Why do you perceive "internal" superior to athleticism?

I totally agree with Chris on all points/arguments. I don't see why everyone keeps attacking Chris like they do. Its good to think about things in a different way. So keep rocking the boat Chris!

Daniel Lloyd wrote: I totally agree with Chris on all points/arguments. I don't see why everyone keeps attacking Chris like they do. Its good to think about things in a different way. So keep rocking the boat Chris!

chris isn't the first one who had rocked the boat. there were many others who had done the same and had argued endlessly about what they knew and believed. they had went and got some hand-on and changed their mind.

you know years ago when we didn't have youtube or facebook or many others electronic communication means. on the words of some folks, we would hop on buses, train, planes and what not, to travel for hundreds of miles to attend seminars in hope to find some interesting things to learn. now a day, we seemed to be less willing to travel across the street to do the same.

Daniel Lloyd wrote: I totally agree with Chris on all points/arguments. I don't see why everyone keeps attacking Chris like they do. Its good to think about things in a different way. So keep rocking the boat Chris!

Don't know. Seems to me more like somebody jumping up and down to rock a supertanker while the crew is trying to persuade them to come to the bar and have a cold beer...
Of course, different crew member try different approaches.

Phi Truong wrote: you know years ago when we didn't have youtube or facebook or many others electronic communication means. on the words of some folks, we would hop on buses, train, planes and what not, to travel for hundreds of miles to attend seminars in hope to find some interesting things to learn. now a day, we seemed to be less willing to travel across the street to do the same.

Great point. Either you are interested in finding out, then you go and find out. Or you are not, but then why spend bandwidth, or wait for the perfect descriptive language to appear.

I really dont see why anybody should get involved with the IS paradigm if they dont want to. I, for one, find it benefitial, it makes a lot of sense to me and is fun, but whatever rocks your boat. Also, I am just a hopeless athlete.

Daniel Lloyd wrote: I totally agree with Chris on all points/arguments. I don't see why everyone keeps attacking Chris like they do. Its good to think about things in a different way. So keep rocking the boat Chris!

With comments like "stage Magic" and "tricks," "elusive , mysterious... must be felt" thing "quit trying to claim that Aikido is missing something without the guidance of your ilk?"
I think the one attacking ...is...Chris.

You might want to consider this.
Rip off the band aid and really look at the talking points and some pretty strong opinions come to light in Chris's argument. Take a cold look at what Chris is really saying'
That basically the hundreds of people who got up and went...are so gullible and ignorant that they were able to be fooled by parlor tricks and magic (even though they uniformly state it is a mental physical conditioning process).
That any ol athlete can do what they were fooled into thinking was different..Which implies that all of them are obviously not athletic and don't understand proper training (good grief has he meant some of the guys we have met at these clinics? ) so you could not tell the difference in your experience.
Now add in the athletes here who have got up to try this stuff out,that have and are training it and wrote in. They WERE dismissed.

Now, realize this now involves Shihan of different branches and so many 4th and 5th dans I lost count and some kid pretty much tells you that you don't know what you're talking about?
Now imagine you are several shihan who all talk to each other and are training this.

IMO, no one was dismissing or attacking Chris, they understand where he is coming from because to a man- they all felt that way too. Hell, I am one of the guys under the gun, and...I...am not dismissing him either, even with the implied insults. I get it because on any other day...I was Chris, it was exactly what I thought twenty years ago..
I mean that pretty much sums it up

What is really happening is that this movement to bring IP/aiki back into aikido is not only growing, it is reaching highly ranked people here and in Japan, one of whom is close to Doshu. Here is a quote from Doshu to that shihan/
"Yes I have heard, I can never do that stuff, if I did ...they...would kill me. I have to do the art the way my father did".

I can't help but to wish him well, In my view I am talking to myself twenty years ago,..
Dan

Daniel Lloyd wrote: I totally agree with Chris on all points/arguments. I don't see why everyone keeps attacking Chris like they do. Its good to think about things in a different way. So keep rocking the boat Chris!

