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Old 10-03-2012, 04:21 PM   #26
Erick Mead
 
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Re: More on Aikido and the Floating Bridge of Heaven

Quote:
Christopher Li wrote: View Post
Quote:
Quote:
If you are standing in the center, and In and Yo are spiraling around you, then this process must represent something that is happening in yourself, that is being created within yourself. I make the distinction because this is a very different thing than a process that occurs between yourself and another person.
If you are standing in the center, and In and Yo are spiraling around you. How is that process happening within you? isn't In and Yo spiraling outside if you- because they are spiraling around you?
By "around you" I meant "around in you" - maybe that would have been clearer. Note that the original "This is standing on the Floating Bridge of Heaven and turning in a spiral. " doesn't say anything about accommodating outside forces.
Best,

Chris
I'll simply show this, once more --- for those with eyes to see:
http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/attach...9&d=1215185239

Cordially,

Erick Mead
一隻狗可久里馬房但他也不是馬的.
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Old 10-03-2012, 04:27 PM   #27
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Re: More on Aikido and the Floating Bridge of Heaven

Nope. It won't work in the human body to produce anyone who would stand out and be fully recognized as having any unusual power whatsoever. In fact, it is fairly easy to cancel out that type of movement. It's a limited external mechanical model with no part in the discussion.

No need to debate. In person anyone using it will feel just like everyone else.
Case in point:
Can you tell us someone...anyone... known and widely recognized for unusual power up against some highly accomplished people.. who uses it and acknowledges your model as their source of internal power?
Dan

Last edited by DH : 10-03-2012 at 04:35 PM.
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Old 10-03-2012, 06:14 PM   #28
gregstec
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Re: More on Aikido and the Floating Bridge of Heaven

The way I see it is that from the day we are born, we enter the external and all our focus is on the external; we see all things from the inside out and the external is the baseline of where we need to be and it is the driving motivation for all our actions and thoughts. To better understand the internal, you need to reverse all that. Step outside yourself and look in to the internal and make that your motivating factor for action and thought - once you do that, the external will follow the lead of the internal; it becomes you. As Tohei said, you are the Universe!

Greg
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Old 10-03-2012, 11:15 PM   #29
David Orange
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Re: More on Aikido and the Floating Bridge of Heaven

Quote:
Dan Harden wrote: View Post
Nope. It won't work in the human body to produce anyone who would stand out and be fully recognized as having any unusual power whatsoever.
When I look at that model now, I don't see it as I did before. It looked like what I thought the process was at the time, but since then, and since reading the floating bridge material and working with those ideas, this model appears as a general abstraction of principles of stress in a cylinder...only abstractly related to the human body. And when you try to relate it to Ueshiba's statements about amenominakanushi, the relevance of this model to me just disappears.

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

"Eternity forever!"

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Old 10-04-2012, 09:09 AM   #30
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Re: More on Aikido and the Floating Bridge of Heaven

Quote:
David Orange wrote: View Post
When I look at that model now, I don't see it as I did before. It looked like what I thought the process was at the time, but since then, and since reading the floating bridge material and working with those ideas, this model appears as a general abstraction of principles of stress in a cylinder...only abstractly related to the human body. And when you try to relate it to Ueshiba's statements about amenominakanushi, the relevance of this model to me just disappears.
Correct. It has no relation to Ueshiba's (well other arts as well) model of spiral movement whatsoever. That model will not work, and it expresses a profound misunderstanding of an age old method. When asked to name someone with extraordinary power who uses it...people come up empty. It is and will remain unvetted by extraordinary people- simply because it doesn't work.

I am kindly trying to challenge all of us to be more strict in our analysis. We should be chasing or embracing ideas and theories from people who feel different from everyone else in a given sample of martial artists. Our goal should be to be above...average. So, I am chasing a model that is both old and vetted for making Budo giants. To make people -above- average. To create a bujutsu body that stops everyone and is -as Ueshiba stated...the birthplace of technique.
Ueshiba's model, simply works. Moreover it is vetted in history, and it being vetted by Martial artists who are also Doctors, Chiropractors and Physical therapists around the world. It birthed Takeda, and Ueshiba, and Sagawa, and the founders of Koryu..it also birthed the greats in the Chinese arts and warriors in India. I'll stick with the winner, which down through the ages excelled and easily handled the people seeking....normal movement.
Unfortunately, it seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Today, just like before, the majority still cannot even conceive that their might possibly be a different way to move than what they...and their teacher know. Yet that is WHY these men excelled in the past.
I want us to embrace our own history and methods and for ALL of us to excel and raise the bar!! And to have fun doing it.
Dan
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Old 10-04-2012, 09:34 AM   #31
Marc Abrams
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Re: More on Aikido and the Floating Bridge of Heaven

Quote:
Dan Harden wrote: View Post
I want us to embrace our own history and methods and for ALL of us to excel and raise the bar!! And to have fun doing it.
Dan
Dan:

Does that include us having to wear those silly pants/no shorts/ no capri,..... in order to have fun ?

