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Old 01-28-2011, 02:24 PM   #151
Demetrio Cereijo
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Re: Ikeda Sensei Demos of Ki

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Jon Reading wrote: View Post
Dan- I wish I could tell you more. I started noticing more of these "exercises" maybe starting 3-4 years ago. Sensei did not voice to me from where he derived his exercises or new[er] explanations; I did not presume to ask though. My suspician is that timing is awfully close to some serious overlap with Ushiro Sensei visiting Colorado, getting involved in summer camp, and spending some time with Ikeda sensei. I got suspicous and bought some Ushiro sensei DVDs from Sensei when he was in SC last year. I am looking through them now for an origin and to see how the exercises relate...
Would you also consider Uzawa Sensei as a possible source?
 
Old 01-28-2011, 02:35 PM   #152
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Re: Ikeda Sensei Demos of Ki

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Demetrio Cereijo wrote: View Post
Would you also consider Uzawa Sensei as a possible source?
Wouldn't suprise me in the least.
 
Old 01-28-2011, 02:45 PM   #153
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Re: Ikeda Sensei Demos of Ki

Uzawa Sensei's two seminars at Boulder Aikikai were totally fucking awesome.
 
Old 01-28-2011, 03:18 PM   #154
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Re: Ikeda Sensei Demos of Ki

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Jon Reading wrote: View Post
Having some direct experience with Ikeda sensei, my thoughts:
1. What Ikeda sensei shows in his seminars is based upon the presumption that those attending have a basic understanding of proper structure and body alignment. I believe he also expects most in attendance to have a basic comprehension of technique.
2. I believe much of the instruction Ikeda sensei is based upon layering on top of proper structure and alignment internal movement that strengthens the entire shape. I believe this is the advanced level of training where Sensei is showing "make connection."
I think Jon touches on a key point here. I have been going to seminars with Ikeda Sensei for 20 years, and while that isn't nearly as much interaction with him as someone like George Ledyard has, it means that I have been watching him and working on what he teaches for a while. Back around 2000, two students of Ikeda Sensei - Ron Meyer and Mark Reeder - published a book titled Center: The Power of Aikido that attempted to capture in dialogue format many of the concepts that Ikeda Sensei was teaching at that time in seminars. The concepts were things like centeredness, relaxation, alignment, connection, grounding, uprooting, spiraling, timing and position. I bought a copy of the book when it first came out, reread it a few times over the next five or six years, and consciously tried to work on incorporating these principles into my aikido (others are in a better position to judge how successful I was). But what I have noticed in the past few years is that the time I put into understanding those concepts from seminars Ikeda Sensei was teaching 6-12 years ago has helped me understand what he is teaching now in seminars.

So not only would I agree with Jon that how Ikeda Sensei now approaches seminars involves "a presumption that those attending have a basic understanding of proper structure and body alignment", but I would suggest that much of what he presumes is outlined in Ron and Mark's book.
 
Old 01-28-2011, 06:57 PM   #155
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Re: Ikeda Sensei Demos of Ki

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Budd Yuhasz wrote: View Post
1) Connected - Make the physical connection between yourself and the other person (this is easy, it's accomplished on touch)

Best/Budd
lets take a look at the first part. it's not as simple as a touch. a number of things need to happen for the "connected". Ikeda sensei often asked uke to be "strong as you can", i.e. provide a stiff frame of your body, stiff force if you will. this would take the "slack" out of uke body which makes it easier for nage to work with (learning stage here). now if uke just goes limp noodle, then it makes it much harder, because there would be too much slack, i.e. gaps in the body for good force conduction.