Having an open mind and looking at "hype" with some disbelief is one thing. But, Chris isn't doing that.

Let me just summarize what we have so far *JUST* in this thread:

These people have said that athletics and IP are different: Katherine Derbyshire, Robert John, David Orange, Jonathan Wong, Hunter Lonsberry, Mike Sigman, Dan Harden, Lorel Latorilla, Lynn Seiser, Phi Truong, Josh Philipson, Greg Steckel, Jon Haas, Budd Yuhasz, Jason Casteel, Nicholas Eschenbruch, Brian Griffith, Mark Freeman, George S. Ledyard, Christopher Li, Stan Baker, Cady Goldfield, and Keith Larman.

This thread alone. Do you have any idea the training history some of the above people have? How much experience they have with top level aikido shihan? Who they have trained with outside aikido?

To put things even more in perspective, If we go outside this thread, we have other people that can be added to the above list. Some examples: Bill Gleason, Allen Beebe, Marc Abrams, Howard Popkin, and Ellis Amdur. If you include those outside of Aikiweb, the list gets a whole lot larger. If you include the students behind some of these teachers, the list is larger still.

Chris' response in a nutshell: I'm not going to believe personal experiences and testimony because it can be subjective. I find it an affront that these people are saying IP is aiki because you can learn aiki from any Aikido teacher. The problem is the manner in which Chris posted. IMO, there are no indications that Chris has an open mind. I've included all relevant posts below. Reread and see the continuing arc from Chris where he's already made up his mind and wants everyone else to change it on his terms. Not the definition of an open mind.

Chris Hein wrote: I personally have had the very fortunate experience of training with an expert in Chinese internal martial arts. Through my training with him, I learned that Chinese internal martial arts, were not magical, but just the most efficient ways one could use the human body. As I studied, I learned that I could do, at least on some level, all of the typical demonstrations of internal power. As my studies progressed I realized that modern athletic training covers most, if not all of what could be learned in the internal martial arts. However, here on Aikiweb there seems to be a notion that "internal" and athletics are very different things. That some how athletes cannot do the things that internal martial artists can do. I don't believe this to be the case. I believe modern athletics training actually teaches the core lessons of internal martial arts, but in a more dynamic and functional way. So I'd like to ask, what is the perceived difference, and assumed superiority of internal martial arts over good athletics training?

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Chris Hein wrote: Athletics teach you how to move smoothly and from your center. The modern study of athletic movement (as one would find in football, basket ball, track and field etc) teaches any of the things I can think of that are learned in "internal". The language is different but the lessons are the same. It's hard to go into anymore detail without further understanding your knowledge of sports training.

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Chris Hein wrote: Rob John, I find it strange that all the "internal people" who possess so much "internal power" are also athletes. Perhaps they are simply telling you that it's not athletics, but something else. Ark has more videos than any of the other internal people, he's also an ex gymnast and kickboxer (I'm sure he's done a few other athletic things as well). Strange that the more athletic they are, the more things they show. As far as using the elastic nature of the body, sports people discuss this all the time. The language is different but they are talking about the same thing. Athletics take less time to learn, are more clearly explained, more widely available, and demonstrate more effective ability. Why is "internal" different then athletics? What can an internal martial artist do that a good athlete cannot?

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Chris Hein wrote: First I would like to say, the only way to move the body is by using intent to move the ki. It's not mysterious, that's the way we move. Our brain decides it wants to move (intent) sends a signal to the muscles (ki) and we start moving. This is normal, it does not take special training, well it does take the instinctual training that babies undertake.

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Chris Hein wrote: Athletes can do everything on your list as well or better than any internal person. That is my opinion, yours is apparently contrary to that, how do we prove our points with something other than our own speculation? Other then saying, "they're just different" I didn't see any real answers.

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Chris Hein wrote: If you guys would simply say "I don't know, but I like doing this stuff" at least that would be honest.

