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Old 01-18-2007, 06:03 PM   #119
raul rodrigo
Location: Quezon City
Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 777
Philippines
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Re: Baseline skillset

I have to say, Erick, that it does appear to me that you are in fact confusing the requirements of good waza (don't "resist") with the principles behind the exercises to build up ki/kokyu. In my own dojo, we do quite a bit of push exercises and "power walking," which we absorbed from a student of Yamaguchi shihan (ie, Saotome's own first teacher). In these exercises, the point is exactly as Mike S says: to send the force of uke on a path to the ground. In the process of learning this baseline skill, one builds up that involve a stronger center and new connections inside the body (the psoas muscle apparently plays a big role). At the higher level—which we haven't arrived at, but which this shihan, Shingo Nakao, demonstrated to our teacher—a kneeling tori can absorb a shove to the chest by a lunging uke and just....wait for it....bounce him away. So what Mike is saying makes sense to me. FWIW
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