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Old 11-30-2012, 10:51 AM   #251
Rob Watson
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Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?

I've been to 3 Dan Harden seminars, I have a degree in physics and work 20+ years doing hands on engineering and started aikido in 1992. I really want to do this stuff and have been able to begin to manifest some aspects (I think) - I can't really even begin to explain how intent fits into a bio-mechanical model and yet can know with certainty that intent causes my flesh to move - this is a result of my meager training in the specific methods of Dan Harden.

At this stage I don't particularly care to be able use physics/engineering to explain this stuff. I don't see a linkage at this stage. I'm pretty sure that when Dan (and a great many others or high skill) use words like force and power they do not mean the same thing when used in a physics context - I'm fine with that (I'm also happy to be mistaken in this assessment).

Iteration, Krystal, (my little net-crush girl) got it exactly right and Dan says exactly the same thing - repeated failure is the key to progress. Propose a hypothesis, find it lacking, retool and repeat until truth emerges- A sound proven methodology - some call it science, some call it life and others refuse to play at some critical point and simply get left behind. My new catch phrase (I sense a new Tshirt coming) "Retool or be a tool".

To bring this right back on topic note that we still can't agree on what 'aiki' is and most are using 'force' incorrectly the topic is stillborn. Plenty of clashing tho ...

"In my opinion, the time of spreading aikido to the world is finished; now we have to focus on quality." Yamada Yoshimitsu

Ultracrepidarianism ... don't.
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Old 11-30-2012, 10:52 AM   #252
ChrisMoses
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Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?

Quote:
Erick Mead wrote: View Post
But appeals to authority are not a basis for rational discussion -- they are appeals to trust, maybe decent rhetorical devices -- but not rational arguments. Reason does not depend on trust. That is one reason why reason is particularly useful. A certificate or degree does not prove or disprove anything. Just because I have a law degree does not mean a layman is wrong on the law when he disagrees with me -- the law is a VERY BIG THING. The physical world is even bigger.

Is it true that there is only one way of knowing something? -- Only one way of describing something? Only one useful way?
We can sit and talk and reason about anything we like. Real science, real research goes out and challenges its beliefs. It yearns for failure. When that anomaly, that failure of reason is reached, it's an opportunity for deeper study and IMPROVED knowledge.

Just some examples from this week's news.

It has long been reasoned, that the only guarantee for lifeforms is that they are born through one of several known processes and eventually die. Scientists however recently confirmed the existence of a species of jellyfish which when it becomes too old, too injured or too stressed, AGES BACKWARDS into it's pupal phase and then grows old again. WHAT? We KNOW that can't happen. We can reason and rationalize that what it means to live is to grow old and die. But, REALITY interferes with our precious logic. New information must affect our reasoning and understanding.

Recently, astronomers have discovered a black hole so massive that it makes up a full 14% of the mass of the galaxy that surrounds it. By all mathematical models (reasoning) that is impossible and is not something that can exist. Yet it does. According to reason, this thing does not exist. And yet it does. New information must affect our reasoning and understanding.

Mercury has long been known to be too close to the sun to have even the possibility of having water or organic material on it. It is simply too hot and spinning too fast. Our a priori knowledge of this celestial body tells us this. We know it. And yet, NASA just announced that they found water ice and most likely organic material in craters on the poles. Again, we find something that we have reasoned to not exist. New information again must affect our reasoning and understanding.

IHTBF comes down to a priori knowledge vs. posteriori knowledge. When I first met Neil, he could do things that were outside of my world experience. There was water on Mercury. When I met Ark and Rob, their bodies responded and felt different to anything I had experienced previously. Things that I KNEW should work and produce certain results, just didn't. There is a black whole that is too massive to exist. When I felt Dan he simply felt different than I thought someone could feel. There is an immortal life form on our planet.

Some things must be experienced. You cannot reason them out of existence or force them into a worldview that existed previously.

Chris Moses
TNBBC, "Putting the ME in MEdiocre!"
Budo Tanren at Seattle School of Aikido
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Old 11-30-2012, 12:55 PM   #253
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Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?

