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Old 11-16-2011, 08:11 PM   #451
graham christian
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Re: Ueshiba's Aiki

Quote:
Ken McGrew wrote: View Post
By this you mean IS training?

And that the blending takes on a new meaning (and some people DID say it is not about blending, timing, leading, Etc. - but let's leave that aside for now), do you see this "new meaning" expressed in O Sensei and if so where? Can you describe the new meaning that this blending takes on in the form of a defense against an attack?

If the argument were merely that Harden Etc. have added a new skill for Aikido we wouldn't be having this conversation. They make lots of bold and well known claims.
Hi Ken. Been off for a week. I see you replied to me way down the thread. What I said still stands for me.

I notice the title of this thread is Ueshiba's Aiki. If we take that to mean the aiki he learned from Takeda then we could loosely call that Ueshibas Aiki.

Now if we wan't to talk about Ueshiba's Ai Ki then that's another story and I would say far surpasses the former above.

I would even say that the AI Ki leads to a different Aiki than the one described by those debating with you.

Regards.G.
 
Old 11-16-2011, 08:14 PM   #452
Matt Fisher
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Re: Ueshiba's Aiki

Quote:
Ken McGrew wrote: View Post
We can't begin to test the biological impact of IS training without a definition of what IS training is. We don't need to conduct tests to know before hand that nothing in IS will allow people to change beyond their genetic limits. In science people make baseline assumptions given a range of things that are already known. In order to transform the genetic boundaries IS would have to change the genes. That's very testable.
Ken,

If you are going to invoke genetics...

There is an entire area of biochemistry/molecular biology called "epigenetics" that focuses on the chemical modifications that can be made in DNA - many of them linked to environmental factors. The following comes from an editorial overview of a special section on epigenetics in the journal Nature, one of the most highly regarded science journals in the world:

"Epigenetics is typically defined as the studyof heritable changes in gene expression that are not due to changes in DNA sequence. Diverse biological properties can be affected by epigenetic mechanisms: for example, the morphology of flowers and eye colour in fruitflies.

Epigenetic changes are crucial for the development and differentiation of the various cell types in an
organism, as well as for normal cellular processes such as X-chromosome inactivation in female
mammals and silencing of mating-type loci in yeast. However, epigenetic states can become disrupted by environmental influences or during ageing, and the importance of epigenetic changes in the development of cancer and other diseases is increasingly being appreciated."

Also see Bird's article "Perceptions of epigenetics" in the 5/24/07 issue of Nature (page 396). Based on what I know at this point, can I rule out that IS training may result in epigenetic modifications within cells? No. Can I say that IS training definitely results in epigenetic modifications? No. It remains an open question...one that could be testable, assuming we knew where in the human genome to look for these possible epigenetic modifications.

But I'm beginning to think that there is the start of one heck of a grant proposal in the above sentences…

Matt
 
Old 11-16-2011, 08:25 PM   #453
HL1978
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Re: Ueshiba's Aiki

Quote:
Ken McGrew wrote: View Post
By this you mean IS training?

And that the blending takes on a new meaning (and some people DID say it is not about blending, timing, leading, Etc. - but let's leave that aside for now), do you see this "new meaning" expressed in O Sensei and if so where? Can you describe the new meaning that this blending takes on in the form of a defense against an attack?

If the argument were merely that Harden Etc. have added a new skill for Aikido we wouldn't be having this conversation. They make lots of bold and well known claims.
No, I don't think Dan, or any other proponent of IS (myself included) thinks they are bringing anything new to Aikido as preformed by Ueshiba, in part because there are indicators of this sort of movement in the videos we have of the founder. We can of course dissect some videos, which may be useful for you, but in my past experience, most people who haven't felt this sort of thing don't tend to see it. I don't mean this by any means as a copout, just something that more than a few people have had first hand experience with where they began to see some of the indicators.

I think a ton of people would love to have seen Ueshiba's movement prior to taking up study with Takeda Sokaku. If we had access to that, it would be pretty easy to descern when his eyes were "opened".

