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Old 01-24-2012, 04:20 PM   #1
graham christian
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Feeling

I'm a bit mystified, but getting a bit clearer, as to what the overall scene in Aikido is. It's taken over a year of reading these posts to get a clearer picture.

At first my mere mention of spiritual led to mass attack. Now I see a lot are experiencing a new phenomenon (needs no name) and recognising there is more than what they originally thought.

I have said consistently that the spiritual, universal principles can be learned and thus Aikido better understood. This would take perceptions other than the five senses, hence feeling.

Now, in a slight change I hear 'you have to feel it'.

How many different feelings are you aware of and based on which principles? Statements like 'on touch a person feels different to normal' is standard in my Aikido. Taught from day one.

Regards.G.
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Old 01-24-2012, 05:48 PM   #2
graham christian
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Re: Feeling

Thought I would add a bit more here.

When you hold someones wrist for example, what do you feel? Secondly, what is it dependent on?

For example, the first thing I feel on doing so is the others resistance. Thus they are already fighting in essence. Now I can do many things with this if I understand the principles involved and none of them include resistance or going against what they are doing.

On the other side of the coin what about when another grabs my wrist, what do they feel?

Well, it depends purely and simply on what I am doing spiritually rather than physical motion.

If I 'let go of' my wrist then the other will feel a very odd feeling. They may squeeze and squeeze as hard as they like and yet feel they are using up all of their energy and getting nowhere which belies all of their past experiences.

That's one example of many. all with different feelings. If I let go of my wrist and let their exertions go through my arm and body to my center they generally let go at first saying I have taken all their energy. Another strange feeling.

If I do the above and at the same time give back to them what they are giving to me, (another function of center) then they feel they have hit upon something that moves them, meanwhile I feel their center and points of balance.

Three examples of different feelings.

Sometimes I give something else and each something else has a different effect and thus a different feeling. This could be stillness, it could be love, it all depends what we are drilling and the lesson I am teaching.

Maybe you do similar?

Regards.G.
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Old 01-25-2012, 12:19 AM   #3
mathewjgano
 
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Re: Feeling

Well, I'm probably not quite what you had in mind, and admittedly I'm a poor example, but here's what I got for you:

When grabbing someone else's wrist, the first thing I feel is the urge to suppress the maniacal laughter that naturally arises. After that, because I'm suppressing the wrist toward their center (more or less) and not just grabbing and squeezing, I feel some kind of resistance in most people with less experience. I can feel shoulder tension to a degree. When I've had a sense of what I think of as "feeling into" the structure, I can't describe it other than I had a mental image of the structure further down the line. This was years ago when I was a semi-decent student and trained regularly though. Use it or lose it.
I have no idea how I feel, although I'm very sure "tense" would be the most common description, particularly after a decade of construction work. I have to constantly remind myself to "reset" when I'm trying (it really is just trying) to use my upper body powerfully.
In my experience completely "letting go" of the area being grabbed has had mixed results. When I was a kid I vividly remember trying to make someone who grabbed me let go by fighting with the grab; I gave up on that and by relaxing the limb and pulling from my legs and hips suddenly I was moving the bigger kid instead of the other way around. I distinctly remember feeling the flesh twist around my forearm as I pulled.
I've since tried similar relaxation, but against a strong grip all that happens is my muscles feel like they're about to rip off my bones.

Gambarimashyo!
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Old 01-25-2012, 02:24 AM   #4
graham christian
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Re: Feeling

Hi Matthew,
Thank you I had no one in mind, just a curiosity.

Your example is clear enough, I like the memory. It reminds me of a lot or may I say 99% of people or students I come across from the viewpoint of relaxing and letting go.

The relaxing and letting go is of itself a brand new experience, a brand new discipline for it takes great concentration at first and a feeling of freedom generally not felt before.

Now when such people as Tohei said as a principle 'Relax Completely' you get an idea of what he meant. Then you concentrate on the completely, ha ha.

Regards.G.
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Old 01-25-2012, 04:14 AM   #5
Carsten Möllering
 
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Re: Feeling

What changed my view completely was when I was thrown for the first time by Endo Seishiro.
I didn't feel anything. There was nothing to feel. I was sure he didn't even touch me. Next thing I realised was being hammered into the tatami. I felt the enormous energy of this throw only when it was over and sensei stood some steps away.