So, if seeing is believing . . does that mean it has to be felt, too?
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Old 11-30-2012, 01:57 PM   #254
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Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?

Quote:
Budd Yuhasz wrote: View Post
So, if seeing is believing . . does that mean it has to be felt, too?
nope. you can't show feeling with video, so no.

"budo is putting on cold, wet, sweat stained gi with a smile and a snarl" - your truly
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Old 11-30-2012, 02:15 PM   #255
Budd
 
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Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?

Quote:
Phi Truong wrote: View Post
nope. you can't show feeling with video, so no.
I dunno, Phi. MC Hammer seems to disagree with you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhmiR18iGVg#t=0m32s

(I'm a terrible person)

*brief conciliation to being on topic*

Yes, go feel it. Scientific assertions are useful for journals but they won't help you get there until after you "Feel it, Feel it"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eSN8Cwit_s

But don't listen to me, I'm a terrible person.

(Is it Friday yet? Yes, thank gawd . . . #punchy)

Last edited by Budd : 11-30-2012 at 02:20 PM.
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Old 11-30-2012, 04:18 PM   #256
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Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?

This stuff, and other internal body skills, have escaped empirical explanation throughout history, for a reason (we just don't know the reason ).

For example, westerners have been trying to figure out how tum-mo, the meditative practice through which Tibetan monks raise their body temperatures in order to dry cold, wet sheets draped over their bodies, works for almost a century. During that time, Harvard and other western researchers have scientifically analyzed groups of monks for the past 30 years. When the Harvard team initially published its findings in 1982, they hypothesized that the monks' ability to raise body temperature by as much as 17 degrees F was due to "vasodilation", and "[t]he physiological changes are . . . a by-product of religious practice". In 2002, the lead researcher, Herbert Benson, who had continued to try to arrive at a scientific explanation for the phenomenon, told the Harvard Gazette, "[t]he heat they [the monks] generate during the process is just a by-product of g Tum-mo meditation" -- so really no additional concrete revelations since the original findings. Again, these guys and gals aren't from the local JC.

Now, who knows whether or not the meditative / intent-driven processes, and the resulting physiological changes, by which the human body can be altered to produce aiki are more or less complex than those needed to voluntarily raise body temperature. All I know is, if multiple teams of dedicated researchers on different continents have spent three decades and millions of dollars trying to figure out the former, we're not gonna figure out the latter in this thread.

Quote:
Is aiki a clash of forces?
For me at this point, yes: "like a bag of hammers" more often than not.

Mert
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Old 11-30-2012, 06:00 PM   #257
gregstec
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Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?

Quote:
Mert Gambito wrote: View Post
This stuff, and other internal body skills, have escaped empirical explanation throughout history, for a reason (we just don't know the reason ).

For example, westerners have been trying to figure out how tum-mo, the meditative practice through which Tibetan monks raise their body temperatures in order to dry cold, wet sheets draped over their bodies, works for almost a century. During that time, Harvard and other western researchers have scientifically analyzed groups of monks for the past 30 years. When the Harvard team initially published its findings in 1982, they hypothesized that the monks' ability to raise body temperature by as much as 17 degrees F was due to "vasodilation", and "[t]he physiological changes are . . . a by-product of religious practice". In 2002, the lead researcher, Herbert Benson, who had continued to try to arrive at a scientific explanation for the phenomenon, told the Harvard Gazette, "[t]he heat they [the monks] generate during the process is just a by-product of g Tum-mo meditation" -- so really no additional concrete revelations since the original findings. Again, these guys and gals aren't from the local JC.

Now, who knows whether or not the meditative / intent-driven processes, and the resulting physiological changes, by which the human body can be altered to produce aiki are more or less complex than those needed to voluntarily raise body temperature. All I know is, if multiple teams of dedicated researchers on different continents have spent three decades and millions of dollars trying to figure out the former, we're not gonna figure out the latter in this thread.

For me at this point, yes: "like a bag of hammers" more often than not.