Marc Abrams
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Old 10-04-2012, 11:03 AM   #32
Erick Mead
 
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Re: More on Aikido and the Floating Bridge of Heaven

Quote:
David Orange wrote: View Post
When I look at that model now, I don't see it as I did before. It looked like what I thought the process was at the time, but since then, and since reading the floating bridge material and working with those ideas, this model appears as a general abstraction of principles of stress in a cylinder...only abstractly related to the human body. And when you try to relate it to Ueshiba's statements about amenominakanushi, the relevance of this model to me just disappears.
Let me try.. if you will -- with two key sources -- Abe and O Sensei:

Abe Sensei said:

Quote:
Speaking of the heart of "Kojiki", it is Minakanushi, who was created first. In other words, center is important. On flat surface, center of circle is important. Even though the shape changed to three-dimensional space, the center always locates the same spot. For instance, to talk about oneself, there are body and heart. Then, the matter is which one is Minakanushi. If body were Minakanushi, heart would be accessories. If heart were Minakanushi, body would be accessories.
In a case of Aikido, there are invisible heart and breathe there. And, if one trains the method of breathing mainly by oneself, one's own Aikido will be established. The way of training of body is depend on where one places Minakanushi. It means that heart, breathe, and body should be united and, when one practices, heart, breathe, and body must be located at the center.
"Exhale, stop breathing, inhale, hold breathing", each position of breathing method is the location of Minakanushi. The technique is changed by your decision of which one is main: Is inhale main?, is holding breath main?, is exhale main?, or is stopping breathing main? The choice can be made unconsciously by training. Therefore, the Aikido will be Aikido with harmony.
O Sensei said of breathing (taken from the Aiki news issue compilation):
Quote:
When one has become skilled in leading the subtle applications of Aiki one may realize the honored virtue of Holy Creation. The breath will ascend upward in a rightward spinning spiral and descend again in a leftward spinning spiral, giving birth to the blending of water and fire. The continuous productive activity of friction is also produced. Means (Iki-musubi means the joining of the opposing divine elements representing the physical and spiritual aspects of life and is a homonym for the word life, "iki," and for the word breath, "iki." Musubi, is also homonym with possible meanings of blend/tie together; or generate/produce.) Sui-ka no musubi (water and fire musubi) is the ultimate root source of the multitude of things in the universe; it is without substance and limitless in its infinity.
Minakanushi is the kami of the Center in O Sensei's thought. Kami Musubi and Takamimusubi no kami are principles of action that proceed from and return to the Center. Abe Sensei uses various physical analogies of the relation of the Center to the peripheral -- or, if you will of the internal to the external.

The cylinder model is of shear in torsion -- which as Abe says, is just taking the Kami of the Center from flat circle 2D description into a spherical 3D perspective. O Sensei's "friction" is simply sliding action (which is the linear aspect of shear) -- like shears --scissor blades --slide past one another -- opposed but joined without conflict, at a single center of rotation BUT with an EXTENDING line of ACTION).

Shear creates a field action -- this is what makes aerodynamics work -- vortex field effects on a volume of air -- Breath is the correct dynamic analog -- A field effect is like twisting a flat cloth at a point and it will wind itself around the point of action -- like the scissors -- a point of central rotation and an extending field of action.

Try to do that from OUTSIDE the field of the cloth -- and it is not merely difficult -- it is IMPOSSIBLE to do the same action -- it will not work -- it only works by ENTERING WITHIN THE FIELD you mean to affect, and defining an essentially arbitrary center -- by the action within you and within the the field -- and in connection (musubi) -- and that is the form of the action that the field (opponent) will take on. The tighter the spirals, the more power they have -- but long period and short period actions have different kinds of action.

