coleslaw and fries.
that's mostly what i want to say from a very ill-informed opinion person, moi, with not much experience in most thing aiki or aikido or whatever, except for foods, drinks and women where i would very much like to be informed of where, when and how.