the next part, nage has to take the slack out of his/her/it body as well. otherwise, we have the same issue as uke slackness. however, unlike uke, nage takes the slack out of his/her/its body through body conditioning to create a fully connected body without stiffness like uke. with such body conditioning, nage could create a condition where there is little to no resistance between the palm and the ground contacts at the bottom of nage's feet. sort of a "force conductor" body, using electrical analogy where losses in electrical signal determine the level of IS expertise; so for an expert IS, he/she/it could create a "force superconductor" body. so the terms the IS folks use "bring the ground to certain part of the body", in this case, bring the ground to nage's palm that touched uke's fist. and since the ground is so vast, uke's power essentially grounded or nullified. essentially, the power equation at this point is zero. keep this part in mind because point #3, "move your inside", will change this.

as the contact point, palm and fist, there should be zero force registered. if there is force at contact point, then it's not a single unit but two units, which negates the next portion - Unity.

comments, before we move to #2 "Unity"?
 
Old 01-28-2011, 07:34 PM   #156
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Re: Ikeda Sensei Demos of Ki

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Benjamin Edelen wrote: View Post
Uzawa Sensei's two seminars at Boulder Aikikai were totally fucking awesome.
Hi Ben, Why? What kind of stuff did you learn? It sounds intriguing..
Cheers//Josh
 
Old 01-29-2011, 12:33 AM   #157
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Re: Ikeda Sensei Demos of Ki

Phi
It is not always to just "ground their power" to neutralize it. Oh were it so. That is far...far.. too simplistic. At a point when they are not using dumb force; things can get dicey and you need to be capable of much more. In a face off with other people with better understanding of power you will be played and manipulated rather than them let you have a stand off of power to power, Hell even a good soft wrestler (yes they exist) will pick that apart. At that time, the ability to make change far surpasses the one point connected model.

There are reasons that Tohei swayed sometime under force and moved differently than Ueshiba. His model was a starting point and that's about it. I know some people here are big fans, but I never was. It is one level. A beginning step. I have looked for certain things in him and never seen them. Well, I haven't seen them in anyone in Aikido...yet. And In my opinion, In comparison I think Shioda was more developed. Moving from the one point while compelling and potent....can be stilted and can be had. In a fight... it can see you undone.
The one point, expressed and evident at any point on the body can still be manipulated. In fact beyond a certain point, it's all about manipulation inside...and that is where it all gets interesting. At that juncture the one point is no longer even in the discussion, as it is a given. To put it another way, there is so much Tohei did not discuss and was not evident in his movement either so I do not believe it was for lack of desire to discuss it.

With others actively teaching and for "demonstrations of Ki"...I will reserve my opinions for them and them alone, Yup, it is that protective. I continue to meet Shihan and other prominent people in the arts. Since, I actually wish to help, with no agenda, I would rather honor someone for stepping up and help improve their game in private.

Cheers
Dan

Last edited by DH : 01-29-2011 at 12:42 AM.
 
Old 01-29-2011, 01:30 AM   #158
Jeff Sodeman
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Re: Ikeda Sensei Demos of Ki

I started Aikido under Ikeda sensei almost 20 years ago and he has been my teacher ever since. In hindsight I see several general phases to what he has focused on in his teaching.

At the time I started he was in a generating/amplifying power phase, mostly through hip/body movement "koshi power". Back then you really got an appreciation for just how hard sensei can throw when he feels like it.

As he began doing more and more seminars his teaching focused on connecting to and manipulating the uke through complex spiral movements. Basically combining koshi power with balance breaking.

Upon meeting Ushiro sensei, Ikeda sensei undertook a deep and focused study of internal work. The earlier balance breaking was something done to the uke, where the internal balance breaking is something done within the nage, making it more subtle (hidden even) and difficult to resist. Removing the uke's power rather than generating nage power. I would guess 4 years or so were spent in this stage.

My take on what sensei has been doing for the last year is taking the internal work and now applying it back to the earlier stages. So a lot more application of internal into familiar techniques, internal combined with koshi power, basically folding the new stuff back into old. Also I think through the laboratory of his seminars he has been adjusting and refining how to transmit the internal work.

I think one of the more common problems people have in picking up what he is showing is that they don't take him literally when they should. Between the language barrier, and just a lack of a common vocabulary when discussing concept I think it's tempting to think that he's talking in metaphor when sometimes he is not.

