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Old 09-18-2006, 07:51 PM   #51
Mike Sigman
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Re: What is Weight Transfer(Taijuuidou)??

Quote:
Erick Mead wrote:
Consider instead the shift of body weight that started this thread. The body is a column that buckles in the middle. Weight shift is integral to balance -- along the line of the four legged stool with the two legs missing. It is an imperfect image hoever, because the tops and bottoms of legs of the stool are limited universal joints. Statically the whole apparatus should just teeter over to the side.

The thing that keeps us upright is a miniscule gyroscopic sway of the hips in a chaotic figure eight pattern that dampens the toppling sway caused by gravity.

We are always swaying between falling one way or the other. Irimi, done properly is simply arranging the sway to will that fall in the right direction to move laterally. Tenkan is willing the fall with a turn of the hips -- allowing the natural turn of the hips for balance to have its head and reorient in response to applied force.

Kokyu tanden ho allows the manipulation of the rotating/oscillating hip sway and thus affecting the opponent's weight distribution and transfer. In katate-dori I usually sense two forces - 1) an inward push and 2) an upward or downward rotation forming a plane of action. Whether it is upward or downward the plane is the same. My simultaneous response is a 1) lateral shift of the hip and arm, either opening outward or cutting inward, and 2) a torque of the arm and hip in a right or left spiral.

Which one is not really important -- the resulting plane of action is the same. This converts the motion of the forward translation and up/down rotation vertical/forward plane forming the attack -- into a phase-shifted rotation/translation in the lateral/vertical plane. It results in kuzushi because the shift of the attacking rotation into another plane is now out of phase with the balance sway system and thus almost immediately overruns its support into shikaku (one of the two missing legs of the stool).
It's an interesting theory, Erick. I think it's off the mark of the practical forces behind "kokyu", etc., but to each his own.

Regards,

Mike Sigman
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Old 09-18-2006, 07:51 PM   #52
Erick Mead
 
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Re: What is Weight Transfer(Taijuuidou)??

Quote:
David Skaggs wrote:
Wasn't the Borg quoting Buddha?
Sorta kinda. Actually, I think the Buddha was more in line with "RESISTANCE IS PAINFUL.."
I am ALL over that.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
一隻狗可久里馬房但他也不是馬的.
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Old 09-18-2006, 07:55 PM   #53
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Re: What is Weight Transfer(Taijuuidou)??

Or resistance is suffering.

Go ahead, tread on me.
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Old 09-18-2006, 08:29 PM   #54
Gernot Hassenpflug
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Re: What is Weight Transfer(Taijuuidou)??

Hello Erick, I enjoyed your exposition a lot. In particular, cutting analysis by engineers is something that martial arts requires for understanding, and also for teaching. I am sure that your explanation is not the most basic part of martial arts, but it does touch on a part of it, namely the dynamic part of stillness. In Akuzawa's exercises, that would correspond to a continual interplay between the forces maintaining the 3-dimensions of axes. Where I think you're going into "strategy" is in your emphasis on visible external movements. I think your explanation is pretty good and applicable, I just think the underlying strength that enables you to accomplish this, and methods to train this, are vital to be able to do this against other trained persons, and are at the root of the OP's pointed question. Your point about the "chaotic figure of eight" illustrates that dillemma. How can we control that precisely, how can we train that more strongly and use it's power less randomly? In other words, the internal mechamics of movement over the external ones.

Regards, Gernot
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Old 09-18-2006, 08:30 PM   #55
Erick Mead
 
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Re: What is Weight Transfer(Taijuuidou)??

Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote:
It's an interesting theory, Erick. I think it's off the mark of the practical forces behind "kokyu", etc., but to each his own.
Not a bit of theory in that last. ALL fact. Direct demonstration of the right hand rule, too. I am fairly detailed in my premises on theory in the other posts, and they are open to any attack or rebuttal you care to make. If you choose to say "No, I don't think so" it is your privilege, But, please be so kind as to supply us with your thoughts to substitute in consideration.

I have attempted to meet directly and in detail all the questions asked of me in this discussion, and I am open to more. You apparently have no more quesitons of me on this point and have reached a judgment. Please tell us what that conclusions frame your judgment and on what determinations or assumptions those conclusions were based.

Please favor us with a similarly detailed version of your understanding of the practical forces underlying "kokyu." Your response indicates distinct scepticism as to kokyu as a useful working concept. Fair enough -- detail a better set of alternative premises that we can judge on their own merits. Rebuttal to demonstrate a different case will advance the discussion far more than unsupported denial based on unspecified opinion.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
一隻狗可久里馬房但他也不是馬的.
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Old 09-18-2006, 09:08 PM   #56
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Re: What is Weight Transfer(Taijuuidou)??

Quote:
Erick Mead wrote:
...The body is a column that buckles in the middle. Weight shift is integral to balance -- along the line of the four legged stool with the two legs missing. It is an imperfect image hoever, because the tops and bottoms of legs of the stool are limited universal joints. Statically the whole apparatus should just teeter over to the side.

The thing that keeps us upright is a miniscule gyroscopic sway of the hips in a chaotic figure eight pattern that dampens the toppling sway caused by gravity.
Interesting theory.... but last time I checked, autonomic anti-gravity responses were controlled by the vestibular system - not by the rhythmic hypnoptic gyrations of the hips... :P

It doesn't explain how you can topple the entire structure at any of the major articulation points - foot, knee, hip, shoulder, elbow, wrist, head/neck - without "buckling the middle" - which may be the result of an autonomic anti-gravity response to maintain semi-upright equilibrium.

Ignatius
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Old 09-18-2006, 09:31 PM   #57
Erick Mead
 
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Re: What is Weight Transfer(Taijuuidou)??

Quote:
Gernot Hassenpflug wrote:
Your point about the "chaotic figure of eight" illustrates that dillemma. How can we control that precisely, how can we train that more strongly and use it's power less randomly?
Control in the sense of dictating what happens in aiki is something I have learned to abandon in favor of control over accepting what happens as given. Masagatsu agatsu. Timing, maai, sente -- go no sen, sen no sen sensen no sen, all of these are useful -- but descriptive, not prescriptive -- they are what happens -- not what is done.

Tenchinage is an example where this gyroscopic issue also can be seen. If I held a spinning bike wheel with its hub axis horizontally in front of me (top edge spinning toward me), and push forward on the right side and pull back on the left side, the wheel's axis tilts toward vertical but neither side comes closer or retreats. This motion of my hands and the sense of expression of kokyu in them is equivalent to tenchinage. The manipulation of partner's center in kokyu tanden ho is similar, just with active intelligence feedback.