Mert
Jeez, Mert, now you have to explain what a 'bag of hammers' is - this thread will never die; it has it's own demonic energy that just leaps out and grabs the unsuspecting and forces normal folks into all kinds of weird and unearthly inanities

Greg
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Old 12-01-2012, 02:28 AM   #258
Mert Gambito
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Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?

Quote:
Greg Steckel wrote: View Post
Jeez, Mert, now you have to explain what a 'bag of hammers' is . . .
Greg,

I'm happy to oblige -- and as I'm sure you can vouch for the fact that the clarifications below are sincere vs. tongue in cheek:
  1. "Bag of hammers", in the context above, could (interestingly) be considered a metaphor for a "clash of forces" that occurs when the body does not move as a unified whole, resulting in power not efficiently being generated within, moving through, and/or being expressed by the body.
  2. This is the "bag of hammers" I use for training (I'm still working with the little ones on top, since #1 above tends to be a problem for me), and of course, for fixing things around the house:
Mert
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Old 12-01-2012, 06:35 AM   #259
gregstec
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Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?

Quote:
Mert Gambito wrote: View Post
Greg,

I'm happy to oblige -- and as I'm sure you can vouch for the fact that the clarifications below are sincere vs. tongue in cheek:
  1. "Bag of hammers", in the context above, could (interestingly) be considered a metaphor for a "clash of forces" that occurs when the body does not move as a unified whole, resulting in power not efficiently being generated within, moving through, and/or being expressed by the body.
  2. This is the "bag of hammers" I use for training (I'm still working with the little ones on top, since #1 above tends to be a problem for me), and of course, for fixing things around the house:
Mert
Smart @ass...
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Old 12-01-2012, 08:04 AM   #260
phitruong
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Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?

Quote:
Mert Gambito wrote: View Post
[*]This is the "bag of hammers" I use for training (I'm still working with the little ones on top, since #1 above tends to be a problem for me), and of course, for fixing things around the house:
[/list]Mert
that's not a proper bag of hammers! those are just ball peen hammers! where's the claw hammer where you need the claw piece to pull some teeth. and the rubber mallet for the knee caps. the sledge hammer for big job. the geologist hammer for old folks. of course the jack hammer for the crowd. of course you need some tune for the hammering, like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otCpCn0l4Wo. you have to unify mind, body, and spirit for the right sort of aiki-hammering.

*blaming Budd for making me going sideway on the topic*

"budo is putting on cold, wet, sweat stained gi with a smile and a snarl" - your truly
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Old 12-01-2012, 08:48 AM   #261
Mert Gambito
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Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?

Quote:
Phi Truong wrote: View Post
. . . the sledge hammer . . .
Oh man, I wish. . . . Maybe, someday -- if not in this life, then the next.

Mert
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Old 12-01-2012, 09:01 AM   #262
DH
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Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?

Ahhh
Since the bag of hammers is my little ditty. I choose Mert's Definition!!
How can you contend and manage forces coming in from outside when you can't even manage and balance forces within.
Japan:
Sensei what is Aiki?
Drawing circle on paper with brush.
"Opposing powers" (in you)

China:
Through change ten thousand endings
but only through one theory
the union of opposites

America:
"Aiki in me before aiki between thee and me."

How can anyone even begin to believe they can manage forces when their own body is fighting itself?
Everyone I meet is in various stages of disconnection inside, causing them any number of issues that leaves their centers revealed and easily manipulated.
Now we have yet another series of teachers out their teaching them that it is GOOD idea to connect that mess of a center...to someone else's center...and call THAT internal power.
Good grief!! You're screwed before you even start.

All of this gets some traction because it is easier and the visual tools work at a certain point in martial art cooperative kata thingies. Meet someone who is even moderately connected..and you...are screwed. It's just another step....in the wrong direction. Sadly, people keep falling into traps that lead away from the one true essential: create a center, build dantian, then create a hidden dantian that makes change internally that makes change throughout all of the bodies tissues and thereafter the body's surfaces, that offer unending aiki opportunities at any contact point. It's the only away to achieve true "no force" that can be offered at any contact point just by you moving.