O Sensei is plainly speaking of field effects in his own understanding:
Quote:
The kokyu breath sets up waves of motions or undulations in the ki of the vacuum of space.
Depending on whether these waves are vigorous or sluggish the various origins in the universe
are brought into being. Likewise according to the liveliness or dullness of these sinuous waves,
the coagulation or solidification of the spirit and the body is known.
When the congealing of the kokyu breath overflows to the spirit/mind and the physical
body, the breath then becomes one with the universe in a natural way, whether or not all goes as
you yourself wills it to be, and you will feel it spread out spherically into the universe. Then,
after that, you feel the kokyu which has once expanded to the universe recondenses back into the
self.
When you have become capable of this sort of kokyu breath, the spiritual reality/essence
will concentrate in the area around your self where you will perceive its presence. This very
thing is your guidepost for the first step toward the Subtle Functions of Aiki. These subtle uses
are necessities if Aiki is to be drawn out in a spontaneous and unwilled fashion.
The four stages of breath, as Abe describes - these take the 3D center and extend the Kami of the Center into expanding and contracting space AND time (rhythm) -- Breath (kokyu) thus describes the action of a 4D Center.

The halts of breath are the maximum potential points for such action -- at the cusp of the reversals -- the dynamic Center of the breath (Minakanushi) -- while the intake (Takamimusubi no Kami) and exhale (Kamimusubi no Kami) are EACH the simultaneous release from the Center AND gathering toward the Center of that potential ( i.e. --both inhale AND exhale each manifest both in and yo) and the ultimate action occurs through either one --- though in reversed modes -- as one can cut with equal power either advancing or withdrawing -- turning toward or turning away.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
一隻狗可久里馬房但他也不是馬的.
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Old 10-04-2012, 12:50 PM   #33
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Re: More on Aikido and the Floating Bridge of Heaven

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Marc Abrams wrote: View Post
Dan:

Does that include us having to wear those silly pants/no shorts/ no capri,..... in order to have fun ?

Marc Abrams
Yes, and you must wear a plaid shirt with it

Greg
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Old 10-04-2012, 01:50 PM   #34
Marc Abrams
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Re: More on Aikido and the Floating Bridge of Heaven

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Greg Steckel wrote: View Post
Yes, and you must wear a plaid shirt with it

Greg
Okay Greg ! If I wear the plaid shirt, you have to wear a tight vest!

Marc Abrams
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Old 10-04-2012, 01:53 PM   #35
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Re: More on Aikido and the Floating Bridge of Heaven

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Marc Abrams wrote: View Post
Okay Greg ! If I wear the plaid shirt, you have to wear a tight vest!

Marc Abrams
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Old 10-04-2012, 02:19 PM   #36
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Re: More on Aikido and the Floating Bridge of Heaven

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Erick Mead wrote: View Post
I'll simply show this, once more --- for those with eyes to see:
http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/attach...9&d=1215185239
Actually, exactly correct, except not for the body - At every point on and inside of the body. Still does not help in the slightest to 'do' anything of note.

"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 10-04-2012, 02:57 PM   #37
David Orange
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Re: More on Aikido and the Floating Bridge of Heaven

Quote:
Erick Mead wrote: View Post
Let me try.. if you will -- with two key sources -- Abe and O Sensei:
It strikes me as an elaborate abstraction not of aikido itself but of an analogy of aikido.

The real question is, would you demonstrate that your abstraction results in the kinds of things we're talking about? Can you show the power as well as diagram it?

A lot of Japanese English students have really good grammar on paper, but their pronunciation and spirit fall apart when they have to look at a Westerner and actually speak. And the same with my Japanese, only without the good grammar.

Likewise with a lot of aikido. It doesn't hold water. Or fire. Or both.

I can see how you related your picture to the words of the masters, but I don't feel a connection. It made me think of what I like to call Sazae-san Syndrome in language learning.

In listening to Japanese speakers, it took me a long time to realize that their topics of conversation were always shifting and the little story I'd made up of what they were talking about, which I thought was a single narrative, was just a collage of moments from four, five or six or more different discussions over just a few minutes. They talk about the weather, the families, work, and then maybe they start talking about a TV show they'd seen the night before. You think they're still talking about one of their own kids but they're talking about a cartoon character, and the next thing, they're talking economics and it ends up with the prime minister.

In other words, it seems like you're not really penetrating the real, flowing thing we're discussing, as if you're going straight while the man on the bridge is turning in a spiral.

For instance, from your quote of Abe Sensei:

"In a case of Aikido, there are invisible heart and breathe there. And, if one trains the method of breathing mainly by oneself, one's own Aikido will be established. The way of training of body is depend on where one places Minakanushi. It means that heart, breathe, and body should be united and, when one practices, heart, breathe, and body must be located at the center."

Even after all these years and what I've been learning, my impulse to the words "located at the center" is to feel my "one-point." Many people would read that English sentence and translate it as "located at the one-point" or maybe "hara."