Practice refines this exploitation of continuous rotation into the exploitaiton of instantaneous rotation, and then, ultimately, if O-Sensei's and other adept's experience be believed, into virtual rotation. Ain't there yet by a long shot, although I can see it. Still fleshing out the second part.
Quote:
Gernot Hassenpflug wrote:
In other words, the internal mechamics of movement over the external ones.
I think they are in fact the same. O-Sensei said that there are no secret techniques in aikido -- that it is all there to see. What is hidden then, begins as visible. What begins as external, ends as internal. What begin as continuous ends as instantaneous. What begins as actual ends in virtual. What is big, gets small.

Kokyu tanden ho/kokyu dosa exercise is at the heart of this for me. It is one of the reasons that I would ask skeptics to be more explicit in their skepticism of the operation of kokyu. In the katatedori kokyu ho example I gave, the initiating attack and the ending response share the vertical axis, both planes intersect on the vertical axis which provides the medium for converting from one frame to the other, by entry to the center and rotation about it (irimi tenkan).

By accepting pertubation of my own center I touch more deeply the center that is perturbing it, and by joining it, the resulting action must reflect the product of two wills joined, not one overriding will or two wills in contention. If his will is, say, oriented (x,z) to establiosh a plane of attack, then the first component of my will can be oriented with his in (z), and I am free to impart or alter translation or rotation without resistance by a second component of my will in (y); Alternatively, if I blend with him in (x), the second component of my will is free to act without resistance in (z). Tenkan begins in irimi and irimi ends in tenkan. Tthe attacker's two axis planar motion is converted to a three-axis tumble.

If I am right, there are no shortcuts, just better comprehension by dint of serious study and contemplation of these things.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
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Old 09-18-2006, 10:00 PM   #58
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Re: What is Weight Transfer(Taijuuidou)??

Quote:
Ignatius Teo wrote:
Interesting theory.... but last time I checked, autonomic anti-gravity responses were controlled by the vestibular system - not by the rhythmic hypnoptic gyrations of the hips... :P
There are (at least) three orientation systems in the body, the vestibular (inner ear), the stereoscopic visiospatial and kinesthetic/propriosensory (how you know where you hand is when it is behind your head). If one of these does not agree with the other two, the negative feedback creates dissonance, which if it cannot be resolved by re-orienting, in many cases results dizziness and even nausea. There are studies showing significant improvement of impaired balance by stochastic resonance amplification (vibration) in the foot soles (below even conscious sensory thresholds). See http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/apr05/1294. That shows the importance of the kinesthetic somatic sense. It also suggest ways in nwhich training can increase the ability to use subsensory inputs -- the spooky stuff -- but equally how seemingly ephemeral the approach to that training may necessarily be. That is why Kokyu tanden ho is so improtant even though it seems often to have no "point" ordirection interms of its place in our trainng for various techniques You are training things you don't readily know about most of the time.
Quote:
Ignatius Teo wrote:
It doesn't explain how you can topple the entire structure at any of the major articulation points - foot, knee, hip, shoulder, elbow, wrist, head/neck - without "buckling the middle" - which may be the result of an autonomic anti-gravity response to maintain semi-upright equilibrium.
Lock up the articulation at issue to give good connection to the center (kotegaeshi, nikkyo, sankyo, etc.) -- by denying one arc of the stabilizing sway, the other arc has no countercircuit, but the same energy to dissipate and thus overcompensates -- and over we go.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
一隻狗可久里馬房但他也不是馬的.
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Old 09-19-2006, 08:21 AM   #59
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Re: What is Weight Transfer(Taijuuidou)??

Hi Erick et al,

Sorry, kinda feel like its redundant for me to reply to this thread, given the amount of posts that flow by, time differences being what they are, but nevertheless:

Quote:
NOT "judo" no ju ? but "juji" ?? no ju ?. If that is what you meant; I try to use kanji to differentiate where necessary.
Yeah, no, I meant "jujido", not "judo". After reading the doka it sounded much like Ueshiba's point was aikido comes from juji -- I took the doka to mean making sure you have a properly conditioned body, understand the basic ways to use the connection to the ground, weight force, proper tensions and consequently energy storage and structure with in the body etc. This sort of thing has been discussed quite a lot recently, and made some sense to me at least, and consequently I thought if Ueshiba was at one time or other wrapping up all those concepts in his "juji", then yeah, it would make sense for him to call his art "jujido".
Quote:
Expansion-Contraction; Unification-Division; Motion-Stillness; Solidification-Fluidity. Hachiriki of the "Ichirei-shikon, sangen-hachiriki" formulation.
Thanks, and also thanks to Mike for a slightly alternate description:
Quote:
Contraction-Extension
Powerful-Relaxed
Motion-Stillness
Hard-Soft
Quote:
To deal with this suki, this opening -- one simply cannot attack. If you attack <<here>> you are already defeated <<there>>. If you attack -- you open this door that you have no means of closing because your energy is committed to a plane (x-y, y-z, or x-z) where the aikidoka is not fighting. Which is what Aikido emphasizes. It is not something one can "guard"
What I meant by "guard" was to try to make sure your body has potential in each direction (I don't feel qualified to say The Six Directions, but that's what I mean). By maintaining this potential it seems that you can respond a lot faster and more appropriately, with less time for "thought" (maybe because you're already "thinking" about it). I've recently started to understand a little bit of this, and have tried to put a simple understanding of it into playing sticky hand type stuff. It has improved my defensive sphere immensely. Whether I'm doing it "right" or not I don't know, but it feels like it has good results.
Quote:
That is to say that irimi and tenkan are really the same thing <snip> the simultaneous action of both aspects of juji is the spiral.
I'll leave that for the moment. If it also means that all movements should follow a principle or set of principles (lets call it juji), then ok.
Quote:
In training, the trick is to have enough connection/ force for uke and nage each to see WHERE the other is disappearing to -- if that makes some sense?
Sure.
Quote:
An vector that becomes infinitesimal in magnitude still retains orientation.
FWIW, sure.

Regards,
Dave.

Dave Findlay
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Old 09-19-2006, 09:56 AM   #60
Mike Sigman
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Re: What is Weight Transfer(Taijuuidou)??

Quote:
Erick Mead wrote:
Please favor us with a similarly detailed version of your understanding of the practical forces underlying "kokyu." Your response indicates distinct scepticism as to kokyu as a useful working concept. Fair enough -- detail a better set of alternative premises that we can judge on their own merits. Rebuttal to demonstrate a different case will advance the discussion far more than unsupported denial based on unspecified opinion.
I think I've spent a lot of time laying out pretty detailed explanations and illustrations around the classical idea of "kokyu" forces, Erick... it's all archived. Pretty much everything I've said can be checked against the classical usages and derivations, using the same terminologies, etc., that Ueshiba used. Of course, if you want to argue that Ueshiba used the same terminologies from classical Chinese and used the standard demonstrations of kokyu power, etc., that the Chinese terms/demos used, but he actually derived his forces in another manner (i.e., his Chinese-based stuff was coincidence), I'd be happy to see it.

