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Old 10-07-2008, 08:00 PM   #76
Jim Sorrentino
 
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Re: On Talking About Internal Training

Mark,
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Mark Murray wrote: View Post
I would guess that talking about Internal Training is still a topic to be feared, dismissed, and regulated. Rather than discussed on its own merits, it appears that things have been reduced to pounding square pegs into round holes. I hope that I am wrong -- for it would be a shame to see people being restricted from having a voice based upon the very legal use of public pictures. I'm sure Dan would agree.
Perhaps if Dan (and others) would try a more positive approach, this would help. I have asked several times now for Dan to provide an example of a video of traditional Japanese Martial Arts showing body work that impresses him, and to state why it impresses him. Neither he nor any of his students, acolytes, or proteges have responded. Why not?

Sincerely,

Jim
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Old 10-07-2008, 09:10 PM   #77
Demetrio Cereijo
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Re: On Talking About Internal Training

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Ron Tisdale wrote: View Post
My money would be on Dan hands down 95% of the time.
Mine too.
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But the real point is, what kind of a jamoke would do such a thing, in this day and age? One who belongs in a prison, that's what. You can get all the fights you like there..
.
See how easy is e-posturing, acting like a bad-to-the-bone guy and making claims of skill. These are the days of the internet. No proof needed, only words.

Not many years -in geological terms, of course- ago, these things were solved with pistols at ten paces...


Quote:
Mark Murray wrote:
I would guess that talking about Internal Training is still a topic to be feared, dismissed, and regulated.
I don't think so. People (or at least me) only asks for:
a) Proof of internal skills developement leading to better performance.
b) To not use people who lacks internal skill as example of what is "wrong" when what is "right" has not been shown.

Do you think this is asking too much?
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Old 10-07-2008, 10:01 PM   #78
Buck
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Re: On Talking About Internal Training

Quote:
Mark Murray wrote: View Post
I would guess that talking about Internal Training is still a topic to be feared, dismissed, and regulated. Rather than discussed on its own merits, it appears that things have been reduced to pounding square pegs into round holes. I hope that I am wrong -- for it would be a shame to see people being restricted from having a voice based upon the very legal use of public pictures. I'm sure Dan would agree.

Right, Dan?

Dan ...?
This really is a hot topic with copyright laws and the internet, and politics. I didn't get to see the picture. From what I get from the discussions is was not received well. Are these "internal skills" I keep reading about the Holy Grail of martial arts? I don't know much but I am guessing they are from Chinese martial arts. As I thought about it, I did some reading, picked up some books at the local Barnes and Noble. You know to familiarize myself with Chinese martial arts principles. After I read a few books, I over looked a book in Aikido that had a lot of parallels to Chinese stuff. The book was Gozo Shioda's book the advanced Aikido.

Back to this picture and talk about internal training. I figure there are billions of Chinese and millions then who practice internal arts and of those millions there are what at least hundreds of thousand who teach it in China and overseas who are alive now. They write book and do DVDs. And what about those they taught, they have books and do DVDs. Then what about the past teachers who have died of old age, they have written books, and have students. I read that the Japanese absorbed Chinese martial arts, though the Japanese are more closed on that information. But, WOW, I never realized how much information is out there on internal arts, and how many people teach it.

Why don't we see internal martial artists in MMA, I don't see Tai Chi fighters or Kung fu fighters. Because there are so many out there you would think they would be in the ring or at least MMA would be crediting internal arts like they do jujitsu or muy tai kickboxing training. Anyway that is a different topic, I guess.

Sometimes when there is allot going on, when allot of dust and dirt is being kicked up, you just have to sit back and ask the simple fundamental questions to see what is really going on. Goes along the line when things are complicated you look at the simple to make determinations, discernments, seeing facts, truths and stuff like that.

Last edited by Buck : 10-07-2008 at 10:06 PM.
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Old 10-07-2008, 10:35 PM   #79
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Re: On Talking About Internal Training

Internal training as discussed by Dan, has been Dan's flagship and has caused lot of discussion with opinions. It has reminded me of a ugly situation some years ago regarding a Mark Tennenhouse, O.K. In short from what I can remember he was pro-aikido change to meet the demands of the oncoming wave of MMA. And after I re-read his blogs and posts it was similar to what is being discussed, and to me is interesting that almost some years later that bone is still being picked. Sure there are some minor differences but generally over all it is the same bone.