Japan:
When I move my body, techniques are created.

China:
When one thing moves, everything moves.

America:
What do you think of current budo practices?
Full speed...in the wrong direction!


Why all of the frustration and animosity? Who likes to find out that they spent decades doing something they fell in love with, and all the while:
There is a model, that is superior in every way
That will forever defeat what you have been doing
That is thousand of years old
That your own art was founded on it and your founder quoted it
and
YOU don't know it and never even heard of it before.

I think we need to be kinder to each other and more understanding that as more and more people find out, and one by one they keep switching over almost at a 100% rate, that we just be nice and offer a hand. As Marc Abrams said. I am one of the few who actually ran into this stuff, tried and quit because ...I....couldn't make it work. That makes me a Saul of Tarsus. I was one of those ranting against it!! TIll I got it forced on me through failure against it. Now here I am!!
So, I get it. I know what it felt like to have it rammed down my throat as well. Luckily, I eventually listened and ran into the finest work budo has to offer.
Dan
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Old 12-01-2012, 09:34 AM   #263
DH
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Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?

Quote:
Mert Gambito wrote: View Post
Oh man, I wish. . . . Maybe, someday -- if not in this life, then the next.

Mert
It certainly *helped* blacksmithing, and better still for carrying wood and building stone walls, and better yet again for cutting 3" trees with two handed Katana, and then 16" Kukris, and..
Better still for Aiki.
Sagawa was right.
AIki si about changing the body. Only amateurs think you can learn aiki through techniques.

Yet sadly we read things like this from another thread:
Quote:
It is important to understand that consciously trying to get KOKYU RYOKU or KI will not produce the desired results, but only frustration. It is therefore best to enjoy training every day, and not think about things that will come by themselves when the time is right.
Virtually ....all...of the planets higher level arts had specific solo drills to beuild the body and create kokyu and generate ki. Sitting around waiting for it to gradually happen in waza is why so many 25-45 years along the path teachers...are training with me.
There...is....a better way.
Hence the above quotes Sagawa Saying
"Aiki is about changing the body. Only amateurs think they can learn it through techniques."

Sagawa admits he lied to his own students and did not teach them the truth, and here we see his number one student teaching in Japan, with no explanations and largely through? Techniques. I watched something like this happen with my own eyes. So have others. So we need to be kind to folks, just like ourselves who were for the most part never taught what it really takes. When, good Lord when, are we going to wise up and realize that we have to help ourselves? We need to build bridges between the arts and with each other to turn this ship around, care more about substance than some rank offered by an organization and take charge of our own training.
I give credit to Ueshiba. He at least talked about what it took, brought in an anatomy book to try and make a connection to the lectures, and he....created men (pre-war) who had it. At least he got it and tried to pass it on.
Dan
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Old 12-01-2012, 11:00 AM   #264
Mert Gambito
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Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?

Quote:
Dan Harden wrote: View Post
How can you contend and manage forces coming in from outside when you can't even manage and balance forces within.
Dan,

It's kind of nice being able to say with a straight face that hammers can help "build" a quality budo body (even if we may not know in our lifetimes exactly how or why that happens).

As for PVC, in Hawaii it's now largely gathering dust while folks address their respective bags of hammers. All in good time. . . .

I'm happy for Meyer Goo, and for those seeking peace of mind regarding what aiki is. While many are busy trying to figure out from afar how and why what you're talking about and sharing works, this Goo guy had the great fortune, then burden, of having taken ukemi from Ueshiba (how many people on this board with an opinion of any stripe can say they know what Ueshiba's aiki felt like first hand?) then going through most of his life lamenting the almost complete lack of those qualities elsewhere in the art to which he's been so long devoted. Through your example and model, I hope Goo Sensei lives to be able to express the aiki that inspired him over half a century ago.