When he was first talking about "change your insides" I was baffled as to what that meant. Then at a break during a seminar we were having some coffee and in response to one of my questions he asked me to put a hand on his shoulder. Because he was wearing a t-shirt instead of a loose fitting dogi I was able to see his abdomen actually moving around as he took my stability away. So when he says change your insides, he actually means (at least in part) to move your abdominal organs into a different position.

Knowing that and doing it are of course two different things. I know I could wiggle my ears but I haven't worked out quite how to do it even though they say 15 minutes in front on a mirror will do it. I think for a lot of people they don't have a system for learning how to move their insides around. I have exercises that I've picked up from Systema for working internally with strikes that I have found work very well. It sounds like the Daito Ryu folks and others have their own approaches as well (check out some belly dancing tutorials on YouTube, impressive stuff). The comments from several people about schools' teachers needing to prep their students for Ikeda sensei's work are spot on in my opinion.

Ikeda sensei already had the physical ability and control that he could apply to Ushiro sensei's approach, so he was able to skip over a phase that many of us require. He not just doing advanced work, he's doing advanced-advanced work. I think we'll see more exercises from him to address the development of internal coordination as part of his presentation in the future.

Finally, a comment on the title of this thread. Ikeda sensei has always intentionally avoided using the word "ki" in his teaching and discussions of Aikido. I think I finally heard it for the first time last year, and it was a surprise to me. In it's place he always used the word "energy" - I believe because he wanted to distance what he's doing from any kind of mysticism or magic. Even when something can't be explained, I think he would assert that there's some combination of subtle physical and psychological principles at play.

Any time there are non-Aikido people at a seminar, like some Karate students who sat in on some of his classes at the Expo, he has used them for ukemi as much as possible. He knows that there are people skeptical of the internal work, that seeing it looks fake, and that feeling it is the only way to really get an appreciation for it. Luckily he is very receptive to questions and letting people feel his work first hand.

To pass along one comment, my own internal movement was originally tied to my breathing. I think it's easier to pick up that way, but in discussing it with sensei he clearly stated that the internal work is independent of breath. So kokyu might start you down the path, but it's something you should eventually be able to drop.
 
Old 01-29-2011, 07:55 AM   #159
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Re: Ikeda Sensei Demos of Ki

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Phi Truong wrote: View Post
as the contact point, palm and fist, there should be zero force registered. if there is force at contact point, then it's not a single unit but two units, which negates the next portion - Unity.

comments, before we move to #2 "Unity"?
I just found these clips:Unity1: Unity2
 
Old 01-29-2011, 10:50 AM   #160
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Re: Ikeda Sensei Demos of Ki

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Jeff Sodeman wrote: View Post
I started Aikido under Ikeda sensei almost 20 years ago and he has been my teacher ever since. In hindsight I see several general phases to what he has focused on in his teaching.
Jeff,

Thanks for the extended description of what you have observed with Ikeda Sensei over 20 years...what you wrote matches perfectly with my experience seeing him only in seminars over 20 years. But what you wrote is a much clearer presentation of the changes that he has gone through over time.

To others participating in this discussion...read Jeff's post carefully. He has given a real gift to this discussion.

Matt
 
Old 01-29-2011, 11:04 AM   #161
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Re: Ikeda Sensei Demos of Ki

Very encouraging isn't it Jeff?
There are others as well as Mr. Ikeda who are exploring this as well-with different teachers and in different ways or accents.
How do you feel it is affecting the progress of his students?
Your own?
Cheers
Dan

Last edited by DH : 01-29-2011 at 11:08 AM.
 
Old 01-29-2011, 03:54 PM   #162
George S. Ledyard
 
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Re: Ikeda Sensei Demos of Ki

Quote:
Jeff Sodeman wrote: View Post
I started Aikido under Ikeda sensei almost 20 years ago and he has been my teacher ever since. In hindsight I see several general phases to what he has focused on in his teaching.