As many know Tennenhouse went down like the Titanic when he took it to the mat. A huge risk that didn't favor him, but a risk never the less. Even though I privately disagreed with him, I did give him credit to walking on the mat. Then on the other end was Kimbo Slice, who was talked up then when put to the mat went down faster than the Titanic. That is at some point all this talk about internal training is talk unless it is brought out of the 2D world into the 3D world. Yea, it is a big risk. Yea, there is ways to play it safe and not risk a reputation, and get street cred- like Kimbo's story. But unless it is put to the mat it is all just talk.

And you know what the talk is, just a heck of allot more than really should exist and more then one can read. I think talk is good, it is where we start but it isn't all of what something is like internal arts. And it should not replace getting out there in the 3D world. I think it is time now to get the ball rolling. With all the talk it really hasn't generated any qualifiable measurements other then the about of bandwidth past the usefulness of meaningful and informative discussion, the getting our attention and answering initial questions. I think at this point of over-saturation of talk, talk has to move on or stop, we need to move to the next phase of this thing by taking it to the mat in a big way. This thing has covered the same ground so much it has dug the equvalent to the Grand Canyon.

Dan has mentioned other people who are doing it, but the results in numbers are really not there. It isn't the next big thing. It could be if...

Just my opinion. And honestly, there is a point when talk needs to move on, or stop and I think we have hit that point. Thats all.

Last edited by Buck : 10-07-2008 at 10:47 PM.
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Old 10-08-2008, 10:15 AM   #80
Ron Tisdale
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Re: On Talking About Internal Training

Quote:
Demetrio Cereijo wrote: View Post

I don't think so. People (or at least me) only asks for:
a) Proof of internal skills developement leading to better performance.
b) To not use people who lacks internal skill as example of what is "wrong" when what is "right" has not been shown.

Do you think this is asking too much?
Nope, if that is all you are asking for. To get same,

a) Visit, train, and make up your own mind.

b) handled by a)

That has been the response so far, and I think both sides are quite reasonalbe.

Best,
Ron (which is why I don't understand the hyperbole and threats I mentioned earlier)

Ron Tisdale
-----------------------
"The higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of his behind."
St. Bonaventure (ca. 1221-1274)
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Old 10-08-2008, 03:39 PM   #81
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Re: On Talking About Internal Training

I remember when I was a kid and there was always one kid who did things better then the rest. Like the kid who could do skateboard tricks better then anyone else. We knew he was better because we seen it. It was a gift, a talent, a natural ability for him.

Then there was the kid who said he could do better that he was better, and he convinced a few other kids that like me, who weren't... well, the guys that made up the rest of the antagonizing group.

Last edited by Buck : 10-08-2008 at 03:41 PM.
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Old 10-08-2008, 04:09 PM   #82
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Re: On Talking About Internal Training

After allot of talk none of us got better. I felt bad because when I realized that the kid was all talk, yea, he had some tips but ya know he didn't have the whole package. I felt bad because of by ignores resulting from blindness. I never learned to skateboard well.

We can talk about internal this and that, and point out this and that, and show this tweak here or there. But I think it is about the whole package. If you are going to talk something up like say an after-market product you really need to bring out the product.

Though I think when there is too much talk it leads to argumentation and over a period of time that argumentation takes way from the product ever being put out there. Mystery then keeps the talk alive, and people interested, but buries the product deeper and deeper overtime. Then the product can't be resurrected because the product now has to stand up and deliver so much as a result of the talk. The product can never live up, and you have to be select to whom is allowed to view the product in hopes they will substantiate it. Perhaps that will happen but it is slim because all the talk has turn most people away. We can subsitute the word internal arts for product.

Whether or not the product can enhance not is not the issue anymore, it is not about the talk. Too much of anything is a bad thing. Things do go sour. But I think all the talk is really all about the talk.
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Old 10-08-2008, 04:49 PM   #83
Kevin Leavitt
 
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Re: On Talking About Internal Training

Not sure really what your point is Phil.

The interesting things are the guys that have gotten with our aikiweb "Internal guys" have all come back saying that they could do what they said they could do.

I don't see it as a all talk no action situation at all.

I personally walked away from a weekend with Mike Sigman and a weekend with Rob John and Ark impressed and alot to work on as well as many others with many years in aikido and other martial arts than I.

I might discuss and struggle with integrating what i was shown into my training.

I can say for certain that I feel that the training, as little as I have done has benefited my "MMA" skills.

I will also say that I completed a 25KM ruck march in full kit last week and at 43 years old and going cold into it with no running, ruck marching, and doing nothing other than jiujitsu/judo, aiki, and core training, that I did very well, felt the best I have felt in years, had no blisters or feet problems, improved my over all time and I did note as did the guys I was walking with a distinct difference in my approach, gate, and technique to doing it.

