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Old 05-27-2009, 12:32 PM   #1
dps
 
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Third Point and Separating Triangles

I think this way of explaining balance breaking is easier to understand than some of the ways I have heard in Aikido. It is easier to visualize.
What do you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpoF9WgkPG4

David

Go ahead, tread on me.
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Old 05-27-2009, 12:59 PM   #2
Misogi-no-Gyo
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Re: Third Point and Separating Triangles

Quote:
David Skaggs wrote: View Post
I think this way of explaining balance breaking is easier to understand than some of the ways I have heard in Aikido. It is easier to visualize.
What do you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpoF9WgkPG4

David
Hmmm,

Well, while it is a very good explanation of balance, it is only so on a low-level, physical level at best. I would venture to state that this version/explanation is a fundamental principle of basic ju-jitsu. However, it is not a primary principle within Aikido which is based upon a unification of the center of centers. Aikido "waza" is one application of this principle from a technique-based approach to training. The actual application of this principle is much more involved and gives many more options than those discussed in the video.

From previous lectures that I have been able to either attend or study it becomes clear that O-Sensei drew this principle from various sources, one being a story within Kojiki relating to Ame no minaka nushi no kami. Learning to decipher the root sources and the O-Sensei's derivations is paramount to understanding O-Sensei's Aikido.

The video is certainly valid in every respect, but as it is Silat, and not Aikido that is being presented, we should be careful not to draw to many conclusions as to its direct application within higher-level Aikido

Best in training to all...

.

I no longer participate in or read the discussion forums here on AikiWeb due to the unfair and uneven treatment of people by the owner/administrator.
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Old 05-27-2009, 02:45 PM   #3
DH
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Re: Third Point and Separating Triangles

It remains one of the fundemental natures of the human bodies structural weaknesses due the way people hold their bodies. It is good to be aware of it since it is the way the "straights" react. Unfortunately it is the way most everyone reacts-even those I have met who were "highly" trained-who instead of having bodeis trained to cancel it, instead have to mask and protect it through waza. There are very rational and explicable means and methods to train your body to cancel out that principle as well as many others held dear to most martial arts by changing your body. That change just happens to also what created aiki to being with. Funny how that works.

What is important is that these methods are attainable and can be learned starting from day one. They are neither high level or require decades of training in aikido or anything else to get it. Many if not most are not shown them, or are shown them much later in their careers-thus waisting a lot of time. You can learn them and in doing so cancel out the waza and skills of most of those "high level guys" and many other experienced MAers in a much shorter time. And you can begin right now. Yes it takes a few years, but at the end you will be decades ahead of most (not all) who train in the arts.

I think we really need to get beyond this belief that aikido -or any other art-holds some deep secret you need to train forty years to get from some teacher or from the kata. It is the way the Japanese chose it does NOT have to be the way WE chose. Those with the information need to help each other out in getting a leg up. I have every intention of helping to do so by teaching teachers and students alike -methods to level the playing field.
Cheers
Dan
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Old 05-27-2009, 02:52 PM   #4
Basia Halliop
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Re: Third Point and Separating Triangles

I've heard triangles and a 'third point' used to explain taking balance in Aikido before by Shihans (e.g., it was how I was first taught tenchinage), and found it very helpful. It may be 'basic and physical', but our bodies are physical so I think even if you want to go 'beyond' a low level physical model of taking balance, to me it seems that you still have to take the basic physics of balance and anatomy into account.
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Old 05-27-2009, 03:17 PM   #5
DH
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Re: Third Point and Separating Triangles

Quote:
Basia Halliop wrote: View Post
I've heard triangles and a 'third point' used to explain taking balance in Aikido before by Shihans (e.g., it was how I was first taught tenchinage), and found it very helpful. It may be 'basic and physical', but our bodies are physical so I think even if you want to go 'beyond' a low level physical model of taking balance, to me it seems that you still have to take the basic physics of balance and anatomy into account.
Not really
Trained bodies do not move or react like normal bodies. Not everyone who claims to move from their center has a clue what that means. Not everyone who does know what it means...can actually do anything to a high degree.
You would need to feel people who can do certain things with their bodies to know what I mean. I'd suspect there are quite a few surprises coming in the future for those Shihan you cite who think -they- got it, after they meet more and more juniors in the art who actually do. Just the fact that they teach these things without teaching how to cancel them out within the body (without techniques or movement of any kind) pretty much tells us what they really think of us in the first place. They are NOT helping like they could. Right there, right at that moment, they could teach some pretty substative things that most would adopt and begin to train and would never go back to the way they moved before ...by choice.
Why are we NOT being shown? Pick a reason. People will come along shortly to give you a bevy of excuses for it. Doesn't really matter much when you are the one not being taught though does it?
Cheers
Dan
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Old 05-27-2009, 03:28 PM   #6
Misogi-no-Gyo
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Re: Third Point and Separating Triangles