Then. What I feel when practicing with someone who is experienced with Endo's way of aikido is not my partner. I just feel that somebody laid his hand on my body. But I don' t feel that this hand does something to me. It just is there. So I just feel my own body. It's like I'm moving in a very pleasant and natural way, but it is not be felt why I am moving. I am just moving. And although it feels very "good", I am finally collapsing, going down to the ground. At no time I have to think about danger, have to jump or feel pain. I just move myself although I am not moving myself.
Sometimes it feels like every physical (not mental!) energy leaves me and my body is no longer able to stay upright.

When practicing with someone who is not so experienced I, and on the other side, people who practice with me, can feel that it is the hand, touching the body, that moves it and how the hand does it.

Another very interesting experience was being uke of Ikeda Hiroshi. He didn't move when grasped. And he didn't feel different in no way. It was just that I was off balance when he said I would be. And that I regained my balance, when he said so. On off on off ...
There was nothing to feel in his body, nothing that changed. But my body changed clearly.

Quote:
Three examples of different feelings.
Those three examples sound familiar to what I was taught and practiced over the first years. But what I tried to describe was/is fundamentally different from those familiar pictures and experiences. It was something I had not experienced ever before.
It feels kind of being connected to oneself. Like grabbing oneself and not at different person. There is not two bodys any more. So there is no letting go or connection to a center or something like that. Just me. And I am doing strange things.
And if there is resistance, it is not like moving against an unmovable thing. But like not being able to move further. Again it's me who can't go on. It is not a resistance outside of me.

Quote:
perceptions other than the five senses, hence feeling.
I don't understand: You mean fives sense = feeling?
Or feeling is different from five senses?

Quote:
How many different feelings are you aware of and based on which principles?
"Feeling" in my textbook can mean an psychological phenomenon: Emotions. This is not what I am talking about in aikido.
"Feeling" can also mean a physiological phenomenon. Then it is the sensory impression or cognition of the surrounding world. This is what think to be related to aikido.

Neither of both in my understanding is related to "Spirituality".

Quote:
Statements like 'on touch a person feels different to normal' is standard in my Aikido.
I don't get how you understand this phrase in this context?
What is interesting to me is, that there is a different quality when touching Endo or Ikeda or my teacher or my students. Completely different. And touching Endo for the first time, like touching Ikeda, had no parallel in my life on and off the tatami. This was completely different.
Hearing Endo talking about spiritual issues was very familiar to me. I understand it, even if I don't understand everything he says.
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Old 01-25-2012, 04:58 AM   #6
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Re: Feeling

Being a bit auditory, I initially tend to talk my way through things. A rather slow strategy.

IMHO, best learning is see-do. Visually see it externally from a spectator position, see it internally from a participants position, and kinesthetically do it.

Seeing the visual (internal and external) is useful. Feeling the alignment and connect within and between us both is essential to check if I have it. Then move.

IMHO, its sequentially useful to intellectually have some idea of what I am feeling for.

Thoughts?

Lynn Seiser PhD
Yondan Aikido & FMA/JKD
We do not rise to the level of our expectations, but fall to the level of our training. Train well. KWATZ!
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Old 01-25-2012, 04:59 AM   #7
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Re: Feeling

PS: The conceptualization that "feelings" are spiritual is a whole different thing.

Lynn Seiser PhD
Yondan Aikido & FMA/JKD
We do not rise to the level of our expectations, but fall to the level of our training. Train well. KWATZ!
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Old 01-25-2012, 05:48 AM   #8
graham christian
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Re: Feeling

Quote:
Carsten Möllering wrote: View Post
What changed my view completely was when I was thrown for the first time by Endo Seishiro.
I didn't feel anything. There was nothing to feel. I was sure he didn't even touch me. Next thing I realised was being hammered into the tatami. I felt the enormous energy of this throw only when it was over and sensei stood some steps away.

Then. What I feel when practicing with someone who is experienced with Endo's way of aikido is not my partner. I just feel that somebody laid his hand on my body. But I don' t feel that this hand does something to me. It just is there. So I just feel my own body. It's like I'm moving in a very pleasant and natural way, but it is not be felt why I am moving. I am just moving. And although it feels very "good", I am finally collapsing, going down to the ground. At no time I have to think about danger, have to jump or feel pain. I just move myself although I am not moving myself.
Sometimes it feels like every physical (not mental!) energy leaves me and my body is no longer able to stay upright.