Insofar as "Your response indicates distinct scepticism as to kokyu as a useful working concept", that's erroneous. If anyone on this forum has promoted kokyu as a working concept, then I have... all I'm saying is that you're laying out a theory from nowhere and asserting its validity but offering no more than opinion to back it up.

The "Ten chi jin" idea is fairly complex and pretty well documented. It pervades all Asian martial arts, as far as I can tell, and the theories and practice are fairly well known in Asian martial arts, even though they're obscured in a lot of western practice of those martial arts. The "Eight Powers" you referred to are about how the core powers/forces of ki/kokyu forces are used/practiced/developed. Your theory of joints and gyro-dynamics isn't needed to explain that at all. But it's an interesting theory; I disagree with it and prefer to stick as close as I can to the classical theory and the practical demonstrations (which include the same demonstrations both Tohei and Ueshiba made). If you'd like to see what I consider a fairly pragmatic description (although still vague, partially due to the translator maybe) of the forces and "aiki", take a look at this old interview from Aikido Journal of Inaba Minoru:

Many people think they cannot use "aiki" technique because they do not have as much strength as their opponent. Then they start weight training. They cannot use "aiki" technique because they cannot judge timing in distance. They form a bad judgment of the situation.
So, what are "timing" and "distance?" We cannot measure these with a clock or ruler. Timing and distance have to be grasped through each person's intuition. If you are nervous or worried about something, this will cloud your intuition. But some tension is necessary.
You need cleansing, or purification (harai) training, as in Shintoism. You have to make your mind clear, like a mirror. There are many different ways to express how to grasp timing. I think when you purify the body and mind, then you can grasp timing.
However, even if you grasp timing, if you don't focus your power or energy you cannot do anything. In the human body the area to focus power is the lower abdomen (kafuku tanden).
Power focused here is defensive power; power going out is offensive power.
How can you put forth offensive power? The first thing you have to do is to focus the power in your center. Offensive power will naturally flow if you focus your power in the center. That is forceful power (iryoku). It is a condition of focused energy that becomes center energy. In budo, people use the terms "bui" or "iryoku", don't they? Most important in martial arts is "iwoharu," showing this powerfully focused energy. It's not good to pretend that you have energy (karaibari). Try to use the energy in the lower abdomen. You can call this energy focused "ki" energy. If you don't have center energy, you are bluffing. Really, you have to develop this energy. The energy will flow naturally if you can focus it in the lower abdomen. If you understand this point, you will understand how to develop your body and mind and how you should train.
If you forget this essential point, you'll think only about winning, and you won't have the power to keep centered. This power won't be released and you will be destroyed.
You do exercises to straighten up your back muscles and relax your shoulders. Drop your focus to your lower abdomen. If you do that, you'll find your center point and you will produce center energy. If your center is not developed, you won't have ki energy available to project through your fingers.
If you take excess energy from the upper body and train the lower body as in sumo wrestling, and if you train the energy of the lower abdomen, you will develop your center energy. You use that power wherever necessary.
Even though you focus the energy in your lower abdomen, you will not be able to move the energy to the area where you need it right away. You have to think about how you are going to move it. You have to think about two things, gathering and filling up the power, and then moving the power to where the opponent will attack. Also if you have a weapon, you have to project energy through the weapon. If you understand this point, you'll know how to train and what you need to develop. At the same moment you meet your opponent, you focus on your abdomen (hara) and project your ki where you need it. The result will be that you will shut down your opponent's power. I understand that as the power of "aiki."
I think that's why it's really important to develop the mind and body foundation. That is true not only for "aiki." In karate when you strike you step in with your foot. It's the same with kendo and sumo. I recommend sumo training. Sumo still includes basic body training for bujutsu.


There's no mention or need to mention the ideas of gyro-dynamics, etc., to arrive at "aiki". There's no need to have to mention "spiralling". There may be some usage of the body's joints around the axes at some times and sometimes (often) there is "spiralling" use of the forces... but that's not the essence of what "kokyu" and the "ten chi jin" forces are.

Regards,

Mike Sigman
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Old 09-19-2006, 02:38 PM   #61
Erick Mead
 
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Re: What is Weight Transfer(Taijuuidou)??

Quote:
David Findlay wrote:
Quote:
Erick Mead wrote:
If you attack -- you open this door that you have no means of closing because your energy is committed to a plane (x-y, y-z, or x-z) where the aikidoka is not fighting. Which is what Aikido emphasizes. It is not something one can "guard"
What I meant by "guard" was to try to make sure your body has potential in each direction (I don't feel qualified to say The Six Directions, but that's what I mean).
I get that, but I do not think that one can maintain that potential in all axes when converting potential into actual energy in an attacking plane. I think I can illustrate (see below) by a concrete example how the application of kokyu shifts the weight of uke in attack according to this gyrodynamic interpretation.

The earlier discussion elaborated my thoughts on the use of the joints as virtual rate gyro sensors to define the condition of action, This is an interpretation of the operation of ki musubi as a gyrodynamic sensory tool in determining uke's dynamic state at connection. Kokyu is the active application of gyrodynamic torque conversion to affect the sensed conditions.

I will show below how I see this interpretation operating in the shifting of weight by kokyu principles. I will attempt to distinguish it from the effective principles in the same mode of thought that I see operating in judo.

Quote:
David Findlay wrote:
By maintaining this potential it seems that you can respond a lot faster and more appropriately, with less time for "thought" (maybe because you're already "thinking" about it). I've recently started to understand a little bit of this, and have tried to put a simple understanding of it into playing sticky hand type stuff. It has improved my defensive sphere immensely. Whether I'm doing it "right" or not I don't know, but it feels like it has good results.
In an attack, four of those six directions (two axes forming a plane) are highly energetic -- converting potential energy into actual translation and rotation. Every limb that is not supporting weigh at impact is capable of converting that basic tai sabaki into a delivered blow along that plane, and if you are capable of loft in a given art -- all four. The rotating juji "sawblade," if you will. It may be oriented in any give plane with respect to the ground, but once established it creates a frame of reference for everything that happens thereafter. That is the weakness of attacking, it loses potential in some of those directions in order to gain it in others, since conservation of momentum must be maintained.

The two directions (forming the axis of the attacking plane about the center) are not energized except in torque. Because this axis is in torque, one cannot directly counter a force in the same plane in which the torque axis lies. Gyroscopic forces will pull the resultant to a plane 90 degrees out. Any restoring moment must be applied in like fashion.