What do you think?

As for the rest of it, it affects me like someone moving their hands around explaining a theory that might be right, like I do when I talk about Einstein, without personally being able to demonstrate the theory I think I generally understand. So no matter how I move my hands to draw my picture of the theory, all the power (whatever there is of it) is in my words and not in my hands.

In other words, if you don't have a million dollars, how credible will your "Make a Million Dollars" book be?

In other words, don't show your work. Show it work.

So now I'll make a video and post it.

Thanks.

David

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

"Eternity forever!"

www.esotericorange.com
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Old 10-04-2012, 03:21 PM   #38
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Re: More on Aikido and the Floating Bridge of Heaven

Quote:
David Orange wrote: View Post

In other words, don't show your work. Show it work.

Thanks.

David
I like that !

Greg
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Old 10-04-2012, 11:06 PM   #39
David Orange
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Re: More on Aikido and the Floating Bridge of Heaven

Quote:
Greg Steckel wrote: View Post
I like that !

Greg
Well, I'm not saying I've "got" it, but there is a big difference in my movement and abilities compared to 30 months ago. A big change in how I receive power and apply it, where it comes from in my body and, especially that it has transformed from "muscle-chaining" kinds of sequential movement to more due to the whole-body presence in place. It's springy (but not springy, more like Dan describes as like being a statue of hard rubber, or maybe like a shock absorber donut or something, solid springy...)yet softer than I've ever been. Yet I can produce more power with less effort.

And there is the mental side, too. It's a direct connection of awareness to the environment.

Lately, I've been thinking about how the fascia unites the body and also carries the ki...

How we interact with the six directions through our ki....

And then I thought, is the ki of the environment also reaching in toward me?

Of course, it is...but then I thought, where does the ki of the environment reside?

And I thought it resides in the "fascia" or "connective tissue" of the environment around us, meaning inside a room or out in a field or a forest or a bamboo grove. Can't you just feel a very different quality about each one of those places, just at perceiving the name of it? If you've ever been in a bamboo grove you probably feel it right now, just on thinking of it. That's the ki of the bamboo grove and it feels that way because of the connective qualities of the bamboo, its fibers, its shapes, its root system, the kinds of air that are caught in its foliage and everything about how that form manifests in large areas.

But you can feel a similar uniqueness about a forest, a field, the shore.

And you can feel it in any room. Like, think of being in a huge atrium at a hotel with dining, bar and a swimming pool all under a vast glass roof/wall.

Or think of the room you're in right now. What's around you?

If you do the six-direction training in the room where you are now...how do the walls affect your feeling about the six-direction forces?

I'm not saying they change it, but they may change your feelings while doing the exercises.

And that feeling is ki...so ....the ki of the room seems to me like it's affecting you by the shape of it and the substance of the walls and so on. Which is...the connective tissue of the room.

So the ki that resides in the connective structure of the room where you're training, you deal with that when you work with the six directions.

So now the big thing: can your ki "grab hold" of the ki in the environment so that your physical body is "supported" (or even pressed away) by the physical structure of the room around you, at a distance, but through your ki's "musubi" with the whole room around you in every direction: musubi with the walls around you, as if you were tied with ropes in the six directons

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

"Eternity forever!"

www.esotericorange.com
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Old 10-04-2012, 11:39 PM   #40
David Orange
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Re: More on Aikido and the Floating Bridge of Heaven

...musubi with the walls around you, as if you were tied with ropes in the six directions and couldn't be moved in any direction because the ropes are taut in every direction. You could relax completely, in that case, and no one could move you... assuming your body didn't get shredded....

This is also what I mean by "magnetically oriented to the six directions."

So you see what I mean about the "mental" side, right?

You start thinking like this and you'll know you're going somewhere, all right. But the white coats tie a little differently in there...

Seriously, though, I've been thinking about that a lot lately.

Anyway, my mind adheres more closely with my body now, than ever, and my body feels completely at ease, most of the time. And in times of heavy stress, I've developed a lot of capacity for dissipating that stress through the whole body, so that both mind and body carry stresses more evenly and with less strain, making me able to go on and on in a tough situation while staying fresher and more alert, more mobile and adaptable. And also freer with my mind so that I don't mind imagining any possibility.

I just don't come to any particular conclusions in any kind of hurry. You can hurt yourself doing the IP stuff if you don't know what you're doing, and part of that is being in too much of a hurry, so I don't get too fanatical about anything I'm not sure of. I'd rather understand it little by little than suddenly make great progress toward a stroke...