Here is something which may be helpful. The koyku dosa exercise does not show irimi and blending as typically expressed in standing waza with big circular motions by which you lead your partner/opponent. The teacher who opened my eyes to this sort of movement said that during his time at the Sagawa (daito ryu) dojo, they pretty much spent most of class doing this exercise, but not in the way preformed in most aikido dojo as waza, but instead in a manner of figuring out how to connect directly to your partner's center to your center and lift via moving your center.

Ark doing Agete/kyoku ho/dosa

Now if you watch that video at the 8 second mark you can see the guy in back trying to use his shoulders and arms to lift, whereas when Ark does it, you don't see such movement. What you experience is actually an absence of feeling, its like there was zero effort to move you. You probably can't see how he actually does it, but not as obvious a motion as utilizing the shoulders and arms.

What you can try to look for initially if you don't have first hand experience, is two things. One is absense of clearly descerinable power that originates solely in the arms/shoulders or in the hips. Two is to see if movement originates in the middle of the body and propagates on out. That is to say using the hips alone versus the middle which pushes on out into the hips(onto the legs, upper body etc) does look different, one is more of an opening/closing movement (body moving between convex and concave positions) and the other lacks such motion. Using the hips isn't bad by any means and can be quite powerful, but isn't the same thing as what is discussed in IS.

Of course seeing this can be difficult when the people you watch are either at a very high level, or are wearing poofy hakama or silk robes because they don't overexaggerate the movements. Wearing tight fitting clothes makes it much easier to see this movement.

Now once you have connected center to center, you have effectively blended together as you are basically one unit. Like a four legged animal to borrow from Mike Sigman and his drawing. When you connect to someones limb and pull on that limb with your limb in the same direction that your partner is pushing or is commiting too, you aren't really blending per say in the manner discussed in IS because you have not connected center to center. The person who is stronger, bigger, less overcommited can "win" or who has better timing to prevent overcommiting. Now you can certainly blend in the way that I was taught in aikido and connect to the opponents center as an additonal power "additive" because you are moving your mass and adding it to your partners, but it isn't a prerequisite to move your parnter. It can simply make it more powerful.

The center to center feeling is usally outside most people's experience in the IS context. Again borrowing from Mike's drawings, its like you competely bypass the arms the resistance feedback you experience you get from arms pushing on arms.

Now to answer your question regarding defense from an attack, if you have this sort of bodyskill you instantly connect the second your make contact with your opponent and can move them on contact anywhere you want, or can blow right through them without them being able to read or feel where you are weak. You could preform waza, or as shown in some of Ueshiba's videos where he holds a static position, you cause the opponnet to bounce off you on contact with little to no windup or movement. You could make your opponent feel like they are touching a granite statue which is unmovable (kind of like the Tenryu story) or like there is absolutely nothing there at all. Timing becomes far less of an issue.

Now if you have two people of relatively equal body skill/understanding of aiki, then timing, waza, mass etc comes back into play.

This blending is really no different if you are attacking or defending. Ideally both partners should be trying to connect to each other's center, so that they fight to take/retake the center instead of merely letting one person be tossed about. The various waza are basically all working on this concept just from different positions, so that the kokyu dosa video shown above is really on different than ikkyo/nikkyo etc. Thus cooperative training paradaigm changes once you learn the "outside" shape of the waza, because instead of merely copying the form you learn how to power the form.

You can of course make it easier by having uke muscle it while tori attemps to connect to uke's center too, but as I stated earlier you eventually want to have both "fighting" for center.
 
Old 11-16-2011, 08:27 PM   #454
Gary David
 
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Re: Ueshiba's Aiki

Mr. McGrew
Some things:

1. You started this

2. What Fred Little said (both times)

3. I am no one's lap dog

4. I am not a student of Dan Harden's...his direct students work out in his barn.

5. I call Dan friend and he is one of my many teachers.

6. My granddaughter is one of my teachers.

7. Dan, along with several others, are filling the holes in my understanding of what powers Aikido and my abilities to apply this in my Aikido.

8. I have been at this 37 years, starting Aikido in 1974.

9. The Aikido folks on here that have had positive results in their Aikido from their contact with Dan likely have several hundred years of combined training with most of them cross training in other arts.

