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Old 11-16-2011, 03:25 AM   #45
Carsten Möllering
 
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Dojo: Hildesheimer Aikido Verein
Location: Hildesheim
Join Date: Sep 2008
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Re: "stance of heaven (and earth)" and IS

Quote:
Katherine Derbyshire wrote: View Post
If a stance is weighted forward, then it's easier to be drawn off balance (and overextended) forward. If weighted backward, then it's easier to be overwhelmed by a strong attack.
Ah, I had a knot in my brain: I think I understand what you want to tell me.

Quote:
A neutral stance isn't vulnerable to either.
Or is it just equally vulnerable to both?
But yes, I think, I know what you mean. And in my first years of aikido I learned it exactly like you.

Then - with a new teacher - not only the position of the axis shifted, but also the way to organize the body changed.
You experienced that being stable is not only an issue of where you have your feet, didn't you? So if you can not be pushed over standing with parallel feet, don't you think a "similar effect" can be shown, standing in hanmi?

Quote:
If your weight is on one foot or the other, that foot will be more difficult to move.
Yes. But - other way round - it is easier to move oneself.

Quote:
I'm not sure I understand your last question.
Hm, when standing in hanmi we imagine a force coming in and up from ground in the back leg (when doing breathing excercises we breath in trough the souls of our feet), going through the tanden/center and down and into the ground in the front leg. By positioning the feet a little bit open (the front foot doesn't show to the front but a little outward. And the rear foot shows a little forward) ther is a kind of "twisting" this energy coming up and going down. (In our imagination this energy doesn't flow in a "straight line".)

When I wrote "weight" in quotation marks, I meant this "dowstream" wich feels like weight but isn't really (sorry, can't do better in english words).
In the hara/tanden/center ... /pelvis ... there is a connection to the upper body and arms and the force is kind of lead and distributed by this area.

So ... I hope you could follow to this point ... the feeling of this flow and distribution of energy is different when your body axis is in the middle or in front third or in the rear third of the of your hanmi.
In the end I think it doesn't matter. But in my experience I just feel it better and can use it better when not standing symmetric.

Maybe this way of doing things is influenced by the experiences of my teacher in kenjutsu. But I'm not sure whether in this point there is connection.

Again: Thank you for thinking about my questions and answering!

Last edited by Carsten Möllering : 11-16-2011 at 03:40 AM.
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