When practicing with someone who is not so experienced I, and on the other side, people who practice with me, can feel that it is the hand, touching the body, that moves it and how the hand does it.

Another very interesting experience was being uke of Ikeda Hiroshi. He didn't move when grasped. And he didn't feel different in no way. It was just that I was off balance when he said I would be. And that I regained my balance, when he said so. On off on off ...
There was nothing to feel in his body, nothing that changed. But my body changed clearly.

Those three examples sound familiar to what I was taught and practiced over the first years. But what I tried to describe was/is fundamentally different from those familiar pictures and experiences. It was something I had not experienced ever before.
It feels kind of being connected to oneself. Like grabbing oneself and not at different person. There is not two bodys any more. So there is no letting go or connection to a center or something like that. Just me. And I am doing strange things.
And if there is resistance, it is not like moving against an unmovable thing. But like not being able to move further. Again it's me who can't go on. It is not a resistance outside of me.

I don't understand: You mean fives sense = feeling?
Or feeling is different from five senses?

"Feeling" in my textbook can mean an psychological phenomenon: Emotions. This is not what I am talking about in aikido.
"Feeling" can also mean a physiological phenomenon. Then it is the sensory impression or cognition of the surrounding world. This is what think to be related to aikido.

Neither of both in my understanding is related to "Spirituality".

I don't get how you understand this phrase in this context?
What is interesting to me is, that there is a different quality when touching Endo or Ikeda or my teacher or my students. Completely different. And touching Endo for the first time, like touching Ikeda, had no parallel in my life on and off the tatami. This was completely different.
Hearing Endo talking about spiritual issues was very familiar to me. I understand it, even if I don't understand everything he says.
Very nice experiences. I love the Endo one. I can't say exactly what he is doing there as I would have to ask him but it is very familiar so I could say I understand. I would call that true kokyu.

When I say spiritual I do mean it though. The feeling you felt from Endo was not physical, it was not mental, so what was it?

We have five senses we are used to, body senses. Thus five body perceptions. Then we have numerous spiritual perceptions, as we don't categorize them we put them down to feelings. As we get used to them and use them we can then 'see' perceive and detect more than what we could before.
Thus the 'Master' or 'Teacher' can see and do things differently.

All perceptions are a matter of outflow, inflow. Giving and receiving. The basic premise of yin and yang.

Regards.G.
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Old 01-25-2012, 05:58 AM   #9
graham christian
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Re: Feeling

Quote:
Lynn Seiser wrote: View Post
Being a bit auditory, I initially tend to talk my way through things. A rather slow strategy.

IMHO, best learning is see-do. Visually see it externally from a spectator position, see it internally from a participants position, and kinesthetically do it.

Seeing the visual (internal and external) is useful. Feeling the alignment and connect within and between us both is essential to check if I have it. Then move.

IMHO, its sequentially useful to intellectually have some idea of what I am feeling for.

Thoughts?
Hi Lynn. Best learning? I would add a few things there but basically yes.

Sequentially useful to know what you're feeling for? Yes indeed. In fact critical I would say.

I am always feeling for non-resistance. That's bottom line. No substitutes for me. Thus the principles learned come into play, the one that achieves this is the correct one.

Regards.G.
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Old 01-25-2012, 06:37 AM   #10
Carsten Möllering
 
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Re: Feeling

Quote:
Graham Christian wrote: View Post
I love the Endo one. I can't say exactly what he is doing there ...
We call this "atari". And by applying atari you are able to "make aiki". It is something that can be learned through certain exercises. When I do it you will feel my body, my center, some "pressure". When Endo does it youl will feel nothing at all. Just being moved.

Quote:
... it is very familiar so I could say I understand.
I don't mean to be disrespectfull.
I think you posted some videos showing your teaching. If I dont mistake you for someone else, what you are doing or at least what you are showing on those videos is completely different.

Quote:
I would call that true kokyu.
kokyû - at least in my/our understanding - is something different.

Quote:
When I say spiritual I do mean it though. The feeling you felt from Endo was not physical, it was not mental, so what was it?
Well, although I wasn't able to feel it then, it was something very physicall. Now that I'm learning and practicing those things for some years, I can reproduce it to a certain degree. I can make, create, do it. It's not magic.
It's what we learn and teach. Everybody on his or her level.