10. I have taken (well not much lately at my age) ukemi from most of the big names that came over from Japan, all of the shihan sent here early on, many of the other big names including Kisshomaru Ueshiba, Koichi Tohei, Shoji Nishio Sensei, Yasuo Kobayashi , Fumio Toyoda, Shoji Nishio, Mitsugi Saotome, Terry Dobson, Frank Doran, Robert Nadeau, my first instructor Harry Ishisaka, John Clodig (Aiki Jujitsu) Don Angier (Aiki Jujitsu) and on....... I have some sense of what is and what isn't...

11. When I knew Terry Dobson he never moved off the line.....somehow we angled off the line. It wasn't him bumping us with his belly.

12. Terry was a story teller and he told a few about O'Sensei, one of which revolves around Terry telling O'Sensei how impressed he (Terry) was with Wang Shu Jin and O'Sensei's physical response which is nothing anyone else has every talked about being able to do.

13. I gave another of the of the Americans a ride to the airport, one had who spent time with O'Sensei in Japan in the 60's talking spiritual/metaphysical with him. None of the other Japanese in the dojo at the time spent any of this kind of time with O'Sensei...they couldn't make sense of what he was talking about and had no problem with the American talking something that was not waza

14. I ask my wife to explain the role of the teacher to me and her response was that the teacher's role was to help the student to reach their full potential.....at that point it was the student responsibility to then use that potential to fill out their understanding by finding their own way.

15. A good friend of mind who is a long time martial artist told me that at some point you will reach the extent of what your current teacher can give you and you will need to move on. Moving on means a lot of self-work and self-discovery mixed with the inputs from others as checks. Cross training helps with the checks.

16. Enough already

My point being that I have enough time in grade and have touched enough teachers to understand what was passed along and what wasn't....and the way things are going even more will be lost if things can't be re-discovered. Dan and others are helping to fill in the gaps......maybe you should take a chance and see what is waiting......

Gary

Last edited by Gary David : 11-16-2011 at 08:29 PM.
 
Old 11-16-2011, 08:30 PM   #455
HL1978
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Re: Ueshiba's Aiki

Quote:
Christian Moses wrote: View Post
I will say (since we have such a lovely audience) that I do agree with one thing you're saying, and that's that I do believe that when we (and this is a very loose "we" here) are talking about AIKI, we are not using the word the same as aiKIdo uses the term (which I write as aiKI for clarity). One of the reasons I think this is/was so controversial is that the concept of AIKI that we're all working towards is not an aspect of aiKIdo. I'm sure many of you will disagree with me on that one, but that's my belief. I'm not saying you can't do aiKIdo with AIKI (I think it works better), or that OSensei didn't use AIKI (I'm convinced he did). But I think his followers leveraged their understanding of timing and kuzushi (from their judo backgrounds) to approximate what they saw and felt OSensei doing. I do not think they were using AIKI the way Daito ryu or Yanagi ryu use the term. I firmly believe it's the missing piece of the puzzle. Has anyone for example ever seen ANYONE do the jo trick besides OSensei? C'mon, that was awesome, if aiKIdo is working the same AIKI as he was, why can't anyone do this? Answer: no AIKI in aiKIdo. Again, those are my opinions, please don't attribute them to anyone but me.
Chris,

The funny thing is that I understand exactly what you are saying, but unless you have felt this sort of thing, I don't think anyone could descern the difference. I do think your comments about Ueshiba's students attempting to approximate it through their understanding of kuzushi as quite apt though.
 
Old 11-16-2011, 09:11 PM   #456
Ken McGrew
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Re: Ueshiba's Aiki

Hunter, Thanks for this.

The way you describe Kokyu Dosa, and for the most part what is shown on the video, is how Kokyu Dosa is done under Saotome Sensei. There are various ways to do Kokyu Dosa to work on different things. It is absolutely about getting the center first. There is a higher level of training where its like push hands with the centers. I think it's basically the same. Getting the guy off the ground like that is pretty cool. Sensei could probably do that. If not, he certainly can do things along the same lines. I've been working on pushing right into the stomach and visualizing a hot knife through butter. Refusing to feel the strength and melting past it. The flowing arms version I've seen many times. Sensei also describes this exercise in his writing to learn to use the strength of the partner to your advantage. Blending is not all about momentum for Saotome Sensei and I never said it was. I know you think I can't see "it" but this looks very familiar.

