Thread: Aiki no Rentai
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Old 12-21-2012, 05:26 PM   #21
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Re: Aiki no Rentai

Quote:
Carl Thompson wrote: View Post
Thanks Chris

What I thought was interesting was the difference: Keeping the hands straight vs. the "slight rotation". Am I right in thinking that while Takeda and Osensei emphasised the "te-no-kaeshi", Sagawa changed it to keeping the hands straight? I notice Akuzawa Sensei of the Aunkai also keeps the hands straight. I haven't found any videos of other IP/Aiki exponents doing the exercise to compare, but it seems that even te sabaki can be viewed as "waza". In other words, could stripping it down be a way of going for "raw" kokyu-ryoku outside of the method of deployment?

NB: Suwari Kokyu-Ho is one of only two "techniques" that Osensei didn't seem to mind having written down in a list of rules as something that should be done in daily practice.

Carl
I keep the hands straight. That said, talking about the hands this way is ridiculous (yes I know some heavy hitters say different. I don't care). All it does is keep you from the real goods-perhaps purposefully.
Turning the hands up or down is totally unnecessary. In fact were we to consider "turning the hands thereare far more important things to be doing!!. This type of turning you are talking about adds nothing to what you are doing internally and externally to create the technique. There are reasons for straight hands -partly having to do within a training model to induce intent and then yin/yang and otherwise mostly having to do with maintaining an unattached mind without any hand motion....yet. The intent is in your whole body, creating a neutral point on-contact that becomes the support from dantian. From the there, all sort of interesting things occur; some of which is internal some of which is external. Hence IP/aiki. You really cannot do effective aiki without IP. It's all just mimiced motion that can produce okay waza, but it is far from being..."it."

More Taiji classics along the same line:
Not the weight of a feather can be added, nor a fly can alight that does not induce rotation. This gives opportunity for yin and yang. This is the comprehension of energy.

Another great admonition is from a taiji grand master. All this talk of aiki, where is yin? Where is yang? How then is there aiki? You cannot retend Dantian. You will be found out.

So, rotation alone simply will not work, and it is hardly the point. Yin yang is the point. Manifesting yin and yang is where you separate the high level people from ...well....everybody else! Utilizing yin and yang is everything. This is what Ueshiba said as well. All the models and all the waza aren't much without yin and yang.
I continue to demonstrate arm movements against a push or grab, that do nothing. Then, I do the exact, same, move and uke is off balance. Then I do it again without yin/yang...nothing...then turn on yin and yang...off balance they go. I just had a Shihan under a Tohei lineage going nuts trying to figure it out. "You did the same thing!! What made the difference?" So I quoted Ueshiba. "Why can you not do these things? Simple. You do not understand Yin and yang!"

Dan
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