At the time I started he was in a generating/amplifying power phase, mostly through hip/body movement "koshi power". Back then you really got an appreciation for just how hard sensei can throw when he feels like it.
Of course that was also when his knees seemed immortal. I never saw anyone go lower than he did... often his butt seemed about six inches off the floor. Huge power anf relatively large movement, compared to what he does now. On the other hand, when compared to standard Aikikai technique, Saotome Sensei and Ikeda Sensei have always been smaller.

Looking back and remembering his "instruction", such as it was, I call this his "no escape" period.

Quote:
As he began doing more and more seminars his teaching focused on connecting to and manipulating the uke through complex spiral movements. Basically combining koshi power with balance breaking.
This was a fairly long period in which his predominant instruction, at seminars anyway, seemed to be "just catch it". He focused on showing how he gave direction, externally, to the energy of the connection. His way of showing this was misleading, I think. Most of us did not get it. What he showed you was changing hand angles largely. Then you'd try it and it wouldn't work. We were all looking at the wrong thing and he didn't know how to explain it.

Quote:
Upon meeting Ushiro sensei, Ikeda sensei undertook a deep and focused study of internal work. The earlier balance breaking was something done to the uke, where the internal balance breaking is something done within the nage, making it more subtle (hidden even) and difficult to resist. Removing the uke's power rather than generating nage power. I would guess 4 years or so were spent in this stage.
The Aiki Expos changed things for a number of us, none more than Ikeda Sensei. He trained in everyone's classes. He formed a special relationship with Ushiro Sensei although I know he found Systema quite amazing and has continued to look for input from that source i his spare time, such as it is.

Ushiro gave him a principle based vocabulary to understand this stuff. Once he began organizing his thinking about what is really going on in "aiki" his progress has been continuous and accelerating. While wonderful to see and inspiring to watch, it is frustrating to see how he's left folks "eating his dust" so to speak. Kevin Choate Sensei described it as feeling like the Coyote as he watches Road Runner zoom off into the distance.

The thing that is totally amazing about Ikeda Sensei is that he simply does not care whom he gets stuff from. He is constantly looking for ways to either get better or explain what he knows more clearly. His explanations are light years more complete than the "just catch it" days. I know of two occasions in which I found him using explanations that he had seen me use in class. He doesn't care one wit that I am far junior.

Quote:
My take on what sensei has been doing for the last year is taking the internal work and now applying it back to the earlier stages. So a lot more application of internal into familiar techniques, internal combined with koshi power, basically folding the new stuff back into old. Also I think through the laboratory of his seminars he has been adjusting and refining how to transmit the internal work.
Both he and Saotome Sensei have started offering drastically more detailed explanations. I am absolutely sure that this is due to their exposure to Ushiro Kenji. Saotome Sensei in particular never explained much at all. I have been in classes with him lately when he broke things down in a way that I only dreamed of back inthe day. I want to shake people and say "do you know what a gift that guy just gave you? I worked on that for ten years and he just put it on a plate for you." It's the same with Ikeda Sensei except that his Aikido is changing constantly while he's doing this.

Quote:
I think one of the more common problems people have in picking up what he is showing is that they don't take him literally when they should. Between the language barrier, and just a lack of a common vocabulary when discussing concept I think it's tempting to think that he's talking in metaphor when sometimes he is not.

When he was first talking about "change your insides" I was baffled as to what that meant. Then at a break during a seminar we were having some coffee and in response to one of my questions he asked me to put a hand on his shoulder. Because he was wearing a t-shirt instead of a loose fitting dogi I was able to see his abdomen actually moving around as he took my stability away. So when he says change your insides, he actually means (at least in part) to move your abdominal organs into a different position.