It has been known to happen.

I mainly post, as I've said before, to get feedback from people who really do understand, since it's difficult to get out and travel, having a seven-year-old and all...

I hope to get a couple of video clips online this weekend, among all the other stuff going on...

Best to you.

David

Last edited by David Orange : 10-04-2012 at 11:46 PM.

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

"Eternity forever!"

www.esotericorange.com
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Old 10-05-2012, 12:02 PM   #41
Robert Cowham
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Re: More on Aikido and the Floating Bridge of Heaven

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David Orange wrote: View Post
...musubi with the walls around you, as if you were tied with ropes in the six directions and couldn't be moved in any direction because the ropes are taut in every direction. You could relax completely, in that case, and no one could move you... assuming your body didn't get shredded....

This is also what I mean by "magnetically oriented to the six directions."
Peter Ralston (of Cheng Hsin) talks about having awareness of the whole room at the same time (as well as being able to feel all of your body and all of your partners body). Challenging but in a good way

Quote:
I hope to get a couple of video clips online this weekend, among all the other stuff going on...
Look forward to that
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Old 10-07-2012, 09:54 PM   #42
Erick Mead
 
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Re: More on Aikido and the Floating Bridge of Heaven

Quote:
David Orange wrote: View Post
The real question is, would you demonstrate that your abstraction results in the kinds of things we're talking about? Can you show the power as well as diagram it?
What are looking to see?

Quote:
For instance, from your quote of Abe Sensei:

"In a case of Aikido, there are invisible heart and breathe there. And, if one trains the method of breathing mainly by oneself, one's own Aikido will be established. The way of training of body is depend on where one places Minakanushi. It means that heart, breathe, and body should be united and, when one practices, heart, breathe, and body must be located at the center."

Even after all these years and what I've been learning, my impulse to the words "located at the center" is to feel my "one-point." Many people would read that English sentence and translate it as "located at the one-point" or maybe "hara."

What do you think?
I think that when a hostile situation begins, the center of the participants is objectively undefined -- but the attacker invites the target to take the center. a person in harmony accepts this and so the two are subjectively in harmony to begin. If I make my heart ,my breath, my body the center in the way that draws all to the center then I can arbitrarily enter and my center becomes THE center, -- the objective center -- and then rest is less continued effort than it is continuing attention on maintaining the effect.

Quote:
In other words, if you don't have a million dollars, how credible will your "Make a Million Dollars" book be?
Ask Sandy Coufax how good a pitcher he honestly was and he would tell you he was as good as Norm Sherry could make him -- he had power but not control. I think experience makes observation relatable and applicable -- but observational aspects of knowledge are worthy topics.

Many pitching coaches -- were catchers, often back-up catchers. Why? Because they were good and constant observers -- as well as decent throwers in their own right, with experience to apply to their observations. While pitchers were busy pitching -- the catcher was watching the pitching, and better able to relate errors more immediately to his own throwing approach. Making pitching prowess the threshold measure on the value of observations would have left Sandy Coufax with a scorching but very unreliable fastball.

Some people learn martial arts to make themselves the best fighter possible. Some people try to help people become better people -- especially when they are being attacked. I don't think those objectives are all inconsistent. One's aim depends not only on talent -- but also perspective -- and target.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
一隻狗可久里馬房但他也不是馬的.
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Old 10-08-2012, 08:17 AM   #43
David Orange
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Re: More on Aikido and the Floating Bridge of Heaven

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Erick Mead wrote: View Post
What are looking to see?
Well...NOT a diagram.

If you want to join the discussion, lay hands on the people you're discussing with.

Show that you can do what they can do rather than sending in these diagrams claiming they have something to do with the power being discussed.

In other words, if you had this kind of power that you say the diagram shows...then you would be eager to meet up with folks like Dan and Ark.

Last I heard from you, you'd never met either, or Mike Sigman, as I recall, and you have actually expressed fear of Dan...which indicates that you really don't have that power. So...why show us the diagram over and over when everyone with experience of the subject has said the diagram does not relate past an abstract concept that has nothing to do with how IP is used in the human body?

I mean...really...among black belts...why would you ask what we want to see?

David

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

"Eternity forever!"

www.esotericorange.com
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Old 10-08-2012, 08:59 AM   #44
Mary Eastland
 
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Re: More on Aikido and the Floating Bridge of Heaven

Wow...I thought we had agreed not to do this sort of bulling anymore.

