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Old 11-01-2002, 02:34 PM   #1
Bruce Baker
Dojo: LBI Aikikai/LBI ,NJ
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Recognizing ki when it is used

I must have read hundreds of posts on the description of Ki, but how do you know you are using Ki when you use Ki?

Now, remember ... we are not talking about the effort of strength, and practicing hard and fast, but a strength beyond physicality.

Simply put ...

What are your experiences when you found your Ki was doing the work instead of your physical strength?
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Old 11-01-2002, 02:45 PM   #2
shihonage
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When I was sleeping.
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Old 11-01-2002, 05:12 PM   #3
SeiserL
 
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When I didn' feel myself doing it.

Until again,

Lynn

Lynn Seiser PhD
Yondan Aikido & FMA/JKD
We do not rise to the level of our expectations, but fall to the level of our training. Train well. KWATZ!
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Old 11-01-2002, 05:36 PM   #4
JW
 
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non-classical definitions of ki

Even those who don't believe in the traditional definition of ki should like this one..

You know how when you are walking and your shoulder is in danger of hitting another person's shoulder, this person walking toward you?

Obviously at the last minute, one or both can get their shoulder out of the way. Nothing special there, just a game of chicken.

But if you "extend ki" you can make them feel it before your shoulders even come close, and they will choose to dodge your sharply projecting ki.

In the supermarket this one guy was a few feet ahead of me and some other people, obstructing people's passage.. I extended ki through my cart causing him to choose to move before I was even within normal earshot..

--JW
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Old 11-01-2002, 10:55 PM   #5
pointy
Dojo: aikido of park slope
Location: brooklyn, ny USA
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Re: Recognizing ki when it is used

Quote:
Bruce Baker wrote:
What are your experiences when you found your Ki was doing the work instead of your physical strength?
when my teacher falls on the mat laughing but i dont feel like i did anything. after years of this i dont think he's pretending. maybe in those situations i was using ki.
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Old 11-02-2002, 04:38 AM   #6
mike lee
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Ki Symbol the key to ki

Unless you're dead, ki is always present.

The question for any serious martial artist should be, "is it internal ki or external ki that is being used."

If the body is stiff and rigid, it's external ki. If the body is soft and relaxed, and yet full of power, it's internal ki.

The devil's in the details.

Last edited by mike lee : 11-02-2002 at 04:41 AM.
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Old 11-05-2002, 01:11 PM   #7
Bruce Baker
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What the heck is it when you turn invisible and people keep bumping into you because they didn't see you were there ... even though you are perfectly visible to everyone else?

Invisible Ki?

Or is that force field Ki?

You turn it off and you are invisible, and you turn it on to declare you there occupying a space in real time.

We spend so much time talking about the physical use of ki, are there mental applications also, like the extension of ki mentioned by Jonathon Wong that not only warn people off, but can make you invisible, or cause you to do the Ninja tricks of speed O'Sensei was professed to do?
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Old 11-05-2002, 08:49 PM   #8
Kevin Leavitt
 
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Agree with Mike Lee.

The problem with KI is that it is a CONCEPT.

it is impossible to nail down and define and say..."yup that's KI!".

Us westerners really like to take things very literally. Our little scientific minds think that if we think hard enough about something that we can quantify it, confine it, and refine it.

KI is always present. It is the life force that transcends all living things. Earth, wind, fire, and water are the basic elements. It is energy, man!

The water that cascades over a wheel to grind wheat that we then use the fire to bake bread that we eat and turn into calories to practice aikido is all KI.

Your ability to become "one" with it, to feel it, and experience it, to become connected will take you a life time!

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Old 11-06-2002, 03:12 AM   #9
ian
 
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I've been reading about chi excercises for martial arts recently; in quite an old chinese set of excercises they suggest that ki is just the efficient use of the body - i.e. the joints open up and the energy from the muscles are coordinated in such a way to maximise power per unit effort. I think it might be comparable to this thing with stress, where levels of stress can reach a level where performance drops - the idea is to develop adequate intention to maximise the power (i.e. hype yourself up) without going to the extent where coordination and strength are reduced. This also seems to involves a lot of internal muscles (not internal as in spiritual - but muscles which support the trunk etc and are located further within the body than the main external muscles). This is why standing practise is useful - because it tires the external muscles to the extent where internal muscles have to take over.

One problem with weight training is it does the opposite of what we are normally trying to achieve in sport or aikido i.e. it isolates muscles and gets them to work on their own.

How do you recognise it? From the above description I would say its when everything works out just right.

Ian

Last edited by ian : 11-06-2002 at 03:14 AM.

---understanding aikido is understanding the training method---
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Old 11-06-2002, 07:25 AM   #10
Bruce Baker
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Ki, no thought, no tension?

In every case of my finding strength beyond the muscular strength, it was a case of no thought, and absolute relaxation, or no tension.

Now, this could be the correct way to attain the strength beyond normal levels of activity we attribute to Ki, or it could just be my way and not related to what other people use to find Ki.

On the other hand, Joint allignment, finding the proverbial 'sweet spot' in techniques and throws could be the actual answer in both scientific and technical evaluation of Ki.

Whatever it is, there is definitely something different in the way the practitioner feels, and in the force delivered with a practice technique. The mind and body are alligned in a different manner than before finding this strength, and once we experience this power we seek to repeat this allignment. Many people say this is finding your ki, becoming alligned to ki, or using the ki of the universe, but is it?

Do you define Ki by the physical results, or is it merely the allignment of physical forces that are interpreted as energy being fed into the living being giving it strength beyond normal physical strength?

We know that a psychologically sound mind is also interpreted by the physical well being a person exhibits. Could this allignment of physical well being, the well being of the mind, and the allignment of physical and mental allignment be the key to KI?

Is it our perception of Ki that is mistaken, that is merely a physical concept that can be controled and brought to bear with physicality and a thought?

Or is the human body a generator of energy that can be alligned, controlled, and amplified to physically measure energy actual forces of energy we define as Ki?

Many people define Ki as heat being generated by parts of the body, or waves of energy eminating from the human body. Could our bio energy be a combination of heat and electricity we should define as Ki?

The more I research Ki, the more I find that there are actual measurable levels of energy, and energy that can be transfered as easily as static electricity from your clothes.

So, if we are talking a form of electricity, and our body generates a bio electric energy, why not learn to use the allignment of the body to take in some of this loose electricity in our environment, or in the very particles we breath in and our with the gases of our atmosphere?

Scientific speculation? Or is Ki a tangible energy that can be tapped into with practice because it really is a scientific phenonmenon and not some mythical story of fantasic power?

We see the measured results when we take ukemi with applied Ki. So if there is a physical measurement we can see and feel, why can't we scientifically measure it?

I think we have an internal gut feeling that can measure Ki, but it needs training to correctly be used. Ki is a measurable force, but we haven't taken the time to understand how it works, or how we can use this energy.
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