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Old 01-19-2011, 06:27 PM   #132
Tony Wagstaffe
Location: Winchester
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 1,211
United Kingdom
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Re: Training Internal Strength

Quote:
David Orange wrote: View Post
Sure. I just don't recall anyone's mentioning "ki balls" on this thread. And I just did a whole thread on ki, but no one mentioned "ki balls" there, either.

As far as defining it, I'll put a summary out for comment.

Internal Strength training involves balancing and using six elements for martial effectiveness:

bones
muscles
fascia
breath
ki
mind (intent)

Four of these elements are strictly physical, while ki is sort of mental/physical and "mind" is strictly mental.

Using the bones to carry force or bear weight instead of the muscles is one kind of internal strength. Likewise, using fascia instead of muscles is another.

But using bones, muscles, fascia and breath together (instead of mainly muscle) is a big beginning to IS.

However, I think it's the use of mind (intent) and ki that really make the difference in IS and "external" martial arts.

Notice that all these things have multiple functions and create multiple effects on the other elements: muscles can pull the bones out of alignment and "crimp" the fascia, making the breath shallow. Slack muscles can fail to transmit power through the system. Tight or slack fascia can do much the same. Plus, ki moves through the fascia, so any problem with the fascia will disrupt the actions of the ki. If the mind is too agitated, the ki will be agitated and the body will likely be tense and the breath fast and shallow. Unsettled ki will, in turn, unsettle the mind, which will weaken the body and any interactions with others.

So internal power involves conditioning each of the elements according to their nature and using the elements together with all the other elements.

The best way to do all this is to put the ki in the center of the body by directing it there with the mind, and to coordinate all efforts and movements through the center--which means actually developing the connections between the hands and the center and the feet and the center and the head and the center. And that means training specifically to drive body movement through movement of the center. It also means using the mind to direct the ki into the intended movement and using that ki movement to move the center and thus the body.

A lot of this comes naturally through regular budo training. But that can be (and usually is) haphazard, leaving the practitioner wondering, sometimes, how he achieved some spectacular result because he unknowingly did the right things together and later can't replicate the feat. It is only by consciously recognizing and conditioning each of the elements according to its nature, and coordinating their use together consciously that we can start to develop "internal" methods and do things by intent rather than happenstance.

So that's my general description of internal methods, which, I think, will hold true for any internal art. Anyone who knows better, please correct me.

The best way to gauge these things is to put hands on people whom others recognize as skilled in these matters and judge for yourself if your approach comes up to the level of theirs. And then listen to what they tell you.

People say "it has to be felt," but I got a lot of feeling out of reading people's posts and hearing other people's descriptions of meeting powerful people. Those were the experiences that led me to go out and meet Ark and Dan and to keep trying to meet up with Mike.

Yeah. We're all agreed on that. No one here has suggested any of those things. But we all suggest that you meet up with Mike, Dan, Ark or others known to have the goods. In one way, it saves you a lot of work to do this stuff. But that's only by doing a LOT of work to get there. It's both easier and harder than ordinary aikido and as they say, it's tougher for the mind than for the body. But it's exhilarating. Worth every minute.

Best to you.

David
It's funny you know, but having read everything here and pondering it I would say, that I'm pretty close to what you have all said here, (with thanks) so maybe I have found it but have not come to a complete conclusion as yet. Is that possible?
I have felt true power in the way you all describe and it is laughable, but at the same time tangible, strangely enough it was more from judo than aikido as I suspect there are very few in aikido that actually have the goods, which I might add I have felt to, from those instructors, in the past who I have had the pleasure and luck to encounter....
They have passed it onto me without realising they had it to, (or did they?) as hardly any of them rarely mentioned "ki" or internal power, just posture and making use of that posture from the centre....
What I "feel" does seem to emanate from my "core" or should I say stomach area and it has a "feeling" of coming from the core out to the extremities, that is my hips, legs, chest, arms, and seems to "explode" (kind of) through the wrists right through to my fingertips.... it's kind of exhilarating..... maybe I have it, maybe I don't.... it is hard to describe, but I wouldn't call it "mystical"....... more of a feeling of coming together at the right moment........ Hope that doesn't sound weird, but it's the only way I can put it into words.....

Last edited by Tony Wagstaffe : 01-19-2011 at 06:30 PM.
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