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Old 01-21-2011, 12:56 PM   #178
Lee Salzman
Join Date: Nov 2005
Posts: 406
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Re: Training Internal Strength

Quote:
Demetrio Cereijo wrote: View Post
Disclaimer: I don't have the IHTBF nor I have put my hands (nor any other part of my anatomy) on any of the "usual suspects". I'm not a member of this group and have some issues on how IS/Aiki training is "marketed".

@Mark Peckett
That said, I think your theory about training in basics leading to aiki (aiki as manifestation of IS/IT) have a serious problem: Basic skills aquisition (kihon kata) is not about attributes developement. Attributes (IS/Aiki), if any, developed via basic training are a) by serendipity; b) after years and years of kihon; b) in a non conscious manner, so they are mostly ineffable and unteachable to the next generation of students.

The IS coaches claim to have found/developed especifics methods for attributes developement, and here are people who, after trying said methods, they say they work.

Serious scientifical peer reviewed studies about performance increases due to following said methods have not been published afaik.
The pedantic question is: what's a basic? Almost everything in aikido that is labeled a basic requires a priori understanding of the mechanics of power in the body to do them and actually get something out of them. If you spend decades just trying to figure out what you're supposed to get out of the stuff, so that you can later go back and get something out of it, then, wow, where'd the time go? So, are they then basics, or actually advanced applications?

Even innocent seeming things in aikido like funi-kogi undo, kokyu-dosa, kokyu nages, suburi, or even much hyped IS exercises like shiko, silk reeling, or even standing, I don't think any of these are basics. They are tools to ingrain habits, but what habits are you building? Techniques are even worse, the ultimate tool for ingraining habits we brought with us to the dojo, rather than the ones we want to take out of the dojo, but what if what we were sold as basics below all those fancy aikido techniques all this time were actually techniques too?

It's not about IS in the end. I think it's about being conscious of what you're trying to build and validate, before you go in and do the work. If you're not, you're just chasing your tail. If you're doing IS work, that applies double (oh boy have I wasted too much time chasing my tail there)! But hey, we're sold on this idea, "the basics will transform you, don't think about it, just do it", and it peeves me just as much to hear it coming from the IS crowd too. But nah, you transform the basics, not the other way around.

Last edited by Lee Salzman : 01-21-2011 at 01:06 PM.
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