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Old 03-23-2017, 02:19 PM   #234
jonreading
 
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Dojo: Aikido South
Location: Johnson City, TN
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Are you invincible if you possess Aiki?

Quote:
Paolo Valladolid wrote: View Post
I practice zhan zhuang because I haven't found anything more effective for eliminating excessive tension from my shoulders. There's been so many times that I thought I was suitably relaxed, but I actually wasn't. I guess it's one of those things that you stop noticing if you've had in your body for a really long time. I've tried less tedious and painful methods for supposedly relaxing the shoulders like stretching, doing yoga routines, drinking multiple shots of whiskey, etc. but nothing has given me the same kind of feedback and results as zhan zhuang practice.

My thinking was initially influenced by Mike Sigman and other practitioners Chinese MA who are big fans of standing practice. Budd of course has been a more recent influence. Mike recently stated that he has consistently observed progress in individuals who do some sort of standing practice for at least 3 months - it didn't matter if said individual had awareness of force vectors or what posture/position he/she stood in.

So do you practice standing in shizentai? How long do you typically practice standing in this posture? Under 2 min. or longer than that?

I've worked up to 18 min. in zhan zhuang. I'm not saying other people have to stand in that posture for that long. I'm definitely not saying one should stand in zhan zhuang or do any standing practice - just reporting what has worked for me. I use it to both train to relax my upper body, and to train the use of the two basic force vectors at the same time - so it's not a totally inefficient practice for me.
So when we look at shizentai, we practice that posture in a similar manner to how you would perform yoga mountain pose. As the yoga name implies, we should be fairly immovable. We'll practice standing while a partner applies pressure because that's a pretty good indicator of success (as long as you are honest in understanding whether you are standing with fullness or simply using muscle). We'll also look at standing as part of furi tama; the vibration of furi tama coming from the manipulation of HEM. A partner can also push in furi tama, but when you "pulse" (i.e. shake your center), your partner should feel it - many aikido people shake with their hands so pressure on the stomach is unaffected. As a general rule, we spend a lot of time standing and working on the vertical aspects of our movement (heaven/earth) - anytime we are moving, we have the expectation that the movement should be done with that posture. This is my perspective to inherit a truly "natural" stance (shizentai).

Most of our standing exercises are pretty intense repetitions - hold for a short period of time (30 seconds or less), followed by a rest period. We'll work hard to create fullness in our posture, then extend that fullness into (and beyond) our hands and feet. We treat standing a little different than stretching, which we might do for a longer period of time. For example, we might stand against a wall for a longer period (maybe a minute) and press our heels, lower back, upper back, and head onto the wall to stretch, flatten, and broaden our back and stretch our vertical line. We will do it on the ground, too.

I feel tension in my shoulders and hips are perennial problems and generally speaking I am never soft enough. I try to stay away from "relaxed" because we are standing in a posture of potential energy - we are just trying to do it cleanly so the energy is 100% transferred, which means we don't muscles getting in the way of things.

Jon Reading
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