So, again, having spent some time focusing on this stuff...even a little has paid off for me in some small ways.

So, again, I don't understand your point as it does not register with me as to why you feel that no one is using it in MMA or daily life.

the product is as advertised and it is on the shelf at a store near you. You just need to go into the store and try it Sam I am.

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Old 10-08-2008, 05:43 PM   #84
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Re: On Talking About Internal Training

What my purpose here is not what I have alluded too, I guess are the words. What I am talking about the internet, and not a person. The internet is a great blind, a thing where we talk but don't see who is talking. I know what some are thinking, I am talking about the internet. Would people have a different views on internal arts and what is all associated with it. Would people talk so much about this and that. The biggest impact here on the martial arts is from the 2-D world of the internet.

Last edited by Buck : 10-08-2008 at 05:58 PM.
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Old 10-08-2008, 06:25 PM   #85
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Re: On Talking About Internal Training

Sorry for the jumble thoughts, I am working and I am a horrible multi-tasker. Kevin l want to be clearer.

The internet has a huge impact that is so much different that in the 3-D world. Talk becomes more important and the only thing important. Because, there are no other elements to communicate within a 2-D world of the internet. You can bounce a ball on the net. You can't prove internal arts are effective in a demonstration. Pre-internet we lived in a 3-D world, now we live in a 2-D world we have greater ability to connect, talk, exchange ideas etc. In communication, talk can't be all of communication. No matter how fast and vast the internet facilitates talk.

The internet is a huge and important tool but we can't forget what we did before the internet, or what it was like.
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Old 10-08-2008, 06:54 PM   #86
Kevin Leavitt
 
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Re: On Talking About Internal Training

pre internet we lived in a world where I was completely ignorant of what was out there in the world outside of oh...say...a 20 mile radius of where I lived.

If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it.....

that thought comes to mind.

I think it can be good and bad. The net certainly can serve as a medium to fuel the fantasy fires of wannabees that can go look up some factoids and then allow their ego and fantasies to run wild and become a digital warrior or a paper tiger....most certainly.

For the most part though, I think it serves it's purpose, which is to connect people and allow them to get out of it exactly what they are looking for.

I'd say if it weren't for the internet, I'd probably still be hanging out at some local McDojo run by Fred Simmons, dojo master.

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Old 10-08-2008, 07:41 PM   #87
Buck
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Re: On Talking About Internal Training

Yea, I hear you, but I am saying that the weight we put on talk when on the internet is far too much. The internal arts or martial arts isn't like proving math formulas which can be done on the net. Internal arts must be experienced in the 3-D, talking about it is only part of it. I think we get way too wrapped up in the art of talk that then becomes everything.
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Old 10-08-2008, 09:19 PM   #88
Erick Mead
 
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Re: On Talking About Internal Training

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Philip Burgess wrote: View Post
Yea, I hear you, but I am saying that the weight we put on talk when on the internet is far too much. The internal arts or martial arts isn't like proving math formulas which can be done on the net. Internal arts must be experienced in the 3-D, talking about it is only part of it. I think we get way too wrapped up in the art of talk that then becomes everything.
Perception, like action, is unitary, crystalline. Even poor perceptions and ineffective actions are unitary. That's why they are innately hard to improve.

Improvement requires refinements. Refinement cannot be made on unitary processes. Refinements require making distinctions. Distinctions are by definition not unitary. Distinctions require concepts. Concepts require symbolic representation. Binary division requires logical analysis.

Building up the refinements can only be done with manageable units. Building the refinements back into a unitary structure can occur only after we break down things into discrete units. Two intellectual options for symbolic logic -- number or word. But those are not the only possible analytic tools. Aikido waza (much criticized from the holistic perspective) can be used as a form of concrete logic (as with many other physical systems of learning). But so long as the process of distinction (whatever it is) is consistent -- no two processes of analysis need necessarily look a lot like one another.

Building happens according to a holistic, unitary pattern. Building occurs only unit by unit. The units arrived at by analysis do not define the pattern nor the pattern the units. Each must be understood separately. Try building before you have discrete units, and valid pattern, and you get a ramshackle pile. To build you have a valid pattern in mind and manageable units. The two aspects are both necessary to the dependent holistic result -- but are not dependent on one another.