Knowing that and doing it are of course two different things. I know I could wiggle my ears but I haven't worked out quite how to do it even though they say 15 minutes in front on a mirror will do it. I think for a lot of people they don't have a system for learning how to move their insides around. I have exercises that I've picked up from Systema for working internally with strikes that I have found work very well. It sounds like the Daito Ryu folks and others have their own approaches as well (check out some belly dancing tutorials on YouTube, impressive stuff). The comments from several people about schools' teachers needing to prep their students for Ikeda sensei's work are spot on in my opinion.
Because I had started with Saotome Sensei, it was easier for me to get what Ushiro was doing because, despite not understanding what Sensei was doing, I had always been aware that some o0ther paradigm was operating than what we could see with our uneducated eyes. Even Ikeda Sensei said, "Saotome Sensei was always doing this stuff, we were just to stupid to understand it." Folks who have never had that advantage are at a disadvantage because what they have always felt from their teachers and seniors really was different from what these Shihan are doing.

I think, more than anything anyone could say, this should make the case for principle based instruction against the "steal the technique" model. Saotome Sensei did not have a more devoted student than Ikeda Sensei and yet it took Ushiro and others to supply the missing connections to what Saotome Sensei had been doing.

Quote:
Ikeda sensei already had the physical ability and control that he could apply to Ushiro sensei's approach, so he was able to skip over a phase that many of us require. He not just doing advanced work, he's doing advanced-advanced work. I think we'll see more exercises from him to address the development of internal coordination as part of his presentation in the future.
I think this is definitely true... As he sees how breaking down skills into discrete elements before combining those elements into more complex waza is the most effective way to reprogram our minds and bodies, I think he'll keep moving in that direction. The questions for many of the rest of us is whether we can start training our own students that way... can I take a few years to prep the skills before I start teaching a lot of waza? Our standards in the ASU state that it takes about 4.5 - 5.0 years to work through the requirements for Shodan (training three times a week). Would students be patient with slower progress towards something tangible? Would the organization be supportive of a give teacher totally changing the guidelines for his or her students?

Quote:
Finally, a comment on the title of this thread. Ikeda sensei has always intentionally avoided using the word "ki" in his teaching and discussions of Aikido. I think I finally heard it for the first time last year, and it was a surprise to me. In it's place he always used the word "energy" - I believe because he wanted to distance what he's doing from any kind of mysticism or magic. Even when something can't be explained, I think he would assert that there's some combination of subtle physical and psychological principles at play.
Ki is s term, like any other. You can use other terminology to describe the same thing... Personally, I don't think use of other terminology makes it any more clear. You still have to teach people what any term means in the context of our "aiki" work. The reason the term "ki" has been so misused is that people read and heard the term but didn't really understand any more than the simplest rudiments of what it meant. So it became a term associated with New Age, wishful thinking Aikido. That wasn't the fault of the term itself but of the practitioners who didn't understand what the term really meant.

Quote:
Any time there are non-Aikido people at a seminar, like some Karate students who sat in on some of his classes at the Expo, he has used them for ukemi as much as possible. He knows that there are people skeptical of the internal work, that seeing it looks fake, and that feeling it is the only way to really get an appreciation for it. Luckily he is very receptive to questions and letting people feel his work first hand.
He is definitely a show me guy himself... And he respects that in others. He'll get the biggest, stiffest, most resistant guy in the place and let him feel hit, just so everyone knows he can really do it.

Quote:
To pass along one comment, my own internal movement was originally tied to my breathing. I think it's easier to pick up that way, but in discussing it with sensei he clearly stated that the internal work is independent of breath. So kokyu might start you down the path, but it's something you should eventually be able to drop.
I think there is a natural progression one can follow that will eventually get one to the level that Ikeda Sensei has attained and beyond. Fisrt we find physical, body movement / posture based ways of accomplishing a desired result with our partner

Then, you can play with how the breath can accomplish many of those same things without the larger body movements. Finally, you move everything "inside" and play with how the Intent can create internal movement which can move the partner. Once you start making these connections, the sky is the limit... Sagawa kept going into his eighties and just kept getting better. Of course he trained like a maniac. But he clearly was able to take the paradigm he had been given by Takeda and run with it, going into areas he had never been taught by another teacher.