Mary Eastland

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Old 10-08-2012, 09:15 AM   #45
David Orange
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Re: More on Aikido and the Floating Bridge of Heaven

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Mary Eastland wrote: View Post
Wow...I thought we had agreed not to do this sort of bulling anymore.
I wouldn't call it "bull" Mary.

Erick is sincere in showing us his diagram.

It may not be applicable anywhere except in his mind, but he has the right to post it over and over to answer a question it doesn't fit.

He may be mistaken, but you shouldn't call it "bulling". I'm sure he means well.

He just needs to test that...analogy, or whatever it is...against reality.

You know Leonard DaVinci made many intricate drawings of various flying machines. Very few of them had any remote chance of actually flying.

But suppose Leo came to the current day and continually posted his flying machine drawings on a board about aerodynamics and aircraft building.

Wouldn't the natural response be, "Prove it"? Build one and let's see it fly?

The problem with Erick's posts is that he not only posts things that the people recognized for IS/IP have told him they're irrelevant, but rather than prove it with a demonstration, he has cast serious aspersions on people like Dan. He has made personal attacks to cover an unworkable theory.

I notice that people who keep walking off cliffs tend to keep getting bumped about.

It's nature.

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

"Eternity forever!"

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Old 10-08-2012, 11:01 AM   #46
Erick Mead
 
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Re: More on Aikido and the Floating Bridge of Heaven

No, Mary. David and I are just gently ribbing ...

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David Orange wrote: View Post
Erick is sincere in showing us his diagram.
...
You know Leonard DaVinci made many intricate drawings of various flying machines. Very few of them had any remote chance of actually flying.

.... an unworkable theory.
Certainly, if you say so. Some of us are just stay-at-home tinkerers and thinkerers. Nothing worthwhile ever came of that, obviously....

Obviously, you are right and Leonardo's idea of human-powered flight by flapping wings -- just nonsense -- I mean, you know, obviously, -- nonsense. No one could actually do that....
Leonardo was hardly first -- Brother Eilmer beat him to it by about 400 years in actual gliding flight -- but no one was listening to him, either. (600 foot glide is pretty good as a first flight achievement -- even with a bad landing and a couple of broken legs).

It was true at the time that Eilmer and Leonardo worked these things out, that one could actually "fly" -- with far more effective range AND much more power using a trebuchet to launch oneself ballistically -- but even if the destination were thus achieved -- I think that misses the point by a wide margin ... and with a worse landing even than Brother Eilmer managed.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
一隻狗可久里馬房但他也不是馬的.
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Old 10-08-2012, 01:15 PM   #47
David Orange
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Re: More on Aikido and the Floating Bridge of Heaven

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Erick Mead wrote: View Post
No, Mary. David and I are just gently ribbing ...
For anyone who puts on a black belt and especially someone who teaches and promotes people to black belt, my remarks really should be considered mild and humorous.

But accountants' humor is not always terribly funny either, and you also don't want to get them on the subject of whether your numbers add up because then they are not so humorous. We have to keep a balance between friendliness and real concerns that should not be misrepresented.

In IP/IS/AIKI, our baseline is not what Ueshiba said but what he did.

Anyone can mimic what he said but very few can mimic what he did and fewer can actually do what he did.

You have repeatedly given us this diagram and I have said it's valid for what it is: a drawing of forces in a cylinder. I can understand that what happens is shear, but the question is can you actually produce that effect and is it either the same as or on the same level as the effect produced by Dan, who tells you your diagram is unrelated to actually producing the effect.

You asked "what would you like to see?" and I simply said more or less, "Physical results. Not a diagram."

And the comments about your fearing Dan, that's not intended as any kind of personality or character flaw. It's like a horse trainer saying, "Your horse shies away from the third jump." It's just a fact.

As a teacher, I just see it as a proof that you need to become more congruent with your mind, ki and body. An able horse jumps. An able martial artist stands up and goes to the scary guy with the big voice and broad reputation and exchanges physical truth.

And if you don't have the mind/body/spirit congruency to do that, then we come to the point of character in how you deal with your own incongruence. I have plainly said "I'm afraid of that guy and I don't want to get around him." But I didn't then turn around and say, "Although I can do anything he can do."

If I could do what he can do, then I would have no fear of approaching him.

Another approach I could take would be to claim that he is known to hurt people, when that's not heard of with Dan.

So I have walked the rim of that precipice where your comments transition from mere matters of training approach and depth to questions of character.

I don't mention what you've said to attack your character but to say these are the kinds of statements where one might confuse bad character response for a matter of training error. I say it to show that line and emphasize what it means to cross it.

