Thread: new methods?
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Old 11-24-2002, 08:57 AM   #11
ian
 
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Dojo: University of Ulster, Coleriane
Location: Northern Ireland
Join Date: Oct 2000
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Hi Opher, I don't know that much about tai-chi, but it seems with a lot of these chinese martial arts (including many other forms of kung fu), an important principle is grounding. Thus there are many stances and instead of moving the feet, they will only do a step or so (at the most). I think that maybe why the shoulder would move instead of the entire body.

Ian

P.S. I liked your phrase at the end - I was reading an extract from Kanos Kodokan Judo; very interesting stuff about how he tested the different jujutsu techniques going around at the time. Also, happened to read about the Gracie's testing for the moves in their BJJ. I wonder whether many of the techniques that have been considered poor utility (and sometimes are by different people in aikido) depend more on how they are done, or what the purpose is, rather than on any absolute measure of effectiveness. Also makes you realise that all martial artists are constantly striving to develop something 'useful' out of something that could have so many variations as to make it potentially useless.

Last edited by ian : 11-24-2002 at 09:02 AM.

---understanding aikido is understanding the training method---
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