Quote:
Then we have numerous spiritual perceptions, as we don't categorize them we put them down to feelings.
Putting "spiritual perceptions" (what is that?) as "feelings" doesn't speek to me.
I can't connect this to my language use, can't connect it to my understanding of perception, spiritual or feelings. Be it as aikidoka or as theologian.
This sounds just kind of "esoteric" to me. Not my way of thinking ...
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Old 01-25-2012, 07:12 AM   #11
Carl Thompson
 
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Re: Feeling

Quote:
Graham Christian wrote: View Post
I'm a bit mystified, but getting a bit clearer, as to what the overall scene in Aikido is. It's taken over a year of reading these posts to get a clearer picture.
Hello Graham

Personally, I have found Aikiweb to be a great resource to which I feel a lot of gratitude. Even just lurking is informative and that just got better once I stuck my neck out and went interactive. Better still, I have actually been able to meet and train with some of the people who have posted here in person as well as a few teachers they have posted about. Carsten mentioned Endo Shihan for example. My own chance to take ukemi from Endo came about indirectly through actually meeting and training with an Aikiweb member. I'd read descriptions like Carsten's and came up with an idea of what it might feel like, but actually grabbing Endo Shihan gave me a better, more personal picture of what it feels like to me.

Quote:
Graham Christian wrote: View Post
Now, in a slight change I hear 'you have to feel it'.
I think your original post seems to admit to the validity of the acronym "IHTBF" (It Has To Be Felt - which has actually been around for quite a while) and yet it asks for yet more written description.

Also when you say this...

Quote:
Graham Christian wrote: View Post
Statements like 'on touch a person feels different to normal' is standard in my Aikido. Taught from day one.
...how can you know if you haven't actually felt the person making the statement? For example:

Quote:
Dan Harden wrote: View Post
Go lay hands on someone.
If they don't feel different than normal people?
They don't know what Ueshiba was talking about
They don't know what they are talking about when it comes to aiki.
Everything else is judo or jujutsu.
As I understand it, Dan Harden made you a friendly offer to train directly with him. It seems to me that asking for more written description while apparently claiming that what he describes is standard to your aikido goes against a major premise in the thread: If you don't actually have to feel to know, why are you asking?

I'm not saying you are wrong about your claim. That's the whole point. How can I know? I haven't trained with either of you.

Maybe Dan Harden needs to lay his hands on you too? Who knows, maybe he will eat his words? You could be doing us all a favour.

Btw:
Quote:
Graham Christian wrote: View Post
This would take perceptions other than the five senses, hence feeling.
"Feeling" (by touching) is one of the five senses.
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Old 01-25-2012, 08:52 AM   #12
Mark Freeman
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Re: Feeling

Quote:
Carsten Möllering wrote: View Post
What changed my view completely was when I was thrown for the first time by Endo Seishiro.
I didn't feel anything. There was nothing to feel. I was sure he didn't even touch me. Next thing I realised was being hammered into the tatami. I felt the enormous energy of this throw only when it was over and sensei stood some steps away.

Then. What I feel when practicing with someone who is experienced with Endo's way of aikido is not my partner. I just feel that somebody laid his hand on my body. But I don' t feel that this hand does something to me. It just is there. So I just feel my own body. It's like I'm moving in a very pleasant and natural way, but it is not be felt why I am moving. I am just moving. And although it feels very "good", I am finally collapsing, going down to the ground. At no time I have to think about danger, have to jump or feel pain. I just move myself although I am not moving myself.
Sometimes it feels like every physical (not mental!) energy leaves me and my body is no longer able to stay upright.
Hi Carsten,

Ah, the feeling of no feeling, the feel of being thrown by nothing (but a HUGE amount of nothing!). I have never felt Endo Sensei (but hope to one day in the not too distant future). I have however, been feeling this from my own teacher (Sensei Ken Williams) for the last 20 years. He seems to have more nothing now than he did back then The best part of being thrown like this, is that I always bounce back up smiling, ready to go again, somehow with more enery than I started with.