I had forgotten why I put you on Ignore for quite awhile and this exchange reminded me, but I've been thinking a lot lately and I felt like I could engage in this with you without some of the former rancor.

I mention it here to emphasize only that whatever your diagram represents, your fear of Dan shows that you have not become a wholly integrated mind/body/ki unit as the IS/IP training creates. The six-direction training exercises all the elements of the body, all the presence of the mind and all the content of the ki in a mutual stress fest.

The difficulty of the training is directly proportional to the incongruencies of the mind/body/ki unit. And the ability to produce stunning responses is proportional to the congruency of these elements. When the mind/body/ki is congruent, the body is soft but incredibly powerful without tai sabaki stepping and turning. The result of this is a body and mind that will step up to someone like Dan and say, "Please show me."

A horse trainer can lead the horse out of shyness on the third jump and a martial arts teacher can lead the martial artist out of the fearful state of incongruence of mind body and ki to be able to look a man like Dan in the eye with respect for what he can do rather than fear caused by what the student cannot do. It is a defect in training which can inhabit the spirit if not corrected by someone who knows how to do it.

As to Leonardo's flying designs, as far as I know none flew.

I'm a long-time recumbent cyclist and an avid follower of the human-power movement, especially the World Human Powered Speed Challenge. I am also a pilot with a long history in the Experimental Aircraft movement.

If you want to say that the video you linked shows Leonardo DaVinci's design, then you would have to say that I designed the 80+ MPH bicycle that holds the current world record from a few years ago. When I was living in Japan with no access to any information on recumbent bikes, I sketched all kinds of designs on napkins and in notebooks. I found the basic limits and restrictions of the recumbent design in placement of the body, the pedals and the wheels so that no parts would conflict and the drive train would work, but I never built any of my designs. Interestingly, I later saw production models of almost all of my general designs including the short-wheelbase, long wheelbase and compact long-wheelbase, with several variations of handlebar design and placement I had also imagined. So I was on the right track and Leonardo was thinking in the right directions but you could not build any of his designs straight from the drawings and fly the resulting creation.

I also have theorized on various designs combining recumbent cycle mechanisms like in the video you posted, with cutting edge hang-glider technology to create a vehicle you could use to ride up a hill and fly down, possibly even soaring and gaining altitude. But I wouldn't really want to ride on it.

Are you sure you would want to ride on the energy you describe with your shear diagram? The black belt inheres with not only willingness but eagerness to go and find that power and understand and take hold of it in his own body.

The video you show has no remote resemblance to Leonardo's design and does not flap the wings as Leonardo proposed, which is really the crucial element. It's a question, finally, of power and Leonardo's method of flapping was comically underpowered. It's clear that he was dreaming of the power he needed and his mechanism was a place-holder for the engine he could not create.

Another aspect of the modern design's power is that it partially depends on modern materials to reduce the amount of power needed and Leonardo could never have succeeded with the materials in his design.

So, please, don't quibble in abstraction. It flies or it doesn't, it jumps the gate or falters, it goes to meet Dan or Mike or Ark or someone reputed to have IP/IS/AIKI power...or it publishes an unworkable design again with claims that it can do the same thing....

Please reconnect with some baselines for the discussions.

Thanks.

David

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

"Eternity forever!"

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Old 10-09-2012, 04:51 PM   #48
Erick Mead
 
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Re: More on Aikido and the Floating Bridge of Heaven

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David Orange wrote: View Post
For anyone who puts on a black belt and especially someone who teaches and promotes people to black belt, my remarks really should be considered mild and humorous.
Quite.

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In IP/IS/AIKI, our baseline is not what Ueshiba said but what he did. Anyone can mimic what he said but very few can mimic what he did and fewer can actually do what he did.

You have repeatedly given us this diagram and I have said it's valid for what it is: a drawing of forces in a cylinder. I can understand that what happens is shear, but the question is can you actually produce that effect and is it either the same as or on the same level as the effect produced by...
As to "fears," I will refrain from all issues of personality. I declared myself only at the instigation of those concerned. I will further say only the following: As a martial tactic, many who doubt themselves are drawn out by such rhetoric as yours -- I do not take anything amiss at all by your use of such devices to do so -- this is my stock in trade after all -- and it is certainly fair game toward your goals. As for me, "whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." What would you do, in similar circumstance? Forgo the trust earned, in favor of a manifest disregard ?

But as you say, the issue is not about personality but a concrete reality -- in this we are agreed. But concrete understanding takes several forms -- all grounded in the body AND the mind. Neither suffices alone -- nor has either any preeminence in martial action.