/end_thread_drift

If an aikidoka with a skeptical bent and a genuine scientific pedigree really wants to figure out what makes this stuff tick, really the thing to do is get the training, do the training, revel in and scrutinize the results (as slow coming as they may be), then use that first-hand understanding, ability and self-examination to marshall his/her resources in the research community to do the in-depth analysis using him/her as a guinea pig. As with tum-mo, all of that may not pay off with empirical understanding of the how's and why's after all's said and done, but the data collected along the way in of itself might be worth the effort.

Off to do a shiatsu on the wife, then bring my bag of hammers to bear against some bungee cords. . . .

Mert
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Old 12-01-2012, 12:21 PM   #265
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Post Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?

I believe that making swords actually requires hammers and lots of hammering -- and so:

Quote:
Budd Yuhasz wrote: View Post
So, if seeing is believing . . does that mean it has to be felt, too?
What are you feeling ? More importantly, when are you feeling it.

The mystery that drives the degreed physics and engineering types nuts with head-shaking and cranium scratching maneuvers is that -- if my premise is correct -- there is a reflexive circuit involved, and there is a phase lag between action, perception and counter-control input in EVERYTHING involved in these issues.

I happen to be particularly aware of the problems of using voluntary circuitry for physical control because I flew aircraft. Like riding a bicycle -- you cannot use voluntary motor responses to maintain stability -- they are WAAAY too slow -- you need a certain form of reflexive responses -- from much repetitions and refinement of control errors -- but these are polysynaptic reflexes -- just barely within conscious trainability with "muscle memory". That's one level of the problem -- but most people get that -- its like learning to ride a bike -- different from learning to walk -- but not that different.

I summarized the temporal lag aspect in another thread:

Quote:
... for a trained person [using an polysynaptic reflex] -- the order of event, action and perception is:

Stimulus = 0
Polysynaptic reflex = 75ms
Awareness of stimulus = 75ms
Awareness of reflex = 150ms

A monosynaptic reflex, though, is something else (two nerves, one sensory, one motor, one synapse, ...in the land of Mordor , where... never mind...) . These are the tendon reflexes and the stretch reflexes -- which respectively contract or relax a muscle group in response to possibly structurally dangerous loads.

A monosynaptic latency is on the order of 20-45 ms -- call it 30 ms =0.03s, twice as fast as, or even better, as the visual or pain flinch reflexes. Your conscious awareness latency is more on the order of the visual flinch awareness, (75 ms).

Stimulus = 0
Monosynaptic reflex = 30ms [IN]
[No real awareness of structural stress stimulus]
Awareness of reflex = 75ms
Recovery phase of reflex = 50 -100 ms [YO]
Voluntary reaction to reflex 175 ms

This is the sequence that is disturbing to the conscious mind -- because we do not -- without training -- consciously sense or recognize the structural stimulus that causes the reflex. Or we feel it but we do not know at all how to interpret it. It is occurring at a level way below the conscious mind.
Reflex stuffs -- here.

Some engineers are used to temporal phase lag control systems. Most physicists and most engineers outside of rotary wing aviation have not dealt with bodily operated control systems that use both spatial AND temporal phase lag controls. But in our case there is not only a temporal phase lag, but, because this is a complex harmonic system -- there is a spatial phase lag too.

I learned the significance of phase lag control in bodily operated systems because I flew rotary wing aircraft. Sikorsky himself did not anticipate spatial phase lag -- and it took a good bit of puzzling out even for him -- He basically tried to ignore it with a very different control system in the first operating prototype helo, the VS-300.

The aeromechanical problems involved in rotor phase lag are not directly applicable -- but they sensitize you to this class of problem. In most rotary wing craft -- if the controls were spatially in phase with the rotors then the controls would be paradoxical ("non-sourced"). IOW putting the stick forward = tilt the rotor left; left = back; back =left; right =forward. (Reverse the above if you like Aerospatiale -- they go the other way. )

This is a function of the resonance characteristics of a multiple pendulum oscillating system -- not just gyroscopic moments because it spins -- the hinge or teeter SHOULD allow the isolation of gyroscopic precession to the rotor alone -- but the hinge or teeter at the rotor hub creates a resonant connection with the second pendulum of the fuselage -- the resulting moments are a function of the action at the resonant center of both rotations (HINT HINT HINT).