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Chris Hein wrote: The problem with this is that all the lists presented are working under that assumption that what you think is happening is happening. It's circular reasoning. You won't question from outside of the belief that the stuff you are observing is happening the way you think it is. I am only questioning from outside of this belief, because I don't hold it. I can't have someone push me in the wall with all their force, and simply walk away from the wall. Nor have I ever seen anyone else do that. I can however think of several situations where this could be made possible. I don't know what you are seeing, if you show it to me, I can work with it, but words are not doing it. There is a standard point being made that I have to feel it to know it. I have in the past (although not yet in this thread) made the point that group think, mental suggestion, magic tricks and other means can be used to create these types of situations. Feeling it is not enough. You have to be able to objectively look at something physical. You must be able to step away from the emotions of the moment and see what is happening. However no one will put up anything concrete that can be looked at objectively. David Blaine can do all manner of amazing things, but we all know he is a trickster. The fact that none of the IP IS or whatever you want to call them guys want to put out video, they hold tightly controlled seminars, and otherwise seem mysterious and vague should make you question it, unless you're working on faith.

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Chris Hein wrote: First off, this comes from me, not my teacher. Second, the group of internal martial artists that is not the Aikiweb IP IS or whatever group is MUCH larger than this small group of internal. Most IMA would say Dan, Ark, Mike who? Your group is not that large, although you're working it, I'll give you that. I could probably find 50 people who think chickens can speak English. People from all over the world, different people who have never met. I could put them on a forum together and try to tell them that chickens can not in fact speak English. Those 50 people would act like I'm crazy, because they all believe it. Looking at this small group it would be easy for them to say, "Chris, everyone is telling you the same thing, why don't you listen, chickens can clearly speak English."

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Chris Hein wrote: I discount personal experience because it's subjective. In my head I might see dragons flying around, but that doesn't mean they are. Personal experience is a very real thing to you, but not necessarily to anyone else.

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Chris Hein wrote: There is this slow creeping idea, that Aiki, as it relates to Aikido is what you guys call IP, IS or what have you. I disagree with this strongly. I don't believe that IP is anything special, I've not seen or heard anything that would convince me to spend much of my time or energy on it. I do spend a lot of time on Aikido though, and I don't appreciate what I feel is the the hijacking of the word "Aiki". To have many here tell it, only Dan can do "Aiki" and everyone else is missing something. I do not buy it. Would I give Dan $300, get time off work, get a hotel, and travel many hours to do something I don't think is anything special, no. Will I take 10 minutes out of my day to make a video, yes.

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Chris Hein wrote: And again, if the opportunity arises I would go see some of these IP people that post so much here on Aikiweb. I'm not going to go way out of my way to do it, because I can't see anything in what they are doing that I don't understand. The real problem I'm having here, is the theft of the word "Aiki" from the Aikido community. There is a strong vibe that Aiki is what some people call IP, IS, or what have you. I believe this to be very wrong. I believe you can learn "Aiki" from any reasonably skilled, regular, Aikido teacher. "Aiki" is already built into the system, you don't need to spend a lot of money, or go way out of your way to see one of a handful of teachers in order to study "Aiki". The idea that only a few people possess this IP, and that you have to study with them personally to understand "Aiki", is a fallacy. This idea that IP is "Aiki" suggests that your Aikido is lacking if you don't study with one of these few teachers personally. I can't let that one go.

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Chris Hein wrote: Things like being shoved into a wall full force, and being able to walk away effortlessly sounds like an issue of moving heavy weight to me. Now it could be an issue of mental suggestion, hypnosis, or some other condition of the mind. Is this what you believe IP to be doing, using the mind of your attacker against him? If this is the case, than I'm more than interested in debating it.