Quote:
Another very interesting experience was being uke of Ikeda Hiroshi. He didn't move when grasped. And he didn't feel different in no way. It was just that I was off balance when he said I would be. And that I regained my balance, when he said so. On off on off ...
There was nothing to feel in his body, nothing that changed. But my body changed clearly.
I will be attending the seminar with Ikeda Sensei when he comes to the UK in April, I hope to experience what he is doing and compare it with my own understanding of what is happening..I look forward to it.

How different aikidoka approach the wrist grab has been of real interest to me, especially over the last few years. It is relevant to the discussion of feeling, as the quality of the grab/grip, governs so much.

In my own practice, I have been taught to hold 'with ki', which is a relatively soft physical hold, with a strong mental component. This seems at odds with how many others practice aikido (from my limited experience of feeling people outside of my own teacher's group). The 'strong' grip employed by many, seems to me, to create unneccessary tensions and restricts sensitivity and movement. It is easy to destabalise someone who relys on such strength. Their balance is gone and they have less chance of regaining it and having any chance of reversal.

There is so much about this subject that words do not do justice to. When in physical practice with another, how something feels is direct and current. Hands on, is to know the truth. Writing about it is a pale imitation.

regards,

Mark

Success is having what you want. Happiness is wanting what you have.
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Old 01-25-2012, 10:45 AM   #13
graham christian
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Re: Feeling

Quote:
Carl Thompson wrote: View Post
Hello Graham

Personally, I have found Aikiweb to be a great resource to which I feel a lot of gratitude. Even just lurking is informative and that just got better once I stuck my neck out and went interactive. Better still, I have actually been able to meet and train with some of the people who have posted here in person as well as a few teachers they have posted about. Carsten mentioned Endo Shihan for example. My own chance to take ukemi from Endo came about indirectly through actually meeting and training with an Aikiweb member. I'd read descriptions like Carsten's and came up with an idea of what it might feel like, but actually grabbing Endo Shihan gave me a better, more personal picture of what it feels like to me.

I think your original post seems to admit to the validity of the acronym "IHTBF" (It Has To Be Felt - which has actually been around for quite a while) and yet it asks for yet more written description.

Also when you say this...

...how can you know if you haven't actually felt the person making the statement? For example:

As I understand it, Dan Harden made you a friendly offer to train directly with him. It seems to me that asking for more written description while apparently claiming that what he describes is standard to your aikido goes against a major premise in the thread: If you don't actually have to feel to know, why are you asking?

I'm not saying you are wrong about your claim. That's the whole point. How can I know? I haven't trained with either of you.

Maybe Dan Harden needs to lay his hands on you too? Who knows, maybe he will eat his words? You could be doing us all a favour.

Btw:

"Feeling" (by touching) is one of the five senses.
Hi Carl.
IHTBF. Actually I've always wondered what the significance to that was all about for all martial arts and techniques etc. have to be felt. It's given as something different when it's patently obvious isn't it?

On touch a person feels different to normal: Not sure what you mean by how can I know. How can I know what the person who made the statement means? Well I can't know unless I have been with that person. How can I know a person feels different to normal on touch is because it's regularly stated to me personally in my Aikido.

Let's not go into any personal invitation but me asking for written descriptions has nothing to do with what he does so I fail to see why it's connected. I think you're misunderstanding is based on words.

When I say I understand I find it's taken to mean I know. Two totally different things.

I can read, I pick up a book and read. As long as I am understanding what's being given to me I'm happy. I understand. Now if I then want to know I would have to go practice what was said in the book until I could do it. Then I would know.

So now maybe you can understand the premise of the thread, shared understandings, nothing to do with knowing. What I do I know. What others do they know. The rest is shared understandings.

As to me needing to train with someone else or someone else needing to train with me I see no need.If a person is stuck or looking for help then fine, anything else, not interested really.

By the way, with Endo Sensei what did it feel like to you personally?