Quote:
Dan Harden wrote: View Post
What is important is that these methods are attainable and can be learned starting from day one. They are neither high level or require decades of training in aikido or anything else to get it. Many if not most are not shown them, or are shown them much later in their careers-thus wasting a lot of time. You can learn them and in doing so cancel out the waza and skills of most of those "high level guys" and many other experienced MAers in a much shorter time. And you can begin right now. Yes it takes a few years, but at the end you will be decades ahead of most (not all) who train in the arts.
Hi Dan,

Thanks for your thoughts on the matter. While I am off to the gym and have little time to reply in full, I did want to address a few points quickly.
  1. Training - I did not imply that these things take decades to learn, master or understand.
  2. The Video - My point was that what we saw was a very good explanation of fairly mundane, low-level physical principles of balance, nothing more. Certainly important at some level, but after a few years of training, one should be well beyond that level of thinking and training.
  3. Relevance - The relative nature of the material is more akin to judo, or ju-jitsu than any aiki-based art (yours, or mine, as an example...)
  4. High Level - I was clearly differentiating between the idea of perspective, not one of "rank" nor one of process, training methodology, or the likewise

Quote:
Dan Harden wrote: View Post
I think we really need to get beyond this belief that aikido -or any other art-holds some deep secret you need to train forty years to get from some teacher or from the kata. It is the way the Japanese chose it does NOT have to be the way WE chose. Those with the information need to help each other out in getting a leg up. I have every intention of helping to do so by teaching teachers and students alike -methods to level the playing field.
I am not sure if your reply was intended to point at what I was saying, but it clearly did not address the often missed fact that O-Sensei drew the art from specific aspects of various sources. No one is denying that from a physical perspective the technical base was from Daito-Ryu. However, that is where the development of Aikido began not where it ended. The Kojiki, is one such source. There are others. the relevance is in the philosophical approach towards both one's training in techniques and one's application of technique. Study of Kojiki, Misogi-no-gyo, Kotodama-no-Gyo and the like are, in and of themselves no higher level than any other part of the art. However, they do require a bit more in terms of a person's commitment to real inner change. They are not kept secret, as one cannot separate them from Aikido and still have it be Aikido. My guess is that this training simply isn't for everyone, right now - meaning that perhaps there comes a moment in each person's training when it is appropriate allow the student to move through such changes. I clearly delineate this from other moments where the student would most obviously fail, be dejected and perhaps even, suspend their training, or worse... quit.

O-Sensei, himself, lectured to give students an in-depth understanding of both his approach and his application. Sure, many weren't interested in anything other than waza, so they didn't get it, but that wasn't because he, being as Japanese as he was, wasn't sharing/teaching it. It was good enough for O-Sensei to do so, and I, too was taught this way by my teacher, and wouldn't you know it... he is Japanese, too. I think many would tend to disagree with your whole attitude about the "Japanese" teachers and their unshared secrets. Of course, there are more who would agree. You might say they were correct. I would just say they had a teacher who didn't take the time to broaden his or her perspective and more than likely only focused on waza and left the mysteries of O-Sensei's lectures to the more spiritually inclined...


Best in training to all...

.

Last edited by Misogi-no-Gyo : 05-27-2009 at 03:42 PM.

I no longer participate in or read the discussion forums here on AikiWeb due to the unfair and uneven treatment of people by the owner/administrator.
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Old 06-05-2009, 11:24 AM   #7
Basia Halliop
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Re: Third Point and Separating Triangles

Quote:
Not really
Trained bodies do not move or react like normal bodies.
I'm not sure I fully understand your point, but that's fine, I guess. For me personally, I'm currently far more interested in how 'normal bodies' (i.e., most people) react to things than how trained bodies react, but that may be just my personal interest, or just the level I'm at at the moment, etc.
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