Regarding the quotes below, I've seen Ikeda and Saotome Sensei do the things you describe, like bouncing off. I'm not sure what you mean by "blow right through them" I understand the idea of them not being able to find a handle in your body to fight with. I've felt what you are describing in Aikido. The immobilization where Uke can't continue the attack but or fall down, both Ikeda and Saotome Sensei's do quite a bit. I can do that to some extent.

The video and the other videos of this instructor on the you tube page, are these the same things that other people are trying to describe related to training with Harden or are there a bunch of different things getting called IS here? For the most part this is not knew to me. I see similar skills in Saotome Sensei, Ikeda Sensei, Sugawara Sensei, Ushiro Sensei, and others. I don't see any problem with it. I know you are stressing the importance of the IS grounding in a video like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=snYlMC6gUoM
I also see very familiar things, like weight shift.

I would say it's just part of the universe of Aikido. There are times when this sort of movement would be helpful and other times when it would be better to work on blending, Etc.

Quote:
Hunter Lonsberry wrote: View Post
No, I don't think Dan, or any other proponent of IS (myself included) thinks they are bringing anything new to Aikido as preformed by Ueshiba, in part because there are indicators of this sort of movement in the videos we have of the founder. We can of course dissect some videos, which may be useful for you, but in my past experience, most people who haven't felt this sort of thing don't tend to see it. I don't mean this by any means as a copout, just something that more than a few people have had first hand experience with where they began to see some of the indicators.

I think a ton of people would love to have seen Ueshiba's movement prior to taking up study with Takeda Sokaku. If we had access to that, it would be pretty easy to descern when his eyes were "opened".

Here is something which may be helpful. The koyku dosa exercise does not show irimi and blending as typically expressed in standing waza with big circular motions by which you lead your partner/opponent. The teacher who opened my eyes to this sort of movement said that during his time at the Sagawa (daito ryu) dojo, they pretty much spent most of class doing this exercise, but not in the way preformed in most aikido dojo as waza, but instead in a manner of figuring out how to connect directly to your partner's center to your center and lift via moving your center.

Ark doing Agete/kyoku ho/dosa

Now if you watch that video at the 8 second mark you can see the guy in back trying to use his shoulders and arms to lift, whereas when Ark does it, you don't see such movement. What you experience is actually an absence of feeling, its like there was zero effort to move you. You probably can't see how he actually does it, but not as obvious a motion as utilizing the shoulders and arms.

What you can try to look for initially if you don't have first hand experience, is two things. One is absense of clearly descerinable power that originates solely in the arms/shoulders or in the hips. Two is to see if movement originates in the middle of the body and propagates on out. That is to say using the hips alone versus the middle which pushes on out into the hips(onto the legs, upper body etc) does look different, one is more of an opening/closing movement (body moving between convex and concave positions) and the other lacks such motion. Using the hips isn't bad by any means and can be quite powerful, but isn't the same thing as what is discussed in IS.

Of course seeing this can be difficult when the people you watch are either at a very high level, or are wearing poofy hakama or silk robes because they don't overexaggerate the movements. Wearing tight fitting clothes makes it much easier to see this movement.

Now once you have connected center to center, you have effectively blended together as you are basically one unit. Like a four legged animal to borrow from Mike Sigman and his drawing. When you connect to someones limb and pull on that limb with your limb in the same direction that your partner is pushing or is commiting too, you aren't really blending per say in the manner discussed in IS because you have not connected center to center. The person who is stronger, bigger, less overcommited can "win" or who has better timing to prevent overcommiting. Now you can certainly blend in the way that I was taught in aikido and connect to the opponents center as an additonal power "additive" because you are moving your mass and adding it to your partners, but it isn't a prerequisite to move your parnter. It can simply make it more powerful.

The center to center feeling is usally outside most people's experience in the IS context. Again borrowing from Mike's drawings, its like you competely bypass the arms the resistance feedback you experience you get from arms pushing on arms.