Now for the relevant posts by the other people:

Katherine Derbyshire wrote: The internal power folks will tell you that the lessons aren't actually the same, that IP focuses on manipulating the structure of your own body, while athletes manipulate the outside world. They will also point out that internal strength continues to develop as people age, while athletic strength inevitably declines. I do think that the degree of body control that some athletes have (notably gymnasts, but others as well) is often underestimated by non-athletes, but I'm not aware of any athletic discipline that claims to produce the abilities that the IP folks claim to have. Studying the training of Chinese gymnasts and weightlifters might be interesting, as the Chinese seem fairly free of training dogma, and willing to consider any approach that works. Katherine

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Robert John wrote: I think I mentioned this before, but Ark was a competitive gymnast before he started developing these skills and conditioning. And he would be the first to say that gymnastics had no overlap training wise, and in fact impeded his ability to learn his current skill set. It's pretty cut and dry if you ask me, just go and check someone out already dude!

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David Orange wrote: Well, an athletic person (say, a fighter) will have good movement, etc., but he won't have developed the ability to use ki at the direction of the mind. Note that this ability without physical conditioning is in itself worthless. You don't "hit" someone with your ki: you hit them with your body. But if the body is conditioned to move and strike with mind/ki as the primary motivators (instead of primarily by muscular manipulation), the quality is different. Note again that this mainly applies to human-human interaction: not to things like pulling boats, though it will undoubtedly improve even that performance. For internal arts, a big part of the mix is how your mind/ki interacts with the opponent's mind/ki to influence his perceptions, feelings, intentions and therefore his actions. Much of the long-bouncing from an effortless old man comes about because the qualities of the movements in relation (and the feelings/perceptions in the mind/ki of the opponent) cause certain reactions in the attacker that lead him into worse and worse positions, where his efforts to correct himself actually help to propel him away. A well conditioned fighter can probably beat a poorly conditioned internal artist. Because the ki only works effectively in coordination with the muscles, bones, fascia, mind and breath. So an internal artist will get better results with better physical conditioning. But no amount of athletic conditioning affects the mind/ki development because most of it involves things that actually weaken or constrict the ki, as Rob explained that Ark's gymnastics actually hampered his ability to develop internal power. Ark also said that most people who get involved in Aunkai just drop weight training because they find that it works against them. Dan has said similar things. Hope that helps. David

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Jonathan Wong wrote: My answer: internal training teaches me to generate a different kind of force usage than I learned in normal life. I couldn't learn it from athletics, so that's why I see them as different. Of course it also could be because I am dumb, whereas if I was smart I could have learned this from athletics. Why is the new usage superior? Because it is teaching me aiki, which I failed to learn before. So it's all in whether or not you are happy with your training (if you are getting what you want, then who is anyone to tell/convince you that something is superior?).

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Hunter Lonsberry wrote: I think Rob gave a pretty good overview from a conditioning standpoint as to how the approaches differ, and how different schools/people might have mixes of internal/external. I certainly don't mind laying out some of the things typically associated with an internal approach that result in differences from good athletic training. I would be happy to do so in response to answering my question above.

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Mike Sigman wrote: It's a different usage of "athletics" though:

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Dan Harden wrote: Have any number of people gotten up and gone out and met folks teaching it and came away understanding it is different than what they had thought and what they had trained their whole lives...yup.. Dan

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Lorel Latorilla wrote: Chris, you win. We will never get to your level of athleticism in martial arts because we're doing sub-par athletics training.

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Lynn Seiser wrote: IMHO, it really isn't a question (or statement) that internal (subtle/energetic) is superior to athleticism (external/muscular). Truly they complement and supplement each other. Given the context, they each have their superiority in effectiveness. Training in both perhaps is the wisest choice.

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Phi Truong wrote: just want to point out a few things. modern athletics are just as specialize as IS folks. runner trains differently, than weight lifter, than gymnast, than high jumper, and so on. they are as specifics at IS training. training IS doesn't mean you don't need to train in term of athletic stuffs. folks who trained IS still run, but they do it with a slight different focus. they still lift weights but with a different approach. they still do other physical activity but with a different approach to it. when you only trained and get your info from one person, there is an element of faith involved. when you trained and get info from more than one person, then the faith part dropped severely. if folks have not realized by now, many of the IS folks that contributed on this forum and others, have encouraged folks to go and tried and learned with as many folks with different IS training approaches as they can.