Let me try a concrete example with a specific technique.

Assume shomenuchi ikkyo with the right hand.

The plane of rotation of the attack is in the vertical-fore and aft plane (y,z). Torque for that rotation lies on the transverse (left-right) axis (x). The horiztonal plane cutting uke in half at the hips is (x,y).

If I as nage extend to the attakcing hand, and connect to rotate uke's body in the (x,z) (transverse or cartwheel plane), the resultant is in the (x,y) horizontal plane. The application of a cartwheeling moment on uke's arm or upper torso from nage's left to right converts uke's vertical rotational momentum, and rotates the entire rotational plane of that attack in the horizontal (x,y) plane -- taking the blow to uke's left of his intended line.

Because the resultant acts in the (x,y) plane, it accelerates the attacking right hip (which is rotating ahead of the arm in the horizontal (x,y) plane to generate the moment spring potential for the strike).

This advances the hip too far ahead of the arm and destroys both the power and the maai of the attack. It creates kuzushi. The attack ends up too far forward. The shift left places uke's balance wieghted into shikaku to his left-forward as he sets his foot down for the strike.

Conversely, if uke applies a restoring moment directly counter to the felt rotation in the (x,z) cartwheeling plane that nage imparts, the right hand rule rotates the vertical plane of the descending attack back toward the line, but the torque conversion eats up the rotational moment of the hip, because it is counter in the (x,y) rotation to the right hip's rotation forward. It is also eccentric to the established rotation (acting from the center of the hips, vice the left hip pivot point that is the pivot for the strike) and the eccentricity also causes the left hip to rotate back from where uke had fixed it for the strike.

This destroys the power of the attack and creates kuzushi to the left forward if uke does nothing. If he counters the cartwheel moment before he steps, it creates kuzushi to the right (and the ikkyo beomes a draw cut).

Depending on how far along the strike is at connection (i.e. at or approaching horizontal), you may actually be applying some moment in the (x,y) plane, and thus creating more forward rotation and thus kuzushi further forward in the (y,z) plane. Of course, the attempt to resist that directly with counter moment in the (x,y) plane, converts that energy back into the (y,z) plane but, by the right hand rule, rotating back over the top rearward thus eating up the decending moment in the striking arm, again destroying power in the attack.

All of this occurs without ever directly operating upon either the power plane (hip rotating in (x,y)) or the application plane (arm and shoulder rotating in (y,z)).

Judo, it seems to me in contrast, typically acts in the power plane or in the application plane, directly manipulating moment in the plane to effect a throw (kuzushi, tsukuri and kake) or using a force couple at the point of rotation to steal momentum at the fulcrum of rotation to stall a throw or pin. The resulting throw may seem similar in many respect to that of aikido but it is arrived at by a completely different route. The judoka is acting on the planar force couple that defines the torque axis that the aikidoka is manipulating by gyrodynamic means.

A judoka will tell you a force couple can be shifted to alter its axis/ fulcrum eccentricity to change the effective leverage that exists. It is the physically unavoidable torque axis, regardless of the leverage in the plane, that provides the opening in the attack for aikido technique -- at a place where the attacker is precisely incapable of acting to counter in extension without destroying the very energy devoted to the attack.

This is what kokyu seems to exploit in the gyrodynamics I have been discussing.

The same analysis applies to the motion of each joint of the body.
In applying many techniques, a cascade of rotational phase shifts occurs at each joint in turn, which shift their rotation to pass energy on to the next one in line.

The differential planes of rotation of each joint versus its next adjacent companion can be similarly juxtaposed as the shoulder and hips are counterpoised in ikkyo. This system of phase shifts is actively usd by the body to generate, store and convert power (as with the hips to create potential for the hand strike) and to transfer forces, whether applied or received dynamically instead of statically.

When kokyu is applied with correct ki musubi, like snapping a whip, those successive torsional phase shifts propagate from wrist to hips accelerating or amplifying like a wave approaching the beach until it no longer can contain the stored energy. The wave breaks out of its continuous form and its dynamic structure becomes chaos; the body departs from its static and dynamic equilibrium and collapses.

This is the action by which kokyu shifts uke's weight as I see the dynamic principles operating.

In kotegaeshi, sankyo or nikkyo or some forms of kokyunage it is applied from wrist through elbow, shoulder, spine and hips. In the shomenuchi ikkyo example it was the hips and shoulder. In iriminage, the same is occurring from the head, down the spine to the center. In aiki otoshi the rotation is to the hips directly, in a plane vertically. In sumi otoshi it is from the elbow, etc.

Like snapping a whip you need a feel (ki musubi) for the resonance wave the technique is designed to create.

Now, to Mike this may be equivalent to contradictory jin in three planes -- I'll leave it to him to elaborate how that might be understood -- if it differs in any meaningful way from gyrodynamic torque conversion I have described.

The kokyu application tends reinforce in my mind the conclusions about the kinethetic sensory use of these same dynamics. Since it is easier to see that the principles may be acted upon by kokyu, it is perhaps easier to understand how they may be sensed in ki musubi.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
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Old 09-19-2006, 02:50 PM   #62
Mike Sigman
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Re: What is Weight Transfer(Taijuuidou)??

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Erick Mead wrote:
Now, to Mike this may be equivalent to contradictory jin in three planes -- I'll leave it to him to elaborate how that might be understood -- if it differs in any meaningful way from gyrodynamic torque conversion I have described.
Not me.... I see what you're trying to say and I think it's a totally different thing so I'm just saying, "Pass".
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Old 09-19-2006, 03:26 PM   #63
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Re: What is Weight Transfer(Taijuuidou)??

Erick,
I'm having a hard time visualizing what you are talking about. Could you be so kind as to give us a free body diagram?

Thanks.
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Old 09-19-2006, 04:28 PM   #64
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Re: What is Weight Transfer(Taijuuidou)??

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Mike Sigman wrote:
I think I've spent a lot of time laying out pretty detailed explanations and illustrations around the classical
idea of "kokyu" forces, Erick... it's all archived.
Since my effort is not to supplant traditional means of description (not theory) but to supplement them with other descriptions, I do not dispute it. That was not the point of the inquiry. Rather it was to ask if there was anything in my description of the dynamics from the perspectives I have outlined that is contrary or just flat out wrong in principles from the perpectives that you teach. You say it is so, but do not elaborate why, in this context, since in your other writings here you have not adresed (to my knowledge) anyhing like this.
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Mike Sigman wrote:
Your theory of joints and gyro-dynamics isn't needed to explain that at all.
Maybe not to a scholar of Chinese martial arts -- It goes a good deal further with an American college kid or sailor, however.

Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote:
I disagree with it and prefer to stick as close as I can to the classical theory and the practical demonstrations. ... There's no mention or need to mention the ideas of gyro-dynamics, etc., to arrive at "aiki". There's no need to have to mention "spiralling". There may be some usage of the body's joints around the axes at some times and sometimes (often) there is "spiralling" use of the forces... but that's not the essence of what "kokyu" and the "ten chi jin" forces are.
OK. For you. I'm not in this for me alone, I have to prepare to transmit a tradition in turn, and according to my own understanding, and to make it comprehensible to others ultimately, third or fourth hand. I may be corrected from time to time when I make grievous errors. Point some of them out -- I am sure they are there. Please instruct me. Onegaishimasu.

I have no brief to argue that O-Sensei innovated his concepts of kokyu (he did not), or of ki generally (he likewise did not). His innovations revolve around ki musubi and takemusu aiki. I have a firm grasp (and a degree) in the Chinese philosophical antecedents, while you seem to have a grasp on the particular usages in the Chinese qigong and related martial traditions. We need not belabor those points to the degree that you and I have done elsewhere. I have no interest in the parochial battles between the Sinophiles and the Nipponophiles or whether kokyu or Tenchijin is the term of art du jour...

Japan, on most of these concepts is at least second hand, (but a very good reporter, I might add). We in the West are at least two steps removed from those root concepts and worlds away from their context of development. We need our own interpretation from our own foundation, that is true to tradition in technique and yet has a common basis to relate to earlier traditions of description about what is actually happening to the state of the body's balance and weight dynamic as technique occurs.

Bottom line, I could are less which team gets credit for it, or who innovated ( or stoel from) whom. I want to teach it in ways that are capable of being understood by the largest possible scope of people I might ever have occasion to try to teach and to develop my own understanding of it further and deeper.

The problem is that the Chinese system of references is remarkably ill-suited to teach a round-eye kid with a whiff of physics, and a love of fighter planes who simply admires the art of aikido and wishes to practice it and to receieve what it offers. That is our chief student pool. It is not so atypical of aikido students generally here in the States, I find.

Physically, empirically, we also experience the same things in our bodies, East or West, though we describe them differently. We should be able to observe what is occurring, describe it appropriately and then draw conlusions and lessons form those observations. That is the teaching of the West. It was the teaching of the Chinese scholars as well. Their systems and tradition knowledge should not be disregarded, but their terms of reference are not terribly apt for this time and place. I respect them and will look to any one with due knowledge to show me corrections that rely upon them. But they are simply not useful in teaching here to someone who has neither the time or inclination (as I did) to research that background beforehand. I need good rubrics to reach them, to teach them and to assist them to understand the concepts physically, and to help them want to understand.

That is all I am trying to accomplish, and really only because in looking and looking, I do not see that any one else has yet tried to do so in this way. God knows there are better physicists than me, but I see what I see with the eye of an aikidoka of some length of experience, and an eye and intuitive "hara/seat-of-the-pants" sense for rotational dynamics and gyroscopic stability from a previous helo career. I bring one or two things to the table on these points.

Take it or leave it as you like, but if we are in a discussion forum let us at least discuss and not dismiss.

Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote:
If you'd like to see what I consider a fairly pragmatic description (although still vague, partially due to the translator maybe) of the forces and "aiki", take a look at this old interview from Aikido Journal of Inaba Minoru:
Your quote is wonderful, right on, true, accurate and I get it the concepts because I have studied them in many respects. I get the admonition regardless of the concepts: "Do this and it will work for you." You get the problem: translation. Not good or poor but that it is necessary.. I wish to make it native, not translated.

In China or Japan the result of that admonition may be a student bowing or nodding smartly and carrying on to do those things until it does work for him. We have wilder horses to train here. They ask why; they do not ncessarily train well if they do not see why they are training. Maybe one can view this as a fault, may be not. Asking why is expected here, almost as much as not asking is in Japan. But it is a characteristic of culture that must be used to teach as much as dutiful practice with little question at the suggestion of one in authority is commonplace in Japan.

Westerners are different (few Japanese will argue with this) and we learn differently, although we do not learn differing techniques. The leaven of those willing to follow the eastern models of learning are and will remain a relative few. We do not, by and large, take such instruction well.

Some traditionalists may say this makes us unworthy of instruction. I do not agree, we bring other, not superior, but different, qualities to bear, chiefly initiative, challenge and collaboration, that can inform development of an art, and expand its penetration while yet be true to tradition in technique as well as being comprehensible and without the "secret teachings" that O-Sensei warned against and a sensibility that reliance on alien or esoteric concepts tends to risk creating.

I just want to make it as plain as possible. Wabi.

It requires some detailed messy prep work to accomplish that seemingly effortless result.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
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Old 09-19-2006, 05:28 PM   #65
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Re: What is Weight Transfer(Taijuuidou)??

Whilst the physics of gyrodynamics has been most edifying, I am reminded by the words my sempai said to me when I first started teaching - "Simplify it"....

Ignatius
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Old 09-19-2006, 05:46 PM   #66
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Re: What is Weight Transfer(Taijuuidou)??

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Erick Mead wrote:
Since my effort is not to supplant traditional means of description (not theory) but to supplement them with other descriptions, I do not dispute it. That was not the point of the inquiry. Rather it was to ask if there was anything in my description of the dynamics from the perspectives I have outlined that is contrary or just flat out wrong in principles from the perpectives that you teach. You say it is so, but do not elaborate why, in this context, since in your other writings here you have not adresed (to my knowledge) anyhing like this.
I dunno... I thought I'd addressed all of these things in past posts. I separate out the conditioning and forces used by the body from the techniques/strategies/tactics. As I noted, you appear to make a strategy/tactic some sort of "learned body skill as a response to an attack". I don't really cavil with that point, but kokyu is not the "learned body skill as a response to an attack", but rather "kokyu" is a learned force skill. As Shioda noted in that quote I gave earlier, Judo, etc., all have "kokyu" even though they have different names and usages for it. You seem to be applying the "usage" to replace the basic skill.
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OK. For you. I'm not in this for me alone, I have to prepare to transmit a tradition in turn, and according to my own understanding, and to make it comprehensible to others ultimately, third or fourth hand. I may be corrected from time to time when I make grievous errors. Point some of them out -- I am sure they are there. Please instruct me. Onegaishimasu.
You're supposed to say, "Onegai, o-negai!!!". I already said what I think is wrong with your approach. I.e., I'm rebutting *your* argument. My arguments have been laid out in the past. Plus, I'll be happy to show you sometime if you want to come to Colorado and see what God could have done for Florida if only he'd had the money.

