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Old 08-18-2010, 11:32 AM   #1
Mike Sigman
Location: Durango, CO
Join Date: Feb 2005
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Yin-Yang and Store-and-Release and Hara

Quote:
Dan Harden wrote: View Post
Go right ahead. That store and release model is not as universal as you make it out to be across the board, It would also never fly with more informed sources. Again we can go back to certain core principles, but they can be expressed in different ways.
Just to clarify a point in relation to the thread on "Paths that lead to internal power", maybe it's worth saying something about Yin-Yang, In-Yo, Ki, etc.

When Ueshiba, Tohei, et al, 'demonstrate their ki', the essence of what they're showing has to do with a special connectivity of the body (not the artificial one that most people display when they're trying to demonstrate "connectivity"). Without going into a lengthy exposition about why this aspect of "ki" is related to breath training, demonstrations of jin/kokyu (the 'breath' of kokyu refers to the breathing training adjunct of jin/kokyu-forces), let me just focus on the connectivity aspect as I make these comments.

Any movement in which actually uses full-blown 'ki' (not just some aspects of jin/kokyu-power) goes through a cycle of store-and-release, whether that store-and-release is done fast/explosively or is done as part of a slow (but complete, ki-wise) movement. That is the essence of what Yin-Yang refers to, BTW. Even a breath goes through a store-and-release, a Yin-Yang movement. Someone using full-blown ki/qi uses the body as a whole unit in which areas of the ki/qi contract while other areas expand and go into a form of relaxed tensile connectivity. Control of these areas is done at the Hara/dantien, which of course draws power from the ground and gravity, as I've mentioned before (think Heaven, Earth, Man).

A very rough example can be made using an exaggerated but simple raising and dropping of a sword in suburi. The exaggeration would be that we start (for this example) leaning slightly forward before we raise the sword. Leaving out the jin/kokyu forces and the actions of the dantien/hara, we have the back side of the ki/qi connection contracting or "relaxing back toward normal". As the body raises (and the sword raises) the slight tension in the back begins to be replaced by an increasing tension in the front... so the down-swing of the sword utilizes the elastic store of the front, but that "release" to the front means that the back again goes into a "store". Front goes to back goes to front goes to back, etc. Yin-Yang. Breath accompanies this movement, so breath is a part of all movement and helps train the Ki.

The sword swing example is a gross movement, but throughout all movements in a properly connected body (the ki is not 'blocked' so the whole-body's power goes everywhere), there is this interchange of ki/qi connection and 'tensions'. I.e., the interplay of "store and release" is ubiquitous. Are there other ways to do things? Sure, but they're not really aspects of the Yin-Yang, hara, etc., type of movement that Ueshiba was referring to.

Incidentally, here's Chen Xiaowang explaining these same interactions throughout the body, although he simply uses the word "qi", so to someone not understanding the relations I mentioned above, it just sounds like some mystical flow of "energy".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnePBBnt1kc

FWIW

Mike Sigman
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