A multiple pendulum is a complex harmonic oscillator and can exhibit resonance (coupled 90 degree phase differences). Coupled oscillators that are 90 degrees out of phase (juji) -- make pretty figures called Lissajous curves -- which just so happen to follow the same class of dual spiral shape and mathematical behavior as torsional shear stress.

Putting all this together --

1) The severe temporal phase lag between structural reflex response and perception requires a feed-forward control.
2) The most damaging structural stresses are torsional
3) Unmodulated reflexive action limb behavior is highly pendular in action
4) Tonic structural stability is dynamic and oscillatory;
5) Refelxive action follows patterns dictated by the most immediate reduction of torsional shear stress
6) The patterns of shear stress and multiple pendulum action are mathematically and physically equivalent -- dual opposed spirals;
7) Feed-forward controls for this system must therefore follow the two dominant patterns involved in the reflex activity:
------ a) pendular spiral action characteristic of resonant multiple pendulums; and/or
------ b) the higher frequency damped stability tonic (~5 or ~10 Hz)
8) Structural reflexes can be potentiated by certain counter-damping stresses (e.g. -- Jendrassik maneuver)
9) Feed forward control patterns can be habituated in voluntary responses that "feed-in" to reflexive action that occurs involuntarily
10 Aiki Taiso (chinkon kishin) are designed to train, respectively the feed forward patterns of both (7a) the "demon snake" and (7b) the "spirit of bees"
11) Koyku tanden ho paired exercise (and Endo's modified atari exercsie)is designed to prompt, potentiate and exploit reflexive structural stresses and cues in both parties and to develop feed-forward voluntary responses that play upon the involuntary reflexive activity (and the tonic damping changes) thus prompted in the opponent and potentiated in oneself.
12) The IS/IP are methods related to (11) but which particularly work on the potentiating aspects of this form of tonic action in the body (7b), and which seem to depend primarily upon manipulating the tonic damping changes with counter-potentiating stresses responding to the applied stresses, rather than or in preference to (7a) feed-forward followups to reflexive mechanical responses to the applied stresses.

Last edited by Erick Mead : 12-01-2012 at 12:25 PM.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
一隻狗可久里馬房但他也不是馬的.
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Old 12-01-2012, 12:34 PM   #266
Howard Popkin
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Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?

What?

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Old 12-01-2012, 03:09 PM   #267
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Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?

Quote:
Dan Harden wrote: View Post
Now we have yet another series of teachers out their teaching them that it is GOOD idea to connect that mess of a center...to someone else's center...and call THAT internal power.
Good grief!! You're screwed before you even start.

All of this gets some traction because it is easier and the visual tools work at a certain point in martial art cooperative kata thingies. Meet someone who is even moderately connected..and you...are screwed. It's just another step....in the wrong direction. Sadly, people keep falling into traps that lead away from the one true essential: create a center, build dantian, then create a hidden dantian that makes change internally that makes change throughout all of the bodies tissues and thereafter the body's surfaces, that offer unending aiki opportunities at any contact point. It's the only away to achieve true "no force" that can be offered at any contact point just by you moving.
I suppose I'd have to ask, how are you connecting the Dantien out to the extremities so that its power, whether hidden or overt, is expressed cleanly?
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Old 12-01-2012, 03:11 PM   #268
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Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?

Quote:
Howard Popkin wrote: View Post
What?
This!

http://youtu.be/otCpCn0l4Wo
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Old 12-01-2012, 03:36 PM   #269
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Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?

Quote:
Howard Popkin wrote: View Post
What?
That.

Or if you like --

1) Body happen fast
2) Brain happen slow
3) Stuff go sideways
4) Catch up lose
5) Play ahead win

Beer ?

Cordially,

Erick Mead
一隻狗可久里馬房但他也不是馬的.
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Old 12-01-2012, 03:53 PM   #270
Chris Knight
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Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?

Hmmm nice.

Its a pity you wont meet these guys eric
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Old 12-01-2012, 06:52 PM   #271
Carl Thompson
 
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Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?