I agree that there needs to be a westernized way of viewing these things and some of us are essentially trying to lay all the known data and (reproducible) skills on the table in order to codify/simplify exactly what is done, how it's done, and why. Your effort is a good one. All I was saying was that I thought it missed the mark a bit.

Regards,

Mike Sigman
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Old 09-20-2006, 04:49 AM   #67
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Re: What is Weight Transfer(Taijuuidou)??

Excellent job Erik. You are right on the mark.

Go ahead, tread on me.
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Old 09-20-2006, 11:53 AM   #68
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Re: What is Weight Transfer(Taijuuidou)??

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Mike Sigman wrote:
I dunno... I thought I'd addressed all of these things in past posts. I separate out the conditioning and forces used by the body from the techniques/strategies/tactics. As I noted, you appear to make a strategy/tactic some sort of "learned body skill as a response to an attack". I don't really cavil with that point, but kokyu is not the "learned body skill as a response to an attack", but rather "kokyu" is a learned force skill. ... I agree that there needs to be a westernized way of viewing these things and some of us are essentially trying to lay all the known data and (reproducible) skills on the table in order to codify/simplify exactly what is done, how it's done, and why. Your effort is a good one. All I was saying was that I thought it missed the mark a bit.
I will comment on two things, albeit at some length. Where we differ is on how to arrive at "Why." Analogy ultimately elaborates; analysis ultimately simplifies. You are doing one. I am attempting the other.

First, these different forms of knowledge directly relate to your stated goal of cataloging skills, force manipulations and techniques acroding to their perceived similarities. While invaluable in itself, that is not, in point of fact, the westernized mode of knowledge. Reams of biological observations and notations of similarities were collected for several centuries. It was not until someone came along and gave a principled view on the reason for the differences that biology adopted the scientific method.

The forms of knowledge that China developed (and Japan received) were concrete catalogs of holistically related cases. Very much in keeping with what you are saying. Their treatment of empirical operations on the principle of similarity, while very sophisticated holistically (in the forms of bagua, I Ching, five elements, etc.) and very useful, remains representational and analogical, in the nature of catalog, rather than formulary. They would see patterns in different situations that were holistically or analogically similar, to arrive at concepts such as "li" (inner principle) or ki, or even jin. They are not "wrong," but simply unreduced to components, from which other combinations or new things could be distinguished, imagined or tested in rigorous ways. The usages of "li" provided no rubric to test intuitive propositions that might arise from observing items in the catalog.

The Chinese approached the invisible with the idea of similarity. Their ultimate principle was Tao. But in their development of thought the Tao innately became visible (and ceased to be the Tao) and thus one did not seek for the invisible Tao, (which was without form and unapproachable rationally), but for the manifestations of the Tao -- which are numberless, and thereby recognize its presence and operation in their similarities. Ki as a concept is in this same vein.

The Western mind approached the invisible with the idea of difference. The Western mind would see difference and seek for the as yet unseen thing that was the cause of differences. The immediately visible was seen as caused by principles that were not immediately visible, but they deemed must be rationally within grasp. There are religious reasons for this, among other things. They insisted that God conformed to reason in His nature. Presumptuous perhaps, but very useful. Science as we know it was thus born.

Second, Japan is not China, nor is it less than China in weight of thought, merely because they been influenced by and derived concepts from Chinese thought. They are who they are. The Japanese have their own unique perspectives on both their inheritance and their posterity, as do we in the West. We must each be true to both.

The Japanese concepts of Kami are actually closer to Western religious traditions of invisible, innate, particular and immanent principle that underlie the development of scientific principles, than are native Chinese religious ideas. The swift adoption by the Japanese of scientific modes of thought and endeavor, especially in comparison to China is a remarkable achievment, and testament to related ways of thinking.

It is in no small part related to kannagara, which distinguished Japan strongly from all her continental influences. Japanese will certainly tell you so, and I also believe it is true for this reason. O-Sensei's thought comes from this same fount of tradition, and is thus distinct from Chinese antecedents that have contributed to the ideas of Japan, and even to some of his ideas. Jin or prana or whatever name you choose to give may have contributed to their efforts, but they did different things with it, and what they did with it is more in keeping with Western ideas than with Chinese.

Your catalogs of "body skill" and direct demonstration of manipulating internal body forces and pressures, is in that ancient Chinese mode. It does not reduce itself beyond the catalog of specific skills and forces you can demonstrate. I am sure you are quite accomplished. I do not dispute that it works to teach everything that is in your catalog of skills, nor that collecting them is valuable.

But it is not complete to transmit the knowledge of aikido, kokyu-ho, taijuui-ho, or specific techniques to non-Japanese. It never can be complete without native principles that intuitively explain the operations of specific cases. Adele Westbrook and the late Oscar Ratti made some strong efforts at generalizing principles, as did Saotome. Both efforts were only partially successful, for all of their invaluable content. In the latter case, in part it was because of the traditional nomenclature problems that cause the recurrent debates here, and in the former case because of a reverse nomenclature problem created by trying to solve the first one.

They all attempted to find ways to translate the concepts. They were doomed to fail because the concepts they are trying to translate from the holistic analogical similarity tradition, do not and can never map one-for-one correspondence onto the reductionist ideas from the analytic difference tradition of the West.

I am seeking to give a sound physical interpretation for what I know happens when I perform technique. That allows cultural transparency. Then I, or someone, one can simplify those interpretations into essential statements that are adequate to define the operation of technique in the Aikido tradition and also make sense from the western perspective. Reverse concept engineering, in a way.

By engaging similarity we get catalog, but by differences we get hypthesis, and from hypothesis, we can make statements ( or tke actions) that can be disproven -- not by opinion or authority but by further differences in observation and yet futher refinement of hypotheses.

When a certain connection fails in application of a given technique, it is "disproven" in that context and the remaining connections that exist are to be likewise tested. If your ki musubi or connection was able enough, hopefully one of the others connections will prove effective. Then you can contemplate better why the others you tried may have failed, and on that basis try to connect to them better or or apply technique a little differently next time. This creative and iterative refinement of intuition is what I sense as part of takemusu, as O-Sensei meant that process to work in real-time technique. It is also the method of science.

What you are doing lacks hypothesis. Hypothesis might lead to some place not in that catalog, someplace not on your map, and a technique or variation on the forces which are at best only loosely related to any item on your list.

Everyone finds unexpected places led by intuition in training. What intuition needs, like anything else in martial tradition, is discipline -- a principle as a guide.