Last edited by Erick Mead : 10-08-2008 at 09:23 PM.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
一隻狗可久里馬房但他也不是馬的.
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Old 10-09-2008, 11:22 AM   #89
C. David Henderson
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Re: On Talking About Internal Training

Erick,

Can you say more on what you mean by "Perception, like action, is unitary, crystalline. ... That's why they are innately hard to improve."

I think your idea that "Aikido waza ...can be used as a form of concrete logic ..." clearly relates to your statements that acts and perceptions are unitary, that refinement requires distinctions, and that numbers and concepts are not the only available analytic tools.

Does the "unititary" aspect of action you describe relate to its historical singularity as a particular concrete act? To the idea that what might be isolated as "components" into a whole patterned performance were not produced by puting discrete parts together?

Regards,

DH
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Old 10-09-2008, 01:42 PM   #90
Erick Mead
 
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Re: On Talking About Internal Training

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Erick,

Can you say more on what you mean by "Perception, like action, is unitary, crystalline. ... That's why they are innately hard to improve."
I do not claim the thought as original. A guy who might be nicknamed Sid came to that conclusion about 26 centuries ago.

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David Henderson wrote: View Post
I think your idea that "Aikido waza ...can be used as a form of concrete logic ..." clearly relates to your statements that acts and perceptions are unitary, that refinement requires distinctions, and that numbers and concepts are not the only available analytic tools.
The criticism of waza is typically that they are arbitrary, not realistic, and not applicable in actual engagement -- all of which is true. If that were their purpose then they are useless. They are are an arbiitrary division of concepts, used to set things off agasint things in the other end of a spectrum of relation -- to make distinctions and to anlyze the relationships of the separate parts toward a resumption of a cohesive whole. "Principles" of aiki is the overall idea of the coherent whole in the lineage I am most allied with. Those principles may not be terribly well articulated but they form a gestalt that is seen and felt by those who have routinely trained in it.

Back to the topic at hand -- in all of these discussions there are varying schemes of analysis -- some which verbally articulate the basis for them -- some with a long systemic tradition behind them, some with their own systematic thought developed, and others more ad hoc and pragmatic.

Without naming names, those that approach this from a purely Chinese tradition are in the former category. Others have made their own scheme of concrete analytic movement (Aunkai, for example) Others, notably frustrated with a received tradition they feel was less than forthright have explicitly followed an adhoc and completely physical concrete logic.

All fo these are different in method from the waza-principle scheme. But they are all still analytic -- isolating components of structure and action to correct discrete errors. Ironically, the latter people have not tried (actively resisted, one might say) to articulate their logic of breaking down and building up. That does not mean they are not doing it in practical, concrete ways. Their descriptions, such as they are, reveal that this is their process, though the specific detail remains not entirely clear. Although such schemes of analysis may be almost mutually unintelligible in their terms, the differences of the analytic solutions do not mean that the principles of structure and dynamic they aim at are any different from others.

I am not concerned with relative efficacy, only looking at the nature of methods involved. I would hold that efficacy is highly individualized in any event. Given the arbitrary nature of any scheme of analysis -- for it to be most useful to any given student, any arbitrary division must be sympathetic to that student's own predisposed arbitrary sense of division. Hence, all the controversy over varying schemes of analysis. Like a blind man and deaf man arguing over whether the painting or symphony is the superior work of art. Neither will ever prove his point to the satisfaction of the other.

Quote:
David Henderson wrote: View Post
Does the "unititary" aspect of action you describe relate to its historical singularity as a particular concrete act? To the idea that what might be isolated as "components" into a whole patterned performance were not produced by puting discrete parts together?
You have the essential paradox. Actual perception and action (Oyomei gets credit here) are unitary and indivisible -- a patterned whole not produced by putting those discrete parts together. But error in an action or perception is discrete and discontinuous. In fact, it is the discontinuity of such error that disturbs our attention and severs our perception from our action. Dividing perception and action is the first cut of analysis. It is not that we would choose to do it, but so long as there are errors we are thrust into analytical division it by the nature of the problem. Miura Baien describes the process as jori which is difficult to translate, but the characters describe the pattern of winter trees, a discrete branching in finer and finer divisions, but never losing the concrete unity of being one tree.

So we must look for discrete error by resolving to some manageable scale of discrete unit in order to find the distracting flaws and remove them to resotre or sens of systemic conneciton and unity . The nature of whole is always the same and unchanged. Once we recognize the flaws, then we can reunite perception and action without the pattern breaking from the discontinuity of the error.

Last edited by Erick Mead : 10-09-2008 at 01:50 PM.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
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