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Old 01-23-2013, 02:49 PM   #74
ChrisHein
 
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Dojo: Aikido of Fresno
Location: Fresno , CA
Join Date: Apr 2005
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Re: "Internal" and "External"

Quote:
Phi Truong wrote: View Post
the reason i used the spoon is because it's a light object. for internal folks (i am safe from speak for the internal folks since none of them near me which won't allow them to kill me), we don't differentiate light objects or heavy objects. the old saying "one moves, all move." so to pick up the spoon, i used the fingers which connected to the rest of the body which then also move, i.e. i powered the spoon lifting with my whole body. i bring the ground to the spoon. not only that, i also focus on breathing to aid the lifting, and focus on be able to handle forces applied (imaginary) to me in various directions at the same time as i am lifting the spoon. this allows me to be "on" all the time (except for when i am intimate moments...maybe), so that i don't have a different response for a different thing. terms like efficiency or better or good and so on, just doesn't make much sense here. it's down right a strange way of doing things. heck, most folks just reach out and pick up the spoon without a second thought, regardless they are athletics or not. internal folks are really a bunch of nut jobs.
This is a tough one for me to wrap my head around, so if I go off in a weird direction please tell me.

The more of your body you recruit to do a specific task, the more it taxes the system. So for example, If I lift a spoon off the table with only the muscles of my hand, I am taxing very little of my body. If I use my forearm muscles in addition to my hand muscles I tax more of my body. The more of my body I use, the more taxing it is. Larger muscle groups require more energy from the body.

This is why I said it's not efficient to use the whole body to move a light object. I think we kind of might agree on that, but there is a sticking point here somewhere.

I personally believe that only muscles move the physical body. I know that sounds like a really obvious thing to say, but I want to make sure we're all on the same page. So, if you want to move the body, you'll have to use muscle. The more muscle you use to move the body, the more you will tax the system. The less muscle you use to move the body the less you tax the system.

Now there is a type of training, where we learn to only fire the useful muscles, in only the correct firing order to do the job we need them to do. This kind of training requires all non essential muscles to relax, and all essential muscles to fire in their most efficient order. This gives us maximum muscle recruitment, for only the duration needed, and keeps all muscles that don't need to work in a relaxed state. This type of training makes the smallest tax on the body possible, to achieve the best results possible.

I would call a kind of training like this very efficient, and so with the definitions I was asking about, I would then call this kind of training "internal".

What I get from your post is one of these things:

You believe taxing the whole system, no matter the requirement of force, is a good idea?

Or are you saying that more muscular recruitment doesn't tax the body more?

Or, are you saying that there are ways to move the body that doesn't require muscle?

I'm sure these are all at least kind of wrong, but I'm asking for clarification.

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