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Old 12-28-2010, 03:38 PM   #3
Mike Sigman
Location: Durango, CO
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 4,123
United_States
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Re: Direction of Groundpath

Quote:
David Orange wrote: View Post
Doesn't groundpath "go" both ways?
Well, I dunno, David. Mark brought up something about people who only have it going in one direction and frankly I wasn't even aware some people thought that. I was trying to get some clarification about this topic of directionality.

If it's a groundpath, I guess it's a path that has the ground on one end of it. All the classical literature I've ever seen mentions "the support of the Earth", but it doesn't mention directions and if there's something I'm missing about directions I was just hoping to get filled in on it before I get too far behind.

Then, on the other hand, there is that traditional Asian perspective to think about in which the dantien/hara is the "center" and the path goes down to the ground from the dantien and up to the hands from the dantien/hara. Or I guess you could go by the old description of "groundpath" (I simply made up the term "groundpath" to indicate any/all of these) which talks about the jin that goes from the feet/ground, is controlled by the waist, and is expressed by the hands. That indicates an upward direction, I guess.

Then, on the third hand, we could do a Statics analysis and see what is happening by looking at a vector system that is in equilibrium and determine the direction of the force vector that is going from the point of contact on Nage to the ground.

These things have all been covered before and I'm always happy to get involved with a good vector analysis, but now I'm confronted with "Groundpaths" (tm) which seem to be travelling in directions somewhat akin to escalators. Boggles the mind. I'm just curious who on earth thinks that and what the rationale is behind it and how Mark himself defines "Groundpath" and how he uses multiple directions. Fascinating information.

Regards,

Mike
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