Quote:
Phi Truong wrote:
first, have you read the book "Hidden in Plain Sight: Tracing the Roots of Ueshiba Morihei's Power." by Ellis Amdur? if you have not, then read it. another book "Center: The Power of Aikido" by Ron Myer and Mark Reeder (pay attention to some of the references).
after the reading those two books, look up these names: Akuzawa Minoru, Dan Harden, Mike Sigman, Howard Popkin, Wang Hai Jun, Chen Bing. attend their seminar/workshop.
be warn, it's a terrible road to travel, filled with pain, frustration, and few results. it's not for everyone. my advice is to stick with aikido, whatever aikido that most folks are doing and not walk down the above road.  |
Read both books, found the Myer / Reeder one a bit easier to follow (but I am a simple soul).
Followed with interest all the threads by the notables mentioned and even have the introductory DVD of Akuzawa Minoru.
In theory its all interesting stuff but you really have to do it and incorporate this stuff into your training.
This is the hard bit.
Don't expect too many revelations though - lots of the exercises are already practiced throughout many Aikido dojos- perhaps just not valued enough or understood enough though.
From personal experience I remember training on teachers courses with Pierre Chassang of France where the first hour of his lesson was a series of exercises which were all about centre or seika tanden.
The exercises always included those in the 2nd book above
He also explained at length how Tadashi Abe / Matsuharu Nakazono insisted on similar practice and how Master Shirata practiced Tai No Henka for 2 hours solid at Aikikai Tokyo.
In his book he talks of Arikawa suggesting exercises to develop the power of the belly and berates the world of french Aikido for not listening.
Unfortunately as Phi Truong points out it is hard work - and I don't think I really listened either.
I used to long for the end of these exercises so we could throw each other about.
When Pierre was in Tokyo someone left the mat "because they hadn't travelled 10,000 kilometres to do Tai No Henka".
I found the work a bit boring - thinking of it just as a physical warm up...but now I realise these things are so necessary to develop the centre which will allow Aikido practice to be Aikido rather than Aikido techniques practiced with a jujutsu body.
So my challenge is to re-introduce them to my own students without boring them.
Perhaps this is wrong and I should use them to weed out those that lack the discipline to do them...but in doing so I'd have to weed myself out too.
They are still hard work today.
So for me I'm doing it gradually but this means any centre i do have is only growing slowly..I'm not in a rush.
Anyway, yes, read the books, look for common ground with your own training and train harder.
I'll try same.
Cheers
D