Quote:
Dan Harden wrote: View Post
Yet sadly we read things like this from another thread:
Quote:
It is important to understand that consciously trying to get KOKYU RYOKU or KI will not produce the desired results, but only frustration. It is therefore best to enjoy training every day, and not think about things that will come by themselves when the time is right.
Hi Dan

I think you've taken that out of context. In the original article it reads much more like the argument earlier in this thread in which those trying to analyse IP related it to established knowledge of kinesiology. It's not that kokyu can't be explained by science and rationalising, just that it isn't explained (at least fully) right now. To me, in context, what you quoted reads much more like Alexander Sensei meant consciously rationalising kokyu and Ki is futile as a way to understand them. You've got to train and feel them.

This is from the original article:

Quote:
As of the present time, KI and KOKYU RYOKU cannot be explained in the context of intellectual reason or science. However, it is my humble observation that KI and KOKYU RYOKU are different, but complementary entities. Whereas KI relates to unity of a person's consciousness with that of another human being and/or the spirit of the universe (the essence is SATORI or "spiritual enlightenment"), KOKYU RYOKU is physically oriented and flows through the body.
I agree, we need to build bridges.

Carl
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Old 12-02-2012, 08:05 AM   #272
DH
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Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?

Hi Carl
I read the article and understand his talking points. Much of which I agree with. The summation is where we differ. In fact I think Aikido itself has demonstrably proven that just letting kokyu and ki *happen* through training is a demonstrable failure. In and of itself it is and should be a revelatory statement in the community that the existing methodologies have failed to produce the unusual power that kokyu and ki are known for on any consistent basis. Therefore just waiting around to experience it, -much more to actually learn it- through a training paradigm that statistically fails to produce it, is not much of viable strategy.

What makes matters worse is that now, on an international stage and with worldwide communication, there is an increasing number of teachers getting out and experiencing real kokyu and ki from many different sources that...surprise.....actually had a specific training model for kokyu and ki. AND as it turns out those methods are well established and were known by the arts founder and many others in the Asian arts.

I understand that is not a very welcomed nor comforting revelation for many teachers, but resisting something that is well known and now being demonstrated consistently on world stage to the arts teachers and students it is not very wise strategy either. In the end, it will make those at the very top look like they are engaging in a very transparent protectionism.

There is no kokyu and ki training that is *unique* to Aikido or the Japanese arts in general, no matter how someone may try to convince us that is the case. Tohei's "one point" is a shining example, as his "one point" was never his. It was given to him through his Yoga teacher and was a staple principle in yoga. So here again we see that all of this singular genius and specific art individuality that everyone is so wrapped up in fails when we see the foundations were common and generations old.
The exposure of the truth that there is specific work all of us could and should be doing should lead to an embracing of a body of knowledge shared by the Asian arts. I see no benefit for protectionism and closed minds to something the arts founder was himself deeply immersed in: that being specific kokyu and ki training. One should be at least considering that since the founder engaged in detailed practice to achieve it....
Maybe, just maybe, it's a good idea to look into it.
Dan

Last edited by DH : 12-02-2012 at 08:20 AM.
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Old 12-02-2012, 10:47 AM   #273
MM
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Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?

Quote:
Howard Popkin wrote: View Post
What?
It's a lot of science words thrown together that have no meaning in the world of biomechanics. If you take the time to go through his post, most of it falls apart and has no actual basis of reality to it. It's his own personal theories. Sort of like saying the sky is neon orange and then tossing wavelength theory terms to prove it.

Hope to catch you on the mat sometime soon!

Mark
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Old 12-02-2012, 12:37 PM   #274
Howard Popkin
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Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?v

Thanks Mark. I have 2 post grad degrees. I just can't handle all theory. Too many people talk without ever meeting the 400 lb. Gorilla in the room :-)

Hope to see you soon as well.
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Old 12-02-2012, 12:38 PM   #275
Howard Popkin
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Re: Is aiki a clash of forces?

And I'm pushing 450 :-)
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