Regards.G.
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Old 01-26-2012, 12:11 AM   #14
Carl Thompson
 
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Re: Feeling

Hello Graham

We can avoid misunderstanding "based on words" if we use plain English. Waxing philosophical about the definitions of "understanding" and "knowing" and yet ending up back where you started, saying you know anyway is not helpful:

Quote:
Graham Christian wrote: View Post
How can I know a person feels different to normal on touch is because it's regularly stated to me personally in my Aikido.
(I'm presuming this is a statement and that you meant "How I can…" not "How can I…")

This time I'll avoid words like ‘knowledge' and ‘understanding': How did you get the "information" that this different feeling on touch is regularly stated in your aikido? I am referring to the specific IHTBF feeling that has featured in many of the discussions here recently (which you have been involved in). If you are only talking about how your own students, your own teachers and the people you have actually trained with feel different from normal then please say so. If not, (if you are referring to what others whom you have not met have described elsewhere on this forum) then how can you say you think it is obvious what this feeling is? You vaguely appear to have repeated back to me that training with these others is needed in order to do so…

Quote:
Graham Christian wrote: View Post
Well I can't know unless I have been with that person.
…but then you go back to your original claim saying you can know it because it's regularly stated in your aikido.

Aren't you just saying here that you can know you have this specific feeling on touch in your aikido simply because it is regularly stated in your aikido? That isn't an answer.

I "get" that you want to hear experiences about how people feel different. No problem there. Ellis Amdur is also asking for this kind of account in his future columns. What I don't get is your apparent claim regarding the specific IHTBF feeling being in your aikido. Could you clarify your position on this issue please?

Quote:
Graham Christian wrote: View Post
By the way, with Endo Sensei what did it feel like to you personally?
You might find it interesting, but let's have your reply to this first.

Carl
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Old 01-26-2012, 03:17 AM   #15
graham christian
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Re: Feeling

Carl. I am still missing your point. You keep trying to connect what I say with what someone else says.

If someone says that in what they do people people feel nothing and that statement relates to me becauase that's what people in my art say then that is the only connection.

1) If that statement is given as if it's new or super special or generally not done then I would naturally be very surprised wouldn't I? I might even mention it and enquire about it mightent I?

2) It is natural to think that if they over there feel what they describe as nothing and my students feel what they describe as nothing then we could be doing the same thing. On further inspection though I doubt it.

3) I say and have repeatedly said I understand what they are doing. I understand it's an internal methodology. I understand what I have read about it only. I believe it's not the same AIKI Ueshiba did in his Aikido, only something he did before. I say also repeatedly that if it helps those doing it with their Aikido then that's good, like a nice bit of fertilizer. It opened Ueshibas eyes so it may open theirs.

It's not me with the significance here my friend.

Regards.G.
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Old 01-26-2012, 05:09 AM   #16
wxyzabc
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Re: Feeling

Hya Graham..interesting post.

To be on the end of someone with true aiki is an experience almost unknown in aikido. It doesn't feel like nothing though trust me. You have nooo idea what the person is doing...there is no sense of any technique even if he's doing one. You will hit the mat hard...it's literally stunning but makes you laugh at the same time. With 'volume' turned up you wouldn't be wanting/capable of getting up again too soon. There is no ukemi..only survival. Such a person is capable of no touch pins...able to stop a strong, trained guy dead from a metre away..again no touch. This goes way beyond what most have seen/know from the current crop of known aikido teachers.

What a few people talk about here is very real and very different to what 99.999%+ of people know. My own experience of this is at a what I would say is a high level is with a little Japanese guy who weighs 43kg.....he can drop people like a stone..multiple attackers too..lol. Actually he's now present on the net...good luck in finding him. He's so good most will dismiss it as fake : )

Ueshiba's aikido does exist...in aikido too ^^ some people are only doing heiwado though....

All the best

Lee
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Old 01-26-2012, 05:22 AM   #17
Mark Freeman
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Re: Feeling

Quote:
Lee Price wrote: View Post
with a little Japanese guy who weighs 43kg.....he can drop people like a stone..multiple attackers too..lol. Actually he's now present on the net...good luck in finding him. He's so good most will dismiss it as fake : )
Hi Lee,

it's not that I don't believe you, but this guy really must be 'little' as under 7 Stone men are pretty hard to find, anywhere.

If he is on the net, why not help us out with a link? Just because something looks fake, doesn't mean it is, there are plenty that will attest first hand, as you have done, that it is for real. However, there is plenty of 'real' fake stuff out there to choose from.

regards,

Mark

Success is having what you want. Happiness is wanting what you have.
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Old 01-26-2012, 05:52 AM   #18
wxyzabc
Location: Japan
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Re: Feeling

Hya Mark

Yeah he's small...real wiry...in the street he looks like you could flick him over : )

Ahhh I'd love to attach a link but the truth is that I really shouldn't without asking his permission (a japanese student posted the vids...but I have a feeling some were meant to be private).