That is almost the entire focus of what Ikeda Sensei is showing these days. He is demoing how to change the paradigm. Once you do that, you can become your own teacher to a large extent and it's simply a matter of how hard you choose to train. This is crucial because without an understanding of the paradigm shift, another twenty years of working in the old way will still not magically yield understanding of what these teachers are doing. It sure didn't in my case.

George S. Ledyard
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Old 01-29-2011, 05:02 PM   #163
Jeff Sodeman
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Re: Ikeda Sensei Demos of Ki

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Dan Harden wrote: View Post
How do you feel it is affecting the progress of his students?
Your own?
I've very glad to see Aikidoka opening up to the idea that other arts have knowledge that can help enrich our Aikido practice and learning.

The reception of that knowledge is a tricky thing. I think you have to have a lot of trust in your teacher, especially when you're used to doing things in the traditional manner. Ikeda sensei's personality and the way he lives his life makes it easy for me to trust him when he says that something has merit. Especially with his avoidance of mysticism, for him to praise the internal work said to me that it was something that I should take seriously. But then if he said to jump in a lake, I'd probably kick my shoes off and go for it with the feeling that he has a good reason for telling me to. I don't blindly believe and follow everything I'm told, but I'll at least make the effort to explore for myself. His endorsement of Systema played a large part in me getting into it, and that's hugely benefited my Aikido.

I don't think everyone is as accepting of a teacher's direction, and with the internal work especially I think it's difficult. With his traditional kuzushi work an outsider might not see that the uke was affected, but the uke could feel it. With the internal work not even the uke can feel that anything has changed. Ushiro sensei's work at the summer camps was received by some people with "they're just tricks" and other forms of skepticism, sometimes even after people got to experience it personally.

My experience has been that change is hard for people, and especially things that they can't fully explain. What I see is that more of the resistance to the internal work is in the yudansha than the beginners and that it'll take some time for it to become a normal part of practice.

George talked a little about the issue of integrating internal work with our established testing and promotion curriculum. I'm trying to reconcile how to put all the pieces together. One the one hand I need to make sure my students fulfill their testing requirements and get the proper technical kihon skills. At the same time I'd prefer to start someone with much more breath, relaxation, and internal work. I feel like the kihon focus by itself actually instills a lot of tension and other habits that are difficult to break later.

On top of that you need to keep people showing up and for a beginner the internal work might not have as much of a "wow fun" factor that will keep them going past the first few months. I'm sad to admit that when potential students are watching a class that I'll avoid doing much internal work in it; I know it's just not exciting to watch people stand around doing what looks like nothing. So from that end it seems like something that, while it would benefit every level of student, maybe only the advanced or truly dedicated student would appreciate studying in any depth.

Loosing students and rewriting the curriculum aren't things that I'm ready for right now, so I'll keep trying to fit the internal work in as I can.

I think what you'd notice the most in my students from the internal work is that their ukemi is different. The first few years that I was teaching ukemi seminars I was doing a lot of the soft "feather" type high falls. The last couple years of seminars have focused more on internal work, how to take the power of a throw and transform it internally in a way that doesn't require slapping, crashing into the mat, or even "feather" gymnastics. You throw them hard and they just quietly sink to the mat. I believe that this feel will ultimately carry over to the throwing side for them.
 
Old 01-29-2011, 05:02 PM   #164
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Re: Ikeda Sensei Demos of Ki

Quote:
George S. Ledyard wrote: View Post
Ki is s term, like any other. You can use other terminology to describe the same thing... Personally, I don't think use of other terminology makes it any more clear. You still have to teach people what any term means in the context of our "aiki" work. The reason the term "ki" has been so misused is that people read and heard the term but didn't really understand any more than the simplest rudiments of what it meant. So it became a term associated with New Age, wishful thinking Aikido. That wasn't the fault of the term itself but of the practitioners who didn't understand what the term really meant.
I was aware back in the 1970's when Saotome came to the U.S. outside of permission from Yamada that Saotome had been known to give "ki" exercises at Hombu Dojo. Hence I went and attended a few classes when I could at the Sarasota dojo. I think there are a number of misunderstandings that are slowly being put aright at the moment, so it's encouraging.