In Japan that principle is very often "authority." We westerners have a curious and turbulent relation with authority. "Li," as principles of the inevitable outgrowth of Tao presumed by traditional Chinese knowledge, does not always function so well where messy humans are concerned, as even Lao-tsu recognized. We get to make too many of our own rules. We westerners, furthermore, tend to insist on it, and we seem to find things that authority never suspected by doing so.

O-Sensei believed that Aikido transcended cultural particulars in each case. Aikido is meant for for the world and not just Japan. That is the posterity I owe allegiance to in the development of my thought about Aikido and in my efforts to be able to teach it better and in ways that are both true to tradition and transparent to culture.

It is well documented that this was the conception that O-Sensei had of aikido, that it would ultimately lead to places even he had not been. Principles are the only thing that will guide one down the unknown road, or where there are no roads at all that one can see. And everyone in beginning to learn starts from that perspective, since they have no map to begin with. If given yours, they could not begin to read it. And if they wish to learn a catalog, they will have grave difficulty in independent learning, or in incultating the intuitve and continuous creative power in technique that O-Sensei meant by takemusu aiki.

I may be off the mark; or it is just possible that we have different marks to which we are aiming. Either way, I would like to know why, in principle, it may be so, so that I can more rigorously refine the intuition that even you have given partial credit, and ultimately find ways to simplify it.

Last edited by Erick Mead : 09-20-2006 at 11:59 AM.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
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Old 09-20-2006, 12:18 PM   #69
Mike Sigman
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Re: What is Weight Transfer(Taijuuidou)??

Your remarks/opinion appear to be mostly commentary, Erick, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time wrangling you over opinion. Basically, the explanations I have laid out I relate to basic physical phenomena that can be described with force vectors and basic skills. That is how far "kokyu power" can be resolved. You are applying "gyrodynamics" as "aiki"... but real "aiki" is not resolveable really into an analogue like "right hand rule" or "gyrodynamics". I.e., I would counter that my explanations are at a far more elemental level than yours are. Even Inaba Sensei's explanation works at a far more elemental level than yours. I think you have a nice theory about a more-than-elemental concept, but I consider "aiki" to be simply an offshoot of more elemental forces; nothing more.

True, "aiki" is sophisticated (and there are different levels of that sophistication), but it can still be explained by incremental analysis on a fairly basic level.

My initial suggestion was that you simply think of the basic "ki tests", some of which Ueshiba showed, too, and you'll find there the root to what "aiki" is. True Aiki doesn't require any motion of the body whatsoever.... i.e., "gyrodynamics" is not needed except as a conceptually less-refined form of what "aiki" really is.

Regards,

Mike Sigman
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Old 09-20-2006, 12:18 PM   #70
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Re: What is Weight Transfer(Taijuuidou)??

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Ignatius Teo wrote:
Whilst the physics of gyrodynamics has been most edifying, I am reminded by the words my sempai said to me when I first started teaching - "Simplify it"....
As Pascal or Jefferson are variously reputed to have said " I had not the time to make it shorter." Working on it, though. Most likely FAR, FAR longer than a Pascal or a Jefferson ...

In dealing with something as seemingly simple and basic as "weight transfer," I remember that it took several million years to bring about our particular form of bipedalism. It is only the second time it has independently evolved as a form of locomotion. It is therefore, by no means, very easily simplified. We easily assume so because we all do it without thinking about it. A little aikido traininng quickly cured me of that notion.

That I am still toying with the problem years later is some indication of its knottiness. Well, I am probably a bad example there, but everyone here is still tinkering with it too, so let that be our guide, shall we?

It takes a new human being some three or so years of constant daily training just to master its basics. And yet once that is learned, and after only a couple more years practice, it takes only a few days or weeks to master the classical gyrodnyamics of the bicycle. There is clearly a relationship between them in the way our stability system works, if it were not so it should take much longer to learn an utterly new form of stabilization and weight transfer.

But as I said, wabi is my ultimate thematic ideal, like cha no yu and its teacup -- but that is its last refinement. Meanwhile, I am dealing with all the mud flying off the potter's wheel, smearing my apron and all the spilt glaze running over the floor...

Cordially,

Erick Mead
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Old 09-20-2006, 01:10 PM   #71
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Re: What is Weight Transfer(Taijuuidou)??

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Mike Sigman wrote:
Basically, the explanations I have laid out I relate to basic physical phenomena that can be described with force vectors and basic skills.
Then I hardly see why gyroscopic mechanics is such a stretch.
Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote:
I think you have a nice theory about a more-than-elemental concept, but I consider "aiki" to be simply an offshoot of more elemental forces; nothing more.
So do I, but it is not just that -- or "simply" anything. Everything has its ura side. I'll leave it at that.
Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote:
True Aiki doesn't require any motion of the body whatsoever.... i.e., "gyrodynamics" is not needed except as a conceptually less-refined form of what "aiki" really is.
I don't think I have said otherwise. Gyrodynamics or gyrocopic mechanics is hardly unrefined (although my attempts to work out its application in this instance may well be). It does not require overt motion of the body, although it can operate on it.

An actively gyrostabilized sytem does not "move" -- like a Segway, or a hovering helo. In fact, they display an almost "live" feel of near instantaneous recovery from disturbance. But there is an awful lot going on to achieve such graceful immobility (motion in stillness). My atoms are whirling and quivering around at ungodly speeds, but here I sit like a lump.

There are two functional aspects to conventional gyros -- 1) sensory and 2) operative stability. A vibrating quartz crystal can be used as a gyro rate sensor. Some systems can perform both functions simultaneously. The second function involves overt motion of the system, the first does not, although it may be used as feedback input to accomplish the other, as in the Segway. Both aspects are in play in my conception.

I know from personal experience in flying as well as aikido that achieving such stable (non)motion with a fundamentally unstable structure is far more intuitive than conscious in operation, and thus I need to identify all the components that inform that intuitive feel, in order to train better. This is what I am digging at.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
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Old 09-20-2006, 01:53 PM   #72
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Re: What is Weight Transfer(Taijuuidou)??

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Erick Mead wrote:
An actively gyrostabilized sytem does not "move" -- like a Segway, or a hovering helo. In fact, they display an almost "live" feel of near instantaneous recovery from disturbance. But there is an awful lot going on to achieve such graceful immobility (motion in stillness). My atoms are whirling and quivering around at ungodly speeds, but here I sit like a lump.

There are two functional aspects to conventional gyros -- 1) sensory and 2) operative stability. A vibrating quartz crystal can be used as a gyro rate sensor. Some systems can perform both functions simultaneously. The second function involves overt motion of the system, the first does not, although it may be used as feedback input to accomplish the other, as in the Segway. Both aspects are in play in my conception.

