Aikido Principles: Unbendable Arm

Unbendable arm is probably the most misunderstood thing related to ki aikido I can think of. Probably because you can teach the simplest level of it in about two minutes i.e. relaxed extension, you can frame that in terms of mystical verse and talk about ki etc or you can just say "stop fighting your triceps with your biceps," whatever works best for the student.
It's this very simple unbendable arm that's (perhaps unsurprisingly) travelled far and wide. So here's a test on how you start to take this to the next level. Instead of trying to bend the elbow, try bending the elbow as you lift the wrist up. If the wrist moves up then congrats you've got an extended arm that takes a minute to learn but your arm isn't in anyway connected to the rest of you in a coordinated manner.
That's what unbendable arm is really about, it's no coincidence you find it evident in pretty much all styles of aikido, it's also related to how boxers put their weight into their hands when throwing a punch etc. So it's not restricted to aikido by any means... in fact ballroom dancers have a pretty good unbendable arm but they tend to move from their sternum rather than their hara/one point.

Conan Theobald wrote: Frankly, I think a more important, yet often neglected point of study is the bendable leg.

If you have an unbendable leg in my dojo I'll usually make you fall over with what appears to be almost zero physical effort on my part - assuming of course that by unbendable leg you mean knees that don't bend.

Conan Theobald wrote: Frankly, I think a more important, yet often neglected point of study is the bendable leg.

Mike Haft wrote: ...assuming of course that by unbendable leg you mean knees that don't bend.

Conan Theobald wrote:

I, er, meant to do that. It was a test to see if the internet was paying attention...

Perhaps (for me) the best way to teach/apply the "unbendable arm" is not to focus on the arm (or point of contact/resistance) but to focus on the internal body structure/alignment (that includes the arm) and filling the 6-directions to support the arm/body and "let" it remain straight/extended ...
I used to just visualize a metal bar extended to the hall in front of me and the wall behind me and just let it pass through my arm ...

I may be missing something here ... For many years I was affiliated with Shizuo Imaizumi's Shin-Budo Kai Aikido organization. (Imaizumi was Tohei's main guy here in the US during the 70's). When Imaizumi would demonstrate unbendable arm or unraisable body, it was always with the understanding that your were to focus your mind on your 'one point'. In a sense, the unbendable arm was not the actual goal, it was rather a kind of validation of the 'ki power' that is unleashed when you put your mind into your belly.

And of course, the parlor trick aspect of all this was that if you actually gave your mind something to do, it would simply get out of the way and you could just relax and let your natural instincts do the rest. It's pretty clear that Tohei could have chosen his right little toe as the source of his ki power - but that probably wouldn't have sold as many books.

David Soroko wrote: In what sense is "Unbendable Arm" a principle as opposed to, say, a party trick?

Unbendable arm is neither a principle, although it does illustrate the advantage of mind/body coordination over raw muscle power when related to maximizing performance; or a parlor trick, although it can be frivolously used as one.

Unbendable arm is an exercise employed to help the student become centered at one point in order to enhance mind/body coordination. Over time as the student gains experience, it helps strengthen the unification of mind and body as progressively greater force is applied to the arm. All of the push, pull, lift, compress ki exercises share that same purpose.

You can, I suppose, think of ki exercises as calisthenics for both mind and body, designed to unify the two in order to maximize performance and realize one's strongest most dependable state.

Ron

For me, the unbendable arm forms a useful arch that when properly aligned into your shoulder will vector forces across the shoulders and out your other unbendable arm or down the back into the back foot or wrapping around the torso/hips into the front foot. This captures considerable force that can be either grounded disrupting the attacker or redirected back at the attacker through the other arm. It is not magic and is ultimately limited by the strength of the shoulder - like everything

Robin Johnson wrote: For me, the unbendable arm forms a useful arch that when properly aligned into your shoulder will vector forces across the shoulders and out your other unbendable arm or down the back into the back foot or wrapping around the torso/hips into the front foot. This captures considerable force that can be either grounded disrupting the attacker or redirected back at the attacker through the other arm. It is not magic and is ultimately limited by the strength of the shoulder - like everything

I agree in a sense with the idea of an arch, however I don't see it as connected to or limited by shoulder strength (unless we are defining "shoulder" differently, which is possible); I have had no problem functionally maintaining unbendable arms with acute and chronic shoulder injury and a post-surgery rehab phase because the shoulder should not be engaged at all....to me a proper unbendable arm from a structural/anatomical point of view is buoyed from underneath by the latissimus dorsi and triceps.

Janet Rosen wrote: I agree in a sense with the idea of an arch, however I don't see it as connected to or limited by shoulder strength (unless we are defining "shoulder" differently, which is possible); I have had no problem functionally maintaining unbendable arms with acute and chronic shoulder injury and a post-surgery rehab phase because the shoulder should not be engaged at all....to me a proper unbendable arm from a structural/anatomical point of view is buoyed from underneath by the latissimus dorsi and triceps.

Understood - I mean to distinguish between the parlor trick version and force applied to your forearm to push you over. If uke grabs your arm and pushes - you can attempt to be water and flow away (excellent) or you can ground/redirect the force and disrupt the uke (also excellent). Grounding the force only works if you can maintain the shoulder alignment. It doesn't take a lot of strength to handle an ordinary push from an ordinary human, but against a linebacker pushing hard the strength requirement goes up considerably and trying to ground might "fail" at the shoulder. So I was just adding a caveat. I realize that not everyone trains to ground/redirect force - but it can be a useful skill.