Now to answer your question regarding defense from an attack, if you have this sort of bodyskill you instantly connect the second your make contact with your opponent and can move them on contact anywhere you want, or can blow right through them without them being able to read or feel where you are weak. You could preform waza, or as shown in some of Ueshiba's videos where he holds a static position, you cause the opponnet to bounce off you on contact with little to no windup or movement. You could make your opponent feel like they are touching a granite statue which is unmovable (kind of like the Tenryu story) or like there is absolutely nothing there at all. Timing becomes far less of an issue.

Now if you have two people of relatively equal body skill/understanding of aiki, then timing, waza, mass etc comes back into play.

This blending is really no different if you are attacking or defending. Ideally both partners should be trying to connect to each other's center, so that they fight to take/retake the center instead of merely letting one person be tossed about. The various waza are basically all working on this concept just from different positions, so that the kokyu dosa video shown above is really on different than ikkyo/nikkyo etc. Thus cooperative training paradaigm changes once you learn the "outside" shape of the waza, because instead of merely copying the form you learn how to power the form.

You can of course make it easier by having uke muscle it while tori attemps to connect to uke's center too, but as I stated earlier you eventually want to have both "fighting" for center.
 
Old 11-16-2011, 11:43 PM   #457
kewms
Join Date: Aug 2002
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Re: Ueshiba's Aiki

Quote:
6. I'm questioning therefore whether "real Aikido" (as some have certainly implied or stated) only occurs when it is the Aiki they do in IS.

They're asking whether "really good Aikido" occurs without it. There's a difference between thinking of points on a continuum and points in binary opposition.
Alas, your interlocutor appears to think in absolutes. Many many times in this thread, shades of meaning are completely ignored.

Katherine
 
Old 11-16-2011, 11:45 PM   #458
Ken McGrew
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Re: Ueshiba's Aiki

If we look at the Ukazawa Sensei who Hunter provided the link to, when we get to the level of application, you see the problems I said i worried about. While his karate/kung foo look great, and the exercises are fine, the aikido style throws don't look that good to me. There's a tendency to have to sweep or take a long time or use force because the momentum in Uke's body is gone. There is a place where Karate and Aikido overlap. Saotome Sensei shows that side as well. So he does some of the applications shown on these and other videos of Ukazawa Sensei. But the parts that look more like Aikido just don't look very good to me compared to most "modern Aikido," they take too much effort and too long to execute, his movement is not open or free, and don't look like they would be ideal in group attack situations. The Daito-ryu anniversary footage looked better to my eyes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJcq-...e_gdata_player

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbvip...e_gdata_player

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh1rT...e_gdata_player


I don't know if this Sensei is a good representation of how other IS people like Harden invision application.

I assume that people interested in the application of Chinese arts to Aikido have read Sugawara Sensei's books on the topic.

Last edited by Ken McGrew : 11-16-2011 at 11:57 PM.
 
Old 11-17-2011, 01:34 AM   #459
Upyu
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Re: Ueshiba's Aiki

Quote:
Ken McGrew wrote: View Post
There's a tendency to have to sweep or take a long time or use force because the momentum in Uke's body is gone. There is a place where Karate and Aikido overlap.
So maybe you'd like to point out the specific time codes of instances where he's fouling? Maybe people can discuss where he's lacking? (Which is a great exercise btw)
But then again, that also places Saotome and any number of "name" Shihan as fair targets...and I remember what happened the last time someone here opened that can of worms. I think it ended in <Thread closed>

Myself personally I think
1:42-1:50
is a bit more indicative of his rough-shod nature in the way he uses IS, but its also a bit more apparent as to what he's doing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL7g_...layer_embedded
 
Old 11-17-2011, 01:59 AM   #460
mrlizard123
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Re: Ueshiba's Aiki

I've been reading the whole thread and this springs to mind:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDoC8BhtUyo

Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile
 
Old 11-17-2011, 03:14 AM   #461
Alec Corper
 
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Re: Ueshiba's Aiki

Why doesn't everyone just agree that Mr. McGrew is right, then this thread can die and those of us misguided IS "lemmings" can just carry on being misguided and stupid. What a waste of time and energy, no wonder this is such a busy thread.