I'll see what I can do..

Lee
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Old 01-26-2012, 06:39 AM   #19
Demetrio Cereijo
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Re: Feeling

Quote:
Lee Price wrote: View Post
Such a person is capable of no touch pins...able to stop a strong, trained guy dead from a metre away..again no touch.
Really?
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Old 01-26-2012, 06:41 AM   #20
graham christian
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Re: Feeling

Quote:
Lee Price wrote: View Post
Hya Graham..interesting post.

To be on the end of someone with true aiki is an experience almost unknown in aikido. It doesn't feel like nothing though trust me. You have nooo idea what the person is doing...there is no sense of any technique even if he's doing one. You will hit the mat hard...it's literally stunning but makes you laugh at the same time. With 'volume' turned up you wouldn't be wanting/capable of getting up again too soon. There is no ukemi..only survival. Such a person is capable of no touch pins...able to stop a strong, trained guy dead from a metre away..again no touch. This goes way beyond what most have seen/know from the current crop of known aikido teachers.

What a few people talk about here is very real and very different to what 99.999%+ of people know. My own experience of this is at a what I would say is a high level is with a little Japanese guy who weighs 43kg.....he can drop people like a stone..multiple attackers too..lol. Actually he's now present on the net...good luck in finding him. He's so good most will dismiss it as fake : )

Ueshiba's aikido does exist...in aikido too ^^ some people are only doing heiwado though....

All the best

Lee
Hi Lee.
I agree with you.

Regards.G.
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Old 01-26-2012, 07:17 AM   #21
lbb
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Re: Feeling

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." That's one of Arthur C. Clarke's Three Laws. Nowadays it's often cited by those who wish to advance the idea that magic exists, which would probably make the author pull out his hair, assuming he were alive today and had hair to tug. In fact, Clarke was making a point about our perception of things: specifically, that our perception is constrained by the limitations in our knowledge and reasoning ability, and that perception is most decidedly not reality.

If you could show a Harrier jet to a person from the stone age, he/she would almost certainly see it as magical, or divine, or maybe demonic. The exact flavor would depend on his/her cultural matrix and its predisposition to frame the inexplicable in one way or another, but the essence is the same. If, on the other hand, you were to show a Harrier jet to someone from the late 19th or early 20th century, it would more likely be understood as some technology that was a leap or two beyond what they knew...but that was still somewhere along that path. Barring some kind of rare genius, they wouldn't be able to understand how you got from the flight technologies they knew to the Harrier jet -- but there's a good chance that they would be able to imagine that such a path existed, and moreover, that it consisted of successive steps, each building on the knowledge and understanding gained previously. And at the same time, there would have been people from that same era, even from that same culture, who thought it was all magic.

So it's really in how your mind works. To some people, pretty much anything beyond their current understanding is magic; to others, it's understandable -- it's just not understood yet. I'm firmly in the latter camp. I don't understand knot theory, but I did study linear algebra (and did a rather awesome job if I do say so myself), so I have total confidence that I could fill in the intervening steps and learn knot theory. And I don't understand much about aikido, but I do have some understanding of a few basic things, and I think I can figure out the steps as time goes on. I don't see the need to mystify any of it, and furthermore, I don't think that an endorsement IHTBF is in any way an endorsement of mysticism -- quite the opposite. It can be, and IMO often is, a copout -- an avoidance of filling in as much information as can be filled in without the "feel" dimension. But certainly, you can get to the point where only the "feel" dimension will provide that last bit of data. But it IS data, not magic.
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Old 01-26-2012, 07:34 AM   #22
Carl Thompson
 
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Re: Feeling

Quote:
Graham Christian wrote: View Post
Carl. I am still missing your point. You keep trying to connect what I say with what someone else says.
Are you really missing my point or just avoiding it? I think it is you who is trying to connect what you say with what someone else says. I'm trying to either disconnect it or find out how you can justify the connection.

In my previous post I asked you to clarify one way or the other if you are just talking about your own aikido or that of others too regarding this "feeling different on touch".
  • When you start a thread claiming "a new phenomena" is standard to your aikido, I want to 'understand' if that phenomenon is the same one you were arguing about recently.
  • If not, please say so. If so, I also want to ‘understand' how you got enough information on an IHTBF phenomenon without feeling to be able to connect it to your aikido.