2 cents.

Mike Sigman
 
Old 01-29-2011, 05:24 PM   #165
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Re: Ikeda Sensei Demos of Ki

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Jeff Sodeman wrote: View Post
I think one of the more common problems people have in picking up what he is showing is that they don't take him literally when they should. Between the language barrier, and just a lack of a common vocabulary when discussing concept I think it's tempting to think that he's talking in metaphor when sometimes he is not.
I've noticed this with a number of teachers. Every once in a while, the light bulb will go on and I'll realize that when Sensei said X, that's exactly what he meant. Not a metaphor, not a visualization, just do X.

Which is why this stuff (aikido in general, not just IP) is so hard to do, and to teach. Once you get it, you realize that it was right there in front of you the whole time.

Katherine
 
Old 01-30-2011, 12:29 PM   #166
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Re: Ikeda Sensei Demos of Ki

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Phi Truong wrote: View Post
lets take a look at the first part. it's not as simple as a touch. a number of things need to happen for the "connected". Ikeda sensei often asked uke to be "strong as you can", i.e. provide a stiff frame of your body, stiff force if you will. this would take the "slack" out of uke body which makes it easier for nage to work with (learning stage here). now if uke just goes limp noodle, then it makes it much harder, because there would be too much slack, i.e. gaps in the body for good force conduction.

the next part, nage has to take the slack out of his/her/it body as well. otherwise, we have the same issue as uke slackness. however, unlike uke, nage takes the slack out of his/her/its body through body conditioning to create a fully connected body without stiffness like uke.
a few more things to add. when you heard Ikeda sensei said "no space". it meant to remove all the slack within nage body and uke body, i.e. no gaps for better force conduction which is one of the requirement for the second portion of Unity. "no space" doesn't mean external physical space.

one thing that i had problem with the setup. Uke provided the stiff force, "strong as you can", which inevitably folks would tensed up all the muscle in their body. read about tetanus in this paper http://people.eku.edu/ritchisong/301notes3.htm. once Uke has tensed up muscle for awhile, the muscle fibers had not the chance to relax. then Uke switch role with Nage to perform the exercise. the result is that the new Nage now too tensed to do the exercise. i usually felt my body tensed within an hour practicing stuffs. so for folks who attend seminar with Ikeda sensei, don't tense up when you are Uke. you can still provide a stable, stiff platform for nage to use (this is a learned thing), yet not tensing.
 
Old 01-30-2011, 12:36 PM   #167
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Re: Ikeda Sensei Demos of Ki

Quote:
Dan Harden wrote: View Post
Phi
It is not always to just "ground their power" to neutralize it. Oh were it so. That is far...far.. too simplistic. At a point when they are not using dumb force; things can get dicey and you need to be capable of much more. In a face off with other people with better understanding of power you will be played and manipulated rather than them let you have a stand off of power to power, Hell even a good soft wrestler (yes they exist) will pick that apart. At that time, the ability to make change far surpasses the one point connected model.

Dan
sometimes in the near future, would like to meet up with you to learn about your model. i have few points of reference so i am limited in view. would like to know more about the holes/gaps/limits in my model.
 
Old 01-30-2011, 03:32 PM   #168
George S. Ledyard
 
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Re: Ikeda Sensei Demos of Ki

Quote:
Phi Truong wrote: View Post
sometimes in the near future, would like to meet up with you to learn about your model. i have few points of reference so i am limited in view. would like to know more about the holes/gaps/limits in my model.
Phi,
Am I going to see you at Aikido of Lake Keowee next weekend?
- George

George S. Ledyard
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Old 01-30-2011, 05:11 PM   #169
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Re: Ikeda Sensei Demos of Ki

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George S. Ledyard wrote: View Post
Phi,
Am I going to see you at Aikido of Lake Keowee next weekend?
- George
sensei, i could only make one day, Sat. family schedules are breaking havoc on my ability to attend various seminars. looking forward to see you again and learn new things and fix old things.
 
