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Old 07-09-2007, 01:57 PM   #1325
David Orange
Dojo: Aozora Dojo
Location: Birmingham, AL
Join Date: Feb 2006
Posts: 1,511
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Re: Baseline skillset

Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
A child does NOT use this kind of jin.
They do what you described in your 'illustration'--"Have someone grab 2 or 3 fingers of your extended right arm and right hand in their fist and hold them firmly so that you can pull back with your body (not your arm or hand). Pretend your arm and hand are nothing more than a towel or piece of cloth and move your torso backward slowly until you can feel the stretch in your fingers, hand, arm, shoulder, and across your back. Your partner holding your fingers is now connected to your middle via a slight tensile stretch."

Of course, they do it in a very subtle way and it's as easy to miss that as it is to break a strand of silk......

Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
I had 2 children and I'm a body-watcher-for-movement anyway.
How long ago was that, Mike? Were your movement watching skills as highly developed then as they are now? Were you as attentive of them as you were other things? I've been watching children specifically for this kind of movement for about fifteen years, now.

Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
A toddler does whatever it takes. It puts a pacifier into it's mouth with just arm. It individually motivates limbs because reeling silk and pulling silk require levels of coordination that a child does not have.
But the illustration you gave doesn't really require any special coordination. You just let the arm be like a towel and let the whole system connect. Children do that all the time. Of course, that is not the highest level, but it's consistent with your illustration.

As I've always said, this will not develop far unless we cultivate it in them and teach them how to cultivate it in themselves. But the "stuff" is there to be cultivated from the beginning.

Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
"These strengths must be learned; they are not intuitive". Old saying.
That's why we have to cultivate it in them--but it's already "there" to be cultivated.

Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
Pulling Silk and Reeling Silk are NOT "natural" movements in the sense that they're intuitive.
No, not intuitive: innate--at least at the very fundamental levels as described in your illustration.

Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
"Natural" refers to following/in-harmony with the laws of physics. Attributing this type of movement to an immature human is far off the mark.
But to say that the roots of it don't exist in human beings from birth is much further off the mark.

David

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

"Eternity forever!"

www.esotericorange.com
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