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Josh Philipson wrote: JW and Rob John nailed it. /thread M2C The primary reason internal is better, in a MA setting, is that the way the body moves and carries itself is alien and confounds the way normal people move. even athletic normal people. Touch one; and you will know in an instant. It is different and words will not convey this understanding. Like the story of Tenryu touching Ueshiba's arm...and knowing in a split second he was undone.. Go see.

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Greg Steckel wrote: As Katherine, I have had on-hands with both Saotome and Ikeda on more than one occasion, and yes, they can both do as she said, BUT not like what I have felt from Dan or Howard Popkin (my Aikijujutsu teacher) - both Dan and Howard are light years ahead in the internals than those two pillars of Aikido, not that they are bad, they just don't feel the same in the sense that I am I totally controlled by them when I touch them - both Dan and Howard do. Greg

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Jon Haas wrote: Usually I just skim these threads, shake my head, and go back to training, but on this one I hope I might have a beneficial perspective to offer. Much of my study over the past 10 years has revolved around how to utilize exercise and conditioning to create the best budo-body. I studied sports science, Russian kettlebells, Russian Systema and ROSS, was a CST instructor under Scott Sonnon (circular strength training system) from 2004 to 2006, and also wrote a book on Warrior Fitness - conditioning for martial arts. I hope this establishes my knowledge base and belief in western exercise science and physical training. Also, to round out my background, I have been training in martial arts for almost 30 years, 22 of them in Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu. In 2008 while reading E-Budo, I discovered a thread by a guy named Dan Harden talking about conditioning a "budo-body" in a way I had never heard of before. When Dan announced his teacher seminar back in August of 2009, I jumped at the chance. I'm not going to re-review the seminar here, but suffice it to say I came away with concrete exercises, examples, and principles on which to work and put into my own personal practice. At the time, I had asked Dan about combining the solo exercises he taught with my regimen of kettlebells and other western conditioning methods. Here's his reply from the 2009 thread: Needless to say I followed his advice and gave up all other exercise and just concentrated on the solo work. The result after 6 months or so? People asking me - why are you so difficult to throw? Now, here's the comparison part. Around April last year I had the bright idea to start lifting kettlebells, clubbells, sandbags, and doing all sorts of high intensity conditioning workouts. The results? After several months, I looked great, was very healthy and conditioned and physically strong, but here's the rub - I FELT just like everyone else. Training partners that had been having trouble throwing me and locking me were able to do so again much easier than before. So, my little mind got to thinking - what is my goal here? Do I want to be strong and conditioned as an athlete OR strong and conditioned as a budoka? I chose Budoka and quit lifting and once again began doing the solo work that Dan teaches. I now train this stuff for at least an hour every day and will not look back. To me, the difference is clear. One last point. Internal is not superior to athleticism, it's a different methodology of training for a different result. As I said above, you need to decide your goal. It's not for everyone Hope that ramble helps.... Jon

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Budd Yuhasz wrote: Nice, Jon. That pretty much gels with my experience when I started working on "this stuff". You have to rewire the body to a degree, otherwise you'll just do things the way you always did them.

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Jason Casteel wrote: Chris, I'm a nub in this area skill wise, but I'm also trying to make a go of understanding what's going on in more simple terms, so I'll take a stab at it. This is a very basic description and by no means complete or all encompassing, but you asked for an example of what it can do that typical athletics/muscle can't and I think this fits that bill.

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Nicholas Eschenbruch wrote: Plus there are some great videos of Chinese IMA on youtube - but guess what, they won't convince the sceptics either, what a surprise! Because you cannot see how they do it, and because it does not look like MMA... It also keeps amusing me in these threads how "group think" is always the other party.