It's that simple.

The use of the word "understand" instead of "know" that you introduced earlier hints that you don't claim to have the exact information, in which case I think you should retract the claim that the phenomenon is "standard to" or "regularly stated in" your aikido.

Regards

Carl
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Old 01-26-2012, 12:53 PM   #23
graham christian
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Re: Feeling

Quote:
Carl Thompson wrote: View Post
Are you really missing my point or just avoiding it? I think it is you who is trying to connect what you say with what someone else says. I'm trying to either disconnect it or find out how you can justify the connection.

In my previous post I asked you to clarify one way or the other if you are just talking about your own aikido or that of others too regarding this "feeling different on touch".
  • When you start a thread claiming "a new phenomena" is standard to your aikido, I want to 'understand' if that phenomenon is the same one you were arguing about recently.
  • If not, please say so. If so, I also want to ‘understand' how you got enough information on an IHTBF phenomenon without feeling to be able to connect it to your aikido.

It's that simple.

The use of the word "understand" instead of "know" that you introduced earlier hints that you don't claim to have the exact information, in which case I think you should retract the claim that the phenomenon is "standard to" or "regularly stated in" your aikido.

Regards

Carl
You want to understand how I understand? Well I've already explained, not much else I can say.

I'd be more interested if I didn't understand.

The phenomenon of 'on touch feeling not the normal or indeed expected' applies to wherever and whenever it does. No one owns it. It applies to mine and probably to many other places.

I have experienced many different feelings from various arts and internal 'stuffs' so why wouldn't I be able to understand?

No one or style or art can feel exactly the same.

Some can feel outside the norm.

I understand the feeling of nothing, the feeling of solid when there is no force there, the feeling of heaven when the person hasn't even touched, the feeling of being dropped on by a ten ton weight even though the finger or hand is a few ounces. I understand these things and thus understand when they are talked about. Plus much more. Each one outside the norm.

I understand how each one is dependent on different principles. Also dependent on different intentions and different purposes.

Now with this much understanding I can understand where someones coming from when talking about such matters.

Understanding is a lovely thing. It relates to center actually.

The question is not therefore as to how I understand but it could be to do with how much do I understand.

Or of course you could just accept I do or reject that I do.

Regards.G.
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Old 01-26-2012, 02:53 PM   #24
mathewjgano
 
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Re: Feeling

Quote:
Lee Price wrote: View Post

Ueshiba's aikido does exist...in aikido too ^^ some people are only doing heiwado though....

All the best

Lee
Heiwa-tchu talkin' 'bout "only heiwado?" Heiwa should be more widely practiced in my opinion!

Gambarimashyo!
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Old 01-26-2012, 03:09 PM   #25
mathewjgano
 
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Re: Feeling

Quote:
Graham Christian wrote: View Post
You want to understand how I understand? Well I've already explained, not much else I can say.
Of course he can speak for himself, and I hope he'll correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he wants a logical explaination for why you seem to claim to understand what other folks do without having any direct experience; given the idea that "it must be felt," but without feeling it.

Quote:
I'd be more interested if I didn't understand.
I think it would be clearer to say, "...if I didn't think I understand." You may well understand exactly what he's doing, even better than he does (Carl suggested this as a possibility in fact), but all we can know over the internet is how our words and phrases match up. Everything else, no matter how probable, is speculation until we experience the proof in the pudding. Knowing Socrates/Plato as you do, you can see where there might be a concern regarding people who spend a lot of time talking about how much they know while spending very little time talking about how much they don't know. I'm guessing it has to do with this.

Quote:
The phenomenon of 'on touch feeling not the normal or indeed expected' applies to wherever and whenever it does. No one owns it. It applies to mine and probably to many other places.
I agree. This is why I think even people like me who have no real skill should be able to describe whatever they practice however they want (i.e. an "internal method" is one which focuses on internal methodology, no matter how effective). However, you seem to claim to know exactly what someone else's methods are; not just what his descriptions are. I believe it is this appearance which causes so many to question your point of view.
...and again, I hope people will actually correct me where I seem mistaken.
Take care!
Matthew

Gambarimashyo!
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