If your temper rises withdraw your hand, if your hand rises withdraw your temper.
 
Old 11-17-2011, 03:16 AM   #462
Alec Corper
 
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Re: Ueshiba's Aiki

P.S. Hi Rob, glad you're still alive and kicking. Don't forget to Tell Ark how poor his technique is !!!!!!!!

If your temper rises withdraw your hand, if your hand rises withdraw your temper.
 
Old 11-17-2011, 03:43 AM   #463
Chris Knight
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Re: Ueshiba's Aiki

Quote:
No, I don't think Dan, or any other proponent of IS (myself included) thinks they are bringing anything new to Aikido as preformed by Ueshiba, in part because there are indicators of this sort of movement in the videos we have of the founder. We can of course dissect some videos, which may be useful for you, but in my past experience, most people who haven't felt this sort of thing don't tend to see it. I don't mean this by any means as a copout, just something that more than a few people have had first hand experience with where they began to see some of the indicators.

I think a ton of people would love to have seen Ueshiba's movement prior to taking up study with Takeda Sokaku. If we had access to that, it would be pretty easy to descern when his eyes were "opened".

Here is something which may be helpful. The koyku dosa exercise does not show irimi and blending as typically expressed in standing waza with big circular motions by which you lead your partner/opponent. The teacher who opened my eyes to this sort of movement said that during his time at the Sagawa (daito ryu) dojo, they pretty much spent most of class doing this exercise, but not in the way preformed in most aikido dojo as waza, but instead in a manner of figuring out how to connect directly to your partner's center to your center and lift via moving your center.

Ark doing Agete/kyoku ho/dosa

Now if you watch that video at the 8 second mark you can see the guy in back trying to use his shoulders and arms to lift, whereas when Ark does it, you don't see such movement. What you experience is actually an absence of feeling, its like there was zero effort to move you. You probably can't see how he actually does it, but not as obvious a motion as utilizing the shoulders and arms.

What you can try to look for initially if you don't have first hand experience, is two things. One is absense of clearly descerinable power that originates solely in the arms/shoulders or in the hips. Two is to see if movement originates in the middle of the body and propagates on out. That is to say using the hips alone versus the middle which pushes on out into the hips(onto the legs, upper body etc) does look different, one is more of an opening/closing movement (body moving between convex and concave positions) and the other lacks such motion. Using the hips isn't bad by any means and can be quite powerful, but isn't the same thing as what is discussed in IS.

Of course seeing this can be difficult when the people you watch are either at a very high level, or are wearing poofy hakama or silk robes because they don't overexaggerate the movements. Wearing tight fitting clothes makes it much easier to see this movement.

Now once you have connected center to center, you have effectively blended together as you are basically one unit. Like a four legged animal to borrow from Mike Sigman and his drawing. When you connect to someones limb and pull on that limb with your limb in the same direction that your partner is pushing or is commiting too, you aren't really blending per say in the manner discussed in IS because you have not connected center to center. The person who is stronger, bigger, less overcommited can "win" or who has better timing to prevent overcommiting. Now you can certainly blend in the way that I was taught in aikido and connect to the opponents center as an additonal power "additive" because you are moving your mass and adding it to your partners, but it isn't a prerequisite to move your parnter. It can simply make it more powerful.

The center to center feeling is usally outside most people's experience in the IS context. Again borrowing from Mike's drawings, its like you competely bypass the arms the resistance feedback you experience you get from arms pushing on arms.

Now to answer your question regarding defense from an attack, if you have this sort of bodyskill you instantly connect the second your make contact with your opponent and can move them on contact anywhere you want, or can blow right through them without them being able to read or feel where you are weak. You could preform waza, or as shown in some of Ueshiba's videos where he holds a static position, you cause the opponnet to bounce off you on contact with little to no windup or movement. You could make your opponent feel like they are touching a granite statue which is unmovable (kind of like the Tenryu story) or like there is absolutely nothing there at all. Timing becomes far less of an issue.

Now if you have two people of relatively equal body skill/understanding of aiki, then timing, waza, mass etc comes back into play.