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Brian Griffith wrote: as for the original question...I'm still searching for the individual/s who went and got hands on time with someone with this ability and says they are full of it...haven't seen it yet. Brian Griffith

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Mark Freeman wrote: Nothing wrong with athleticism, nothing wrong with internal conditioning, they are both different though. just my couple of pennies worth to add to this little debate. regards, Mark

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George S. Ledyard wrote: The easiest way to answer is to look at the very paradigm you are describing. Athleticism declines over time. The first thing to go is speed. That's why virtually all athletic competitors in any area requiring speed are young. Then power goes. Almost every competitive sport which has folks engaging n competition throughout their lives have age divisions. It's true of fencing, golf, etc. anything in which the skills are based on athleticism.

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Christopher Li wrote: Well, IP isn't a magical force. In a sense, you're right, I think, in that it's all "athletics" in the end. On the other hand, IP training involves training and conditioning your body to move and function in a way that is isn't normally done in conventional athletics. Or that's the way it seems to me... Best, Chris

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Stan Baker wrote: Hi Chris There is a difference between explosive power from IP and what you perceive as relaxed power. It is not going to be resolved through discussion. stan

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Cady Goldfield wrote: What's the point of continuous talk that just goes nowhere? I agree with Stan. "Discussions" here will just keep going in circles unless and until you actually go and get some hands-on time with the people who are openly teaching and training IP. To a man (and woman), everyone on AikiWeb who has done this has come back to engage in enthusiastic conversation, comparing notes, asking questions and getting feedback. It's so much more productive than speaking from an uninformed position. Discovering that "it's different" can definitely force one to step outside his or her comfort zone, especially if it means having to re-think everything that one has held true, for years. But anyone willing to take that chance may well find that they will gain much more than they lose in that discovery.

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Keith Larman wrote: Well, I can't bow out yet since I never bowed in. So a passing post... I was recently talking with a friend of mine who has something like 30 years experience in aikido (outside of our group). He knew I had been to seminars by Threadgill, Harden and Sigman. And that I've been lucky enough to have met and trained a bit with students of Ark and Kuroda. Still working on meeting Popkin and Ushiro in person, but if finances allow... So he asked me about what was going on. So I tried to give him a bit of a run-down of the basic gist of the argument.

This is a long thread, and I am very interested. But having read just a few of the posts I feel as if I can just drop in a thought then read the rest from time to time during the day, the week, etc.

It may even be a question: You are there with your students, you look at them, you watch them, something comes to mind and you try it to see if it helps....

I only had a small YMCA dojo for a few years. Did I teach IP? I don't know, but I borrowed a few exercises. None of us had had a baby, so instead of that example from Terry Dobson and others, I changed it to "groceries" turning and protecting your center was the point of the exercise as I had understood it to be.

Another example was what I called "sheetrock" similar to the judo exercise of hanging off the gymnasium bars by your belt, I had people lean forward in a relaxed manner balancing against the partner's outstretched hands, I think it was, and then when "nage" moved the uke fell forward enough to require a step to keep balance.

I considered this an example of not using muscle strength to move uke.

I was never the athletic type but I am interested in how to remember if I was doing or teaching IP in my regular YMCA classes where I had one assistant from Shorinji Kenpo and his own assistant as it worked out from Rugby. They loved training with each other and were a good help to the newer students.

At the time, I thought karate was strictly linear, so I asked Larry why he was picking up on so many of the circular things. He said Shorinji Kenpo is Japanese people trying to do Chinese things.

I have another question, does Shorinji refer back to Shaolin?

Please tell me if my post fits this thread or maybe another one. I will read more of your posts in this one either way. Thanks so much.

