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Old 01-25-2013, 11:15 AM   #25
HL1978
Dojo: Aunkai
Location: Fairfax, VA
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 429
United_States
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Re: A simple mechanical model of body use.

Quote:
Michael Varin wrote: View Post
It seems to me that quite a few people feel far too comfortable describing things that they cannot do, or at least cannot do confidently or with any real understanding.

This makes me wonder. . .

Hunter,

I'm waiting for the videos. I have always found you to be one of, if not, the most forth coming of the so-called "IP/IT/IS" guys here on AikiWeb, but, that said, I seem to remember you failing to produce videos in the past.

No one is questioning whether the skills described as "IP/IT/IS" exist. We are questioning what exactly is the nature of those skills, and why people are so reluctant to demonstrate them.
For much of this material, I doubt most people without direct experience are going to be able to see whats going on. Thus I don't see too much point to video.

However, for this particular mechanic, what I'm referring to can be done in an internal way, but the following video, is more done in a "precursor" way. That is to say, I am still using muscle to raise the shoulder/arm, just not relying on the shoulder. Eventually, you don't want to rely on muscle so much, but use Sigman's suit. Thus I would not call this demo an "internal" arm raise, rather one with passibly good mechanics. Even now, when demonstrating this, you will see my body moving in certain ways, but don't talk about in the video other parts of my body being tugged as that arm raises.

Of course, most of you watching this don't really know what I actually feel, or where I experience tension. That being said, with the black on white background, you should be able to see the position of my shoulder to some degree and how much the traps and delts "rise" in the various raises.

Shoulder raises

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1) The first way I lift is BAD. Anyone who has some martial arts experience or done some weight lifting knows why. I'm leading with the shoulder, and you will see the shoulder raise up and the trapesius raise up as well. I feel the load in the deltoids and traps. If you ever lug your groceries around and notice your shoulders raising up, drop them.

This is not a good way to use your shoulders (unless you are doing shoulder shrugs).

2) This is the way I find most people raise their arm. They don't lead with the shoulder, but the delt and traps still rise up and you feel the load in these muscles. There is less direct load in the shoulder.

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For the next two, you will notice that my right shoulder is markedly lower than the left. I'm not really activating and pushing the shoulder down here, but I still see stuff I am doing wrong on video (probably because I'm talking rather than focusing on what I'm doing). The fact that the right is lower than the left is a tip off that it is relaxed. I don't however really use the elbow properly (though you may notice a different orientation than in 1-2), nor do I have the shoulder attached properly to the body. I will try taking another video later without talking to give a better demo.

3) What I am doing here, is not only using the inflated bag idea, where the triceps pull away from the arm pit area. I'm doing this by trying to have the arm pull down all the time, rather than focus on raising from the top part of the arm. I really, really hesitate to call this actual internal practice as I'm still using localized muscle, just different localized muscle. You will find that by pulling that arm down, you reach a point where it will no longer pull any further straight down, but starts to extend outwards. You will also notice that unlike 1 and 2, my upper body opens out, stretching across the chest. It looks more like a scooping motion.

4) For this one, my camera ran out of memory, I probably talked for another minute. Anyways, I'm doing something similar to #3, though my shoulder is more "opened up" and I'm focusing a bit more on extending/projecting from the elbow than from the fingertips. The elbow is still going down to go up. I'm not telling myself to lean away to counterweight. It just comes as a natural consequence of the elbow extension that my legs/hips move of their own accord, as a result of maintaining that shoulder connection. I feel a lot more of a float/expansion.

#4 still needs a lot more work. Anyways, this is a pretty low level skill, and I'm not using suit in these demos at all.If someone grabbed onto my arm in 3-4, they would feel the expansion and direction outwards along a big arc instead of a force on force clash like in 1-2. 3-4 feel more "overwhelming" than clashing. I think more skilled people out there are going to see what I'm doing wrong here.
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