Quote:
You asked "what would you like to see?" and I simply said more or less, "Physical results. Not a diagram."
OK. What results ?

Quote:
So, please, don't quibble in abstraction. It flies or it doesn't, it jumps the gate or falters, it goes ... someone reputed to have IP/IS/AIKI power...or it publishes an unworkable design again with claims that it can do the same thing...
No reputation is of any concern to me -- only trust.

There is nothing abstract. We are agreed that the diagram shows forces in a cylinder.

I know that the body is several series of connected chains of cylinders. This is obvious. I know and can feel the action of shear in the cylinders of my torso and limbs, and their segments. This is not obvious -- but can be learned. I know that the same principles of shear action that apply to the solid cylinder ALSO apply to the dynamic action of many objects in a chain. This is most certainly not obvious and takes some dwelling on to grasp -- but it is the fact of the matter.

I know that this series of connected cylinders has connections that vary in flexibility or stiffness according to my mind and my reflexive physiology. I can feel, observe and deploy this variability to good effect. I know that reflexive action can be molded and modulated by training and become deployable rather than merely reactive action, and in ways that are not predictable. I feel the ways in which those forces and reflexes are deployed and I observe the effects that they have -- dynamically and in setting the potentials within the body.

I gather that the most consequence to the teaching you advocate is in the role played by setting the potentials by mindful guidance in training. I have no doubt if you tell me it is effective. But whether it is more effective or not has never been a concern of mine -- my path is my path, not anyone else's -- nor mine theirs, necesarily.

The perspective that I have is that the dynamics and the potentials are one and the same, governed by the same action and physiology and that training and observing them both complement one another. The perspective I have is that the modulated reflexes -- keying into the reflexes of the opponent -- are a key component of the action AND the effectiveness of potentials.

The perspective I have is that the Aiki Taiso describe, illustrate and train BOTH the development of these potentials, and their relation to right dynamics. While the setting of potentials is hardly immune to conscious creation and use, the reflexive aspects are much less amenable to mindful guidance -- though they may certainly be shaped in mindful training (be it Aiki taiso, or Taiji, Sanchin or a few others besides, in which I see the similar things operating).

These things are however, in action, much more amenable to the unmindful and "inexhaustible creation" of the martial moment -- which -- as I see things in his own words and in his own reported action -- is much closer to what Ueshiba both advocated as a goal and DID as his singularly declared accomplishment. Takemusu Aiki. Not the sideshow tricks he did for the rubes.

I won't declare what I know and do to be what anyone else knows or does. Some people seem to take offense. But since you seem genuinely to care, how would you propose that I show you what you would like to see? Seeing as I won't be in Birmingham soon (nor ever have been, FWIW). The Alabama cousins keep to themselves, mostly.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
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Old 10-09-2012, 07:18 PM   #49
Gary David
 
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Re: More on Aikido and the Floating Bridge of Heaven

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Erick Mead wrote: View Post

The perspective I have is that the Aiki Taiso describe, illustrate and train BOTH the development of these potentials, and their relation to right dynamics. While the setting of potentials is hardly immune to conscious creation and use, the reflexive aspects are much less amenable to mindful guidance -- though they may certainly be shaped in mindful training (be it Aiki taiso, or Taiji, Sanchin or a few others besides, in which I see the similar things operating).
Eric
What you do is what you do......ok with that. My experience tells me that the Aiki Taiso while a movement set of exercises that are functional are missing some of the underlying points that make them truly effective in passing along IP/IS, that would make them a mindful training tool. Only the first level aspects were passed along....don't know if this was purposeful, just forgotten, not known or left for us to find out

Quote:
Erick Mead wrote: View Post
I won't declare what I know and do to be what anyone else knows or does. Some people seem to take offense. But since you seem genuinely to care, how would you propose that I show you what you would like to see? Seeing as I won't be in Birmingham soon (nor ever have been, FWIW). The Alabama cousins keep to themselves, mostly.
Eric
Until folks get together to exchange ideas and practice on the mat with a casual setting there will never be a coming together. Of course folks will have to be willing to do this and to not hold on to tightly to concepts and ideas if they don't work.

Gary
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Old 10-10-2012, 11:56 AM   #50
David Orange
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Re: More on Aikido and the Floating Bridge of Heaven

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Robert Cowham wrote: View Post
Peter Ralston (of Cheng Hsin) talks about having awareness of the whole room at the same time (as well as being able to feel all of your body and all of your partners body). Challenging but in a good way
Well, here's my video of pulsing off the wall. Not much to it, but...FWIW.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iusVL...ature=youtu.be

David

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

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