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Old 02-27-2008, 08:05 AM   #152
Robert Wolfe
Dojo: Itten Dojo
Location: Mechanicsburg, PA
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 18
United_States
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Re: Workshop with Mike Sigman on Ki in Aikido

A day or two ago, Mike asked for some comments from those who participated in the seminar at Itten Dojo, particularly with regard to experiences in aikido practices since the seminar.

Let me start by mentioning that I had real concerns prior to the seminar. After reading the frequent comments in various threads very explicitly stating that acquisition of internal skills requires extensive, daily solo practice outside of regular training, I figured I would be pretty well screwed to begin with. Most weekdays, I have barely an hour between the office and the dojo, just enough time to get home, grab a bowl of cereal and my gear, and head out the door. I get home late and get up early the next day to start the cycle again, never getting anywhere near eight hours sleep. I'm already maxed-out.

I was also very concerned to read statements that gaining these skills demands, essentially, a total rewiring of all movement patterns, extending even to routine activities. I was thinking, "Okay, it's bad enough if there's going to need to be an ‘alien' movement pattern imposed on my aikido; what's going to be the effect on the koryu iaido we also practice?"

Happily, both concerns proved to be exaggerated.

Absolutely — internal skill acquisition demands daily, solo practice. But that doesn't have to mean hours of specialized exercises. From what I can see, at least at this beginning level, sufficient daily practice of specialized exercises is needed to recognize and internalize the basic movement patterns, sense of forces, and power generation, but the really key requirement appears to me to be to start trying to apply the skills in all daily activities, right from the beginning. In that way, rather than getting a discrete fifteen minutes, or an hour, of specialized exercises, you're getting additional minutes of conscious patterning and application, minutes that can add up to hours over the course of a day. Make everything training.

I was also relieved to discover that many of the most fundamental movement patterns in these internal skills aren't so alien after all. Sure, there are some esoteric aspects and applications of internal skills — some of which were witnessed at the seminar by those paying close attention — but the basics appear to be primarily mechanical and mental, completely understandable, and are in many cases things fairly common to a wide variety of arts. I've seen, and been instructed in, many pieces of the internal skills, in arts ranging from karate to aikijujutsu, to kenjutsu. However (and it's a BIG "however"), I only ever received disjointed pieces of the puzzle, never a comprehensive picture, and as I came to recognize at the seminar it only takes one missing piece to queer the deal with respect to active application of the skills.

There's no question that integrating internal skills requires an "extreme makeover," but the good news is that most students of traditional arts with any significant length of training will recognize things they've done in bits and pieces and have a good basis on which to start their physical reprogramming. Integrating the movement patterns and power generation is not going to be quick, and it's not going to be easy, but getting started in training the internal skills should not be seen as an overwhelming challenge.

More good news can be found in the fact results are apparent immediately. Obviously, anyone still trying to figure out which foot goes where in basic aikido techniques isn't going to see a lot of benefit from adding the requirement to focus on subtle alignments, weighting, breathing, imagery, sequencing, and force paths, but anyone with reasonable body skills and coordination (i.e., the ability to move intentionally) will see appreciable improvement in the effectiveness of techniques, right out of the box.

It's simply not the case that months or years of intense, solo practice need be invested prior to seeing any tangible results. I'm sure that decades of practice are required for high-level applications of internal skills, but I'm very encouraged and much more likely to make such an investment knowing I've got a better ikkyo today than three weeks ago, the consequence of only utterly superficial exposure to a concise and comprehensive explication of the basics of internal skills. It may not be in high definition, but I've gotten at least a peek at the bigger picture.

My recommendation is to investigate the internal skills, with an instructor who is willing to present a thorough grounding in the basics, in the context of the art in which you're primarily training. You may decide you already do all this stuff, or are at least doing enough to be satisfied, or you may have opened to you a far wider range of possibilities for your practice than you ever imagined.

And, best of all, adding this element of training isn't going to screw up your iaido.
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