Any Europeans Familiar with Kinomichi?

Just looking at the wiki article https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinomichi it appears to have spun off Aikido the same way Aikido spun of Daito-ryu Aikijujutsu. I see a big emphasis on the Heaven-earth-man discussions we've been having here and elsewhere (the "rising force" is pretty clearly peng jin), but also of interest is the reference to Eoropean understandings of heart, breath and tissue development.

Anyways, anyone know anything about it?

I do not know much about Kinomichi® but the in the wikipedia article you linked I see no mention of people like Karlfried Graf Dürckheim or Lily Ehrenfried who were very influential in Noro sensei evolution.

Thanks, Demetrio- not finding a ton of info. But interested in their description of what they do, so curious to compare it what they are doing.

The footage that I have seen made me want to run a mile. It seemed to be a bunch of uncoordinated people with beatific smiles prancing around while others threw themselves into forward rolls. Much like the footage of Watanabe sensei that was posted here recently. Having said that, I'm basing that opinion entirely on YouTube footage, so it could be worthwhile. I would run a mile, though.

I'd rather kimchi than this ��

I have practiced Ki no michi only very few times. And only with students of Noro sensei in Germany.
So my experciences are very limited!

Budd Yuhasz wrote: ... it appears to have spun off Aikido the same way Aikido spun of Daito-ryu Aikijujutsu. ...

Noro sensei had to stop praciticing aikidô because of being severly injured during a car accident.
So there are no martial aspects anymore in Ki no michi. And also no kinds of ukemi.

I see a big emphasis on the Heaven-earth-man discussions we've been having here and elsewhere ...

During my very limited practice of Ki no michi I did not experience any of the aspects of heaven-earth-man I know from qi gong or the BodyWork of Dan Harden or the internal work of Daitô ryû. Nor was it mentioned in the explanations.

The quality of the movements was not what I understand as internal movement. Alltogether the concept was quite different, if not opposite to what I understand as internal work.

The user MRoh from Germany is more familiar with Ki no michi. And I think he sees things differently from how I do. Maybe you want to contact him.

This accident happened in the middle of the sixties, Noro created Ki no michi in 1979.
Before he left the Aikikai in '79, he was an Aikido Shihan.
He used western concepts to develop his Aikido, what led to the creation of ki no michi later, but he did not leave Aikido, in his own words, after the accident "I suddenly awoke to the words of Master Ueshiba".

Noro developed Kinomichi (after the accident) while living in France (pretty sure it was Paris).
So most, if not all, of the people who are familiar with it will be european.

Stephan Schröder wrote: Noro developed Kinomichi (after the accident) while living in France (pretty sure it was Paris). So most, if not all, of the people who are familiar with it will be european.

Yes. When I lived in the UK, way back in the 1970s, I had as a training partner a bilingual French / English student who spent all his university vacations in Paris training with Mr Noro. The term time was spent in the UK and he was one of the group of six pioneers at Sussex University. However, eventually the Sussex club became attached to K Chiba's Aikikai of Great Britain. When I returned to Britain in 1975, my bilingual friend was training at the dojo in London run by Chiba's old students and I, too, used to train there. He still used to train with Noro in Paris, but in Lodon he would sometimes punctuate the training sessions to retire to the corner of the mat and 'resettle his ki', as he put it. Ki having been suitably resettled, he would then continue the training. I was not quite sure what this meant, but I was doing marathon running at this time and I had learned the hard way how to practice regular breathing while running up and down hills. Unlike aikido training partners, small mountains can be quite unforgiving. At this time Tohei had recently split from the Aikikai and so ki was not the most popular term in use.

Many years later I met Mr Noro in Paris and I went to watch a training session. Let us say that it was quite different from what I was used to at the time and from what I do now.

Best wishes,

PAG

Budd Yuhasz wrote: but also of interest is the reference to Eoropean understandings of heart, breath and tissue development.

Noro was influence by people like Lily Ehrenfried who was a Student of Elsa Gindler. Gindler was teaching some kind of "holistic gymnastics", bodily awareness and bodily expression.
She belonged to a group of people (most women) which stood for the "German movement for ‘body reform' and Lebensreform, ‘life reform', that in the early twentieth century propounded gymnastics as a way of exploring new kinds of thinking about bodily experience".

The Intention was"to draw together psychological feeling, bodily experience, dance and musical elements into an all-embracing, free and creative way of life".

Lily Ehrenfried had a strong influence for example on Moshe Feldenkrais.
Noro Sensei took elements of her work into his Method, and she visited his classes.