Old 01-30-2011, 05:26 PM   #170
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Re: Ikeda Sensei Demos of Ki

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Phi Truong wrote: View Post
sensei, i could only make one day, Sat. family schedules are breaking havoc on my ability to attend various seminars. looking forward to see you again and learn new things and fix old things.
Slacker! You probably think getting the kids to sports,spending some quality time with the spouse, and paying the bills, should take precedence over your training... well, I will look forward to seeing you!!! Should be fun.

George S. Ledyard
Aikido Eastside
Bellevue, WA
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Old 02-01-2011, 06:20 AM   #171
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Re: Ikeda Sensei Demos of Ki

And thus another potentially interesting discussion of the exact how's of internal strength comes to a predictable end on AW.

Speaking to that 1% who are *clinically* interested in the how's, mechanics, etc., of internal strength and are motivated to work as opposed to discuss, the QiJin forum is a possible resource of information for getting started. If you're that rare sort of person who wants to avoid the agenda stuff, you can p.m. me and see if there's meshing of goals.

FWIW

Mike Sigman
 
Old 02-01-2011, 07:33 AM   #172
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Re: Ikeda Sensei Demos of Ki

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Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
And thus another potentially interesting discussion of the exact how's of internal strength comes to a predictable end on AW.

Mike Sigman
hold your horse! grab a pitcher of coffee! i am busy responding to other threads and collecting my thoughts on the next portion. besides, i was waiting for other folks to jump in. otherwise, i might as well talking to meself, which isn't a bad thing, which i have done quite often, well most of the time actually. the evil phi has all kind of interesting stuffs.
 
Old 02-01-2011, 08:02 AM   #173
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Re: Ikeda Sensei Demos of Ki

Hey I'm still following this thread (and the others) so I would hope it continues on.

Perhaps once Ive had some time to experience and work with it I will have something useful to contribute. Next week I'll have the opportunity to meet Mark Murray and see/feel it for myself. I am very much looking forward to that.

Meanwhile I have to hope that those of you who are far beyond my level of experience continue to try to share and discuss this.
 
Old 02-01-2011, 08:19 AM   #174
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Re: Ikeda Sensei Demos of Ki

Quote:
Marc Abrams wrote: View Post
Why don't you remain within the walls of your own forum, instead of trying to direct people to you by denigrating what is going on with the AW community.

Marc Abrams
What exactly is going on in the AW community? I see very little technical discussion.
 
Old 02-01-2011, 09:17 AM   #175
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Re: Ikeda Sensei Demos of Ki

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Jason Casteel wrote: View Post
What exactly is going on in the AW community? I see very little technical discussion.
One the more fascinating attributes of people is that one person is never the same as another - you can always be guaranteed someone just will not see everything as you do. This of course can make for some good conversations as long as both sides understand that and respect the other person's position. However, another attribute of people is that most do want others to see as they do and in some cases will insist that they do - IMO, one of the major reasons there is war.

So, my opinion is that internet forums are probably the worst medium to use for a serious 'how to' presentation/discussion associated with the physical and mental interactions of two people that occur in the MA, and this goes beyond the IS stuff. IMO, these forums are an excellent place to present opinions and ideas that can be shared with others or debated in a civil manner. If someone does not agree with that , fine - they should just keep the subtle, and not so subtle, cheap shots to themselves - we all have a right to our opinions and that should be respected.

With all that said, I respect the position of those that may want to use this forum for their 'how to' stuff - so how about if Jun just creates another section in the forum strictly for that - those that want to exchange detailed 'how to' stuff can, and those that do not, can just stay out of that section and reserve their opinions for threads in the forum's other sections.

Greg
 

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