This blending is really no different if you are attacking or defending. Ideally both partners should be trying to connect to each other's center, so that they fight to take/retake the center instead of merely letting one person be tossed about. The various waza are basically all working on this concept just from different positions, so that the kokyu dosa video shown above is really on different than ikkyo/nikkyo etc. Thus cooperative training paradaigm changes once you learn the "outside" shape of the waza, because instead of merely copying the form you learn how to power the form.

You can of course make it easier by having uke muscle it while tori attemps to connect to uke's center too, but as I stated earlier you eventually want to have both "fighting" for center.
excellent post, very descriptive and informative... makes a lot of sense... thanks!!
 
Old 11-17-2011, 03:56 AM   #464
Chris Knight
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8. I'm asking (as some have certainly implied or stated) if it is their claim that Aikido doesn't "work" against real attacks unless it contains their IS skills?
Off course it will work in some respect depending on how it's trained etc... until you come up against somebody with the goods, like Ueshiba did with Takeda, and couldn't move him, never mind perform a technique etc
 
Old 11-17-2011, 04:05 AM   #465
Chris Knight
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"Epigenetics is typically defined as the studyof heritable changes in gene expression that are not due to changes in DNA sequence. Diverse biological properties can be affected by epigenetic mechanisms: for example, the morphology of flowers and eye colour in fruitflies.

Epigenetic changes are crucial for the development and differentiation of the various cell types in an
organism, as well as for normal cellular processes such as X-chromosome inactivation in female
mammals and silencing of mating-type loci in yeast. However, epigenetic states can become disrupted by environmental influences or during ageing, and the importance of epigenetic changes in the development of cancer and other diseases is increasingly being appreciated."

Also see Bird's article "Perceptions of epigenetics" in the 5/24/07 issue of Nature (page 396). Based on what I know at this point, can I rule out that IS training may result in epigenetic modifications within cells? No. Can I say that IS training definitely results in epigenetic modifications? No. It remains an open question...one that could be testable, assuming we knew where in the human genome to look for these possible epigenetic modifications.
very interesting concept...
 
Old 11-17-2011, 04:26 AM   #466
Tim Ruijs
 
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Re: Ueshiba's Aiki

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Chris Knight wrote: View Post
very interesting concept...
In this light re-wiring your body gets whole new dimension

In a real fight:
* If you make a bad decision, you die.
* If you don't decide anything, you die.
Aikido teaches you how to decide.
www.aikido-makato.nl
 
Old 11-17-2011, 04:35 AM   #467
graham christian
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Re: Ueshiba's Aiki

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Chris Knight wrote: View Post
Off course it will work in some respect depending on how it's trained etc... until you come up against somebody with the goods, like Ueshiba did with Takeda, and couldn't move him, never mind perform a technique etc
Minor point: Ueshiba wasn't doing Aikido when he came across Takeda. Well, actually, a major fact.

Later, when confident in his OWN Aikido he would demonstrate on anyone from sumo to whatever. Including anyone with ip/is or whatever. It didn't matter. He was on a different level.

Regards.G.
 
Old 11-17-2011, 04:50 AM   #468
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Re: Ueshiba's Aiki

To the best of my knowledge this is how Ueshiba practised: he stayed with a teacher until he felt he was better, or the teacher had nothing left to teach him (that was of interest to him). He really did not avoid testing, he even challenged his own students to do surprise attacks on him...
Like you said; a different level that is for sure.
Funny thing is that later in life he realised true Budo was not about competition, but he kept doing demos/test. However he did so not to compete but to show what he had to offer.