So ki no michi is based on the teachings of Ueshiba, but is influenced by western methods for developing human potential.
ki no michi movements are all based on the spiral, they stretch and lenghten the musculature,
and create strong connections in the body.

I often train Aikido with Takeharu Noro who is the youngest son of Masamichi Noro, who appointed him as his successor.

when I met him, first time, what struck me was the power he could produce (althoug he trained ki no michi for five or six years at that time, but 30 hours per week with his father), he told me that it was based on the connections in his body, created by ki no michi training.

The power that Noro had is legendary, my teacher, Katsuaki Asai, told me he could defeat even Chiba Sensei in arm-wrestling (who before defeated Tohei) very easy.

Thanks for the responses, everyone.

IHTBF

Noro Aikido

Ki no Michi

Thanks, Ellis - I thought of you also when seeing some of the linkage from Noro -> Ehrenfried -> Feldenkrais. Interesting writeup and I will check the youtubes later after work.

Carsten Möllering wrote: During my very limited practice of Ki no michi I did not experience any of the aspects of heaven-earth-man [...]. Nor was it mentioned in the explanations..

From an interview with Masamichi Noro Sensei in the French Journal "Tao Yin" ( N° 3 de juillet 1997):

"Kinomichi® que l’on peut traduire par « Souffle du Tao » ou « Voie du Ki » représente la circulation de l’Energie entre le Ciel et la Terre. Le Ciel donne de l’Energie (Ki en japonais Qi ou Chi en chinois) à la Terre. La Terre reçoit cette énergie et, en échange, donne en retour de l’Energie au Ciel. L’Etre humain situé entre Terre et Ciel, se trouve au lieu idéal d’échange entre donner et recevoir."

"Kinomichi® , that could be translated as „Breath of Tao“ oder „Way of Ki“ , represents the circulation of energy between heaven and earth. The sky gives energy (ki in japanese, qi oder chi in chinese) to the earth. Earth receives this energy, and in return gives it back to the sky. Man is situated between heaven and earth, the ideal postion for the exchange of give and take".

Sounds like the floating bridge of heaven.

I found the name when I was looking at different texts that explain some of the internal strength fundamentals - the ki/qi of heaven, the ki/qi of man and the qi/ki of earth are often used as common story-based benchmarks that point back to the suite of skills aligning to internal strength. I was curious in the naming of Kinomichi as it's a pretty explicit call out to being the "way of ki" . . even more curious was the heaven/earth/man reference. Some of the methods of training ki/qi are often called out regarding how they align with some of the standard cosmological references - Ueshiba certainly did that.

So then I'm interested in whether Kinomichi reflects that in its training - certainly from the level of its founder, as that will influence the syllabus and inventory of the training methods and "ideal" of skills to model. Then there's the transmission portion etc. Anyways, no big deal, it's just interesting to me that when Tohei formed the Ki Society, a lot of the language that was used to teach the skills and principles (that I've seen) were generically modified to be more focused on what I'd describe as the "jin" (balancing forces, extending them and absorbing those generated by another) side of things.

The Kinomichi language seems a lot more aligned to the Chinese methods of describing these things (moreso than I've seen from Ki Society, caveat of course that I've by no means "seen it all"). Of course, getting specific about how Kinomichi trains each of the "elemental" aspects as it were (prescribed development of man to best utilize the heaven and earth components).

Markus, are you able to comment on any of those specific training aspects? (and thank you for the information thus far)

First I have to make clear that I don’t train kinomichi in the Noro System, but my teacher was strongly influenced by Masasmichi Noros practice. Several of his students went to Kinomichi Seminars, or went to Paris, to develop their Aikido through kinomichi training. We have preparatory training methods in our Aikido, that are based on, or influenced by konimichi movements.

As I see it, in the basic positions the body is aligned in a way that tension is created (opposing forces) along spiral connective lines, from the feet to the upper limbs, this tension is controlled by the center, that alows opening and closing along this lines.
From there you begin to move, and create a sphere in which the uprising force will come into effect.
I use this basic movements also for solo training, but how it effects another persion can only be experienced in partner training.
In movement there is always yin and yang, heaven and earth, one side of the body will open, the other will close, and so one.

Thanks, Markus - the lingo is certainly very consistent with some of the other internal strength development nomenclature.

Markus Rohde wrote: Sounds like the floating bridge of heaven.

I was comparing my experience of Ki no michi to three certain ways of practice which I named.

Carsten Möllering wrote: I was comparing my experience of Ki no michi to three certain ways of practice which I named.

Yes, I understood that you had a limited practice and experience.