I know from personal experience in flying as well as aikido that achieving such stable (non)motion with a fundamentally unstable structure is far more intuitive than conscious in operation, and thus I need to identify all the components that inform that intuitive feel, in order to train better. This is what I am digging at.
You seem to be saying in essence that there is a "self-correcting-stabilizing" mode in a gyrodynamic model. OK, fine. There is. I'm saying that a linear-forces model is also self-correcting. The idea of "six directions" training, etc., is related to linear/vector directions, not the gyroscopic stability you're talking about. Think of a bead with small bungee strings pulling the bead up, down, forward, back, left, right. Even vibrating atoms isn't going to get you any closer than "sounds sorta like", Erick.

When it comes to the applications of the linear forces, as in "aiki", I think levers and pullies is pretty much all there is to it, in true motion involving jin/kokyu. One of the interesting things you said a few posts back was about teaching a "tradition". The "tradition" of the forces stretched between Heaven and Earth and harmonizing with them has never, that I have ever seen, mentioned anything other than sometimes circular application of linear forces.

FWIW

Mike
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Old 09-20-2006, 05:11 PM   #73
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Re: What is Weight Transfer(Taijuuidou)??

Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote:
I'm saying that a linear-forces model is also self-correcting. The idea of "six directions" training, etc., is related to linear/vector directions, not the gyroscopic stability you're talking about. Think of a bead with small bungee strings pulling the bead up, down, forward, back, left, right.

When it comes to the applications of the linear forces, as in "aiki", I think levers and pullies is pretty much all there is to it, in true motion involving jin/kokyu.
"True?" An interesting qualifier. All continuous forces, regardless of curvature, are "linear" but I know what you mean.

Let me first show why that model does not physically answer the equilibrium conditions of known martial positions and ordinary "static" stability, i.e. -- not in overt motion.

The six direction "linear" forces model has gravity and your upright resistance support, that's two directions. Plus it has left and right -- forward and back, all of which can only be created statically by moment lever action of friction against the same ground. Kiba-dachi, kokutsu-dachi and zenkutsu dachi are examples of "braced" postures against the ground, (which BTW have extremely limited hip sway).

On the other hand, I can be perfectly comfortable and balanced with a two hundred pound guy laid across my hip girdle in mid air, standing with my heels together. No large sideways or forward-back bracing is available in this posture, and I am not a kangaroo with an available tripod tail, so something else is obviously working for me.

In fact, using your model we have only three forces acting -- two in direct opposition (up down) at your center of mass, and one (friction) that does NOT act at the center of your bungee bead system. laterla sway would only be opposed by eccentric components of your own bracing support force and the ressitant friction against the ground. In fact, the force couple created by forward motion and opposing friction stopping the foot creates rotation, i.e. -- torque. This looks like potential kuzushi to me. It is also rotary and therefore gyroscopic in form and action.

Your form when standing is a self-supporting pylon fixed at its foot by weight and ground friction. An oscillating pole also obeys gyroscopic principles -- which is why your car antenna, when sprung
and released takes on an elliptical orbit sway, and as it loses momentum its radius of sway decreases and and the orientation of the ellipse travelled by the tip precesses as it slows down and loses momentum -- just like the axis of a slowing top. (Guys, please don't ding the finish with the end button or break it off or your wife will be really mad).

You maintain your bipedal balance by oscillating and active dampening a spring-loaded double universal joint at the center of this pole. Because it is spring loaded and muscle actuated you can wobble this thing back and forth quite fast over a very small radius. You learn as child to make this oscillation dampening very very small, and its frequency therefore very high. We are looking for angular momentum and kinetic energy is proportional to the mass but the square of the velocity, thus high frequency oscillations give a suprisingly large angular moment to use.

The fact of this dynamic oscillation gives the human body true gyroscopic stability, like the wheels of the bike, which from a static perspective (your six-direction equilibrum model is a system of static springs) seems like a violation of conservation laws -- i.e. -- without the wheels spinning the bike will easily topple fall over, so a snap shot of the system statically does not show you the torque energy that provides it stability dynamically, and the faster it turns the more stability it has. For this reason the toddler, whose sway is still too large and his stabilizing oscillation too slow falls over all the time, and usually stands with a very wide stance.

The periodic torque you are experiencing in each hip as you oscillate or walk in dynamic equilibrium is manipulable as I have described.

Quote:
Mike Sigman wrote:
The "tradition" of the forces stretched between Heaven and Earth and harmonizing with them has never, that I have ever seen, mentioned anything other than sometimes circular application of linear forces.
How is "circular application of linear forces" NOT gyroscopic in nature?

Cordially,

Erick Mead
一隻狗可久里馬房但他也不是馬的.
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Old 09-20-2006, 06:36 PM   #74
Gernot Hassenpflug
Dojo: Aunkai, Tokyo
Join Date: Jun 2005
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Japan
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Re: What is Weight Transfer(Taijuuidou)??

I'm pretty sure this discussion is going somewhere, Erick, and I'm looking forward to any further input from Mike on this. My perspective is as yet very limited, and in the tradition of the 6-direction training, but my perception of various arches in the body and their interactions is making self-study extremely interesting. I also notice that there is a fast oscillation helping to keep stability, in one-legged postures for instance, but my scope is more towards the (perceived by me as linear though with various twists in the routes that they take between end points and across joints) forces that maintain the arches in equilibrium and allow this oscillation to function as it does.
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Old 09-20-2006, 06:43 PM   #75
Mike Sigman
Location: Durango, CO
Join Date: Feb 2005
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Re: What is Weight Transfer(Taijuuidou)??

Quote:
Erick Mead wrote:
The six direction "linear" forces model has gravity and your upright resistance support, that's two directions. Plus it has left and right -- forward and back, all of which can only be created statically by moment lever action of friction against the same ground. Kiba-dachi, kokutsu-dachi and zenkutsu dachi are examples of "braced" postures against the ground, (which BTW have extremely limited hip sway).
Good... you're thinking about it, but you're not there yet.
Quote:
You maintain your bipedal balance by oscillating and active dampening a spring-loaded double universal joint at the center of this pole. Because it is spring loaded and muscle actuated you can wobble this thing back and forth quite fast over a very small radius. You learn as child to make this oscillation dampening very very small, and its frequency therefore very high. We are looking for angular momentum and kinetic energy is proportional to the mass but the square of the velocity, thus high frequency oscillations give a suprisingly large angular moment to use.
Well, I said an incremental analysis using simple vector forces would work and I know how to generate pretty good power with what I do... I'll simply say that I don't need no steenkin' oscillations in my analysis once more and let it go.

Here's the way we settle this: Tell me how you develop enough power to throw someone away through the air by using your oscillations, yet don't move. How does your body physically do this? What are the mechanisms? It's your theory, let's look into it a bit deeper.

Mike
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