In a real fight:
* If you make a bad decision, you die.
* If you don't decide anything, you die.
Aikido teaches you how to decide.
www.aikido-makato.nl
 
Old 11-17-2011, 04:52 AM   #469
Chris Knight
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Minor point: Ueshiba wasn't doing Aikido when he came across Takeda. Well, actually, a major fact.
thanks for the correction Graham, the point I was trying to get across was that aikido/daito ryu/ joes bloggs MA will become unstuck when encountering Aiki in it's correct form.
Ueshiba was more than a competent martial artist at this time
 
Old 11-17-2011, 05:01 AM   #470
graham christian
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Re: Ueshiba's Aiki

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Tim Ruijs wrote: View Post
To the best of my knowledge this is how Ueshiba practised: he stayed with a teacher until he felt he was better, or the teacher had nothing left to teach him (that was of interest to him). He really did not avoid testing, he even challenged his own students to do surprise attacks on him...
Like you said; a different level that is for sure.
Funny thing is that later in life he realised true Budo was not about competition, but he kept doing demos/test. However he did so not to compete but to show what he had to offer.
Hi Tim. As I understand it later on his demos/tests were usually under protest. In other words it was through public pressure or the organization wanting some footage for promotional purposes etc.

Another thing I find interesting is this idea that later on he was just a figurehead and didn't actually do much teaching himself. I find this amazing that people would believe this.

He trained up to the day he died. He taught up to that time as well. His whole world was his Aikido 24/7.

This factor I think people should understand a bit better before they think they are 'experts' on him.

Regards.G.
 
Old 11-17-2011, 05:11 AM   #471
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Re: Ueshiba's Aiki

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Chris Knight wrote: View Post
thanks for the correction Graham, the point I was trying to get across was that aikido/daito ryu/ joes bloggs MA will become unstuck when encountering Aiki in it's correct form.
Ueshiba was more than a competent martial artist at this time
Maybe. Your view on correct aiki I take it is to do with what Dan does? (I am assuming it is)

But then all those things coming unstuck when meeting it? Now that's quite a bold statement.

I think those kind of things have been around for centuries, it's nothing new. They have been used in martial arts for centuries too. That's nothing new. People using such have overcome opponents and been overcome by opponents for centuries. That's nothing new.

To think it's some kind of all conquering secret is in my view not very wise.

Regards.G.
 
Old 11-17-2011, 05:26 AM   #472
Chris Knight
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Maybe. Your view on correct aiki I take it is to do with what Dan does? (I am assuming it is)
how would i know when I stated that I dont know him?

Quote:
To think it's some kind of all conquering secret is in my view not very wise
secret, possibly,, all conquering no, however it would probably dominate a non-aiki martial art yes
that is my own belief
 
Old 11-17-2011, 05:36 AM   #473
Demetrio Cereijo
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Chris Knight wrote: View Post
secret, possibly,, all conquering no, however it would probably dominate a non-aiki martial art yes that is my own belief
People believe in lots of weird things, you know.
 
Old 11-17-2011, 05:54 AM   #474
Chris Knight
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Demetrio Cereijo wrote: View Post
People believe in lots of weird things, you know.
have you tested it Demetrio?
 
Old 11-17-2011, 05:56 AM   #475
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Re: Ueshiba's Aiki

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Graham Christian wrote: View Post
Minor point: Ueshiba wasn't doing Aikido when he came across Takeda. Well, actually, a major fact.

Later, when confident in his OWN Aikido he would demonstrate on anyone from sumo to whatever. Including anyone with ip/is or whatever. It didn't matter. He was on a different level.

Regards.G.
That's an attempt to rewrite history.
* His aikido- is the aiki of Daito ryu and is the modified waza of Daito ryu.
* Takeda was the one who gave him his power...aiki. Which he referred to as his power for the rest of his life. He never mentioned aiki before Takeda's stay with him at Ayabe.
* His reputation for great physical strength had already been noted, yet it did not help him at all, with Takeda or with some tough military students. In fact, when he first met Takeda, Takeda left him crying- slumped in the corner.
* Interestingly, the only other arts he was known to have studied had already occurred.
* His enlightenment, by his own admission (in the early 20's) came to him shortly after Takeda's stay with him and it was all about aiki. As he said to his son aiki informed his spiritual pursuits.

Once you have these skills, you continue to grow your entire life. Which Ueshiba did do, right along with Sagawa and Kodo. A smart Johnnie will continue to experiment absorb and add things. With Ueshiba, Sagawa and Kodo they cannot be considered-they would in fact never had been discussed- if it were not for Takeda.
While remain a great fan of Ueshiba, without Takeda, Ueshiba would have been a nobody in the world of Budo and we would not be here discussing him.
Dan
 

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