Diana Frese wrote: This is a long thread, and I am very interested. But having read just a few of the posts I feel as if I can just drop in a thought then read the rest from time to time during the day, the week, etc. It may even be a question: You are there with your students, you look at them, you watch them, something comes to mind and you try it to see if it helps.... I only had a small YMCA dojo for a few years. Did I teach IP? I don't know, but I borrowed a few exercises. None of us had had a baby, so instead of that example from Terry Dobson and others, I changed it to "groceries" turning and protecting your center was the point of the exercise as I had understood it to be. Another example was what I called "sheetrock" similar to the judo exercise of hanging off the gymnasium bars by your belt, I had people lean forward in a relaxed manner balancing against the partner's outstretched hands, I think it was, and then when "nage" moved the uke fell forward enough to require a step to keep balance. I considered this an example of not using muscle strength to move uke. I was never the athletic type but I am interested in how to remember if I was doing or teaching IP in my regular YMCA classes where I had one assistant from Shorinji Kenpo and his own assistant as it worked out from Rugby. They loved training with each other and were a good help to the newer students. At the time, I thought karate was strictly linear, so I asked Larry why he was picking up on so many of the circular things. He said Shorinji Kenpo is Japanese people trying to do Chinese things. I have another question, does Shorinji refer back to Shaolin? Please tell me if my post fits this thread or maybe another one. I will read more of your posts in this one either way. Thanks so much.

"Shorinji" is the Japanese reading for "Shaolin Temple". The founder of Shorinji Kempo actually had a connection to Daito-ryu through Hakko-ryu.

FWIW, the examples above aren't really what I think of when I think of the IP that most people are talking about here. I think that we're talking about a much more fundamental change in the way that the body is used and conditioned.

Best,

Chris

I'm amazed that you guys have let yourselves get roped along this far.

Thanks for the historical reference.I have friends here who have studied types of Shaolin and I'm glad to know of the historical connection.

thanks also for the clarification I asked for based on the examples in my question, I'm certainly interested in reading more in this thread to learn more about how the body is used and conditioned .
That phrase tells me what I can learn about while reading further in this thread and I look forward to it.

Hello Diane
I teach a small group of people on Thursday nights in Wethersfield Ct. Mostly Aikido folks. Nice group and very small. Its free. If you want to join us and see what we are up to let me know. We're not hiding..nor are we exactly making money trying to help.
You bring your dancing shoes and I will bring my top hat and magic cape and do some parlor tricks!!
Then we can go to work!
Cheers
Dan

Jason Casteel wrote: I'm amazed that you guys have let yourselves get roped along this far.

I agree. Chris is intellectually dishonest and should not be engaged to the degree he's getting right now. I say ignore him until he touches hands with someone who claims to be doing something 'different'.

Lorel Latorilla wrote: I agree. Chris is intellectually dishonest and should not be engaged to the degree he's getting right now. I say ignore him until he touches hands with someone who claims to be doing something 'different'.

I think that's harsh. I think he is genuine in being convinced that people don't know the difference and for whatever reason, don't have the wherewithal to tell the difference in the first place. While I think that is a very tenuous argument, I think it is sincere.
I am not responding for Chris's sake but for readers who might feel the same or are confused or are unsure of the issues.
Cheers
Dan

Daniel Lloyd wrote: I totally agree with Chris on all points/arguments. I don't see why everyone keeps attacking Chris like they do. Its good to think about things in a different way. So keep rocking the boat Chris!

Hi Daniel,
There's always a range on the forums... For instance, Tony W and I often see things differently. I think we each wanted something different from our Aikido, I think we each think different teachers represent the kind of Aikido we have pursued our whole lives.

So whatever disagreements we might have, no matter how strongly held, are still, in the end, just opinions. Our discussions are a matter of personal preference and personal opinion. I see no need to "jump on him" to defend my own point of view. We might have a spirited back and forth on some areas but he is absolutely entitled to his "opinion".

However, there is a point at which one can simply be wrong. It might be your opinion or point of view but it can still be wrong. Especially when one is stubbornly holding on to that opinion or point of view in the face of overwhelming personal, hands on experience to the contrary, well that starts to get folks a bit testy.

If you added up the collective experience of the folks who have been posting about internal stuff here, it would be a truly staggering amount of experience. I'd be pretty sure that collectively, just counting the folks who have weighed in on the Internal skills being different than athletic skills, we might add up to 800 or 1000 years of martial arts experience. These folks are from different arts, they are not from any particular organization, in some cases they don't even like each other and fight all the time... yet on this topic, they are clear. From the newest newbie in internal training to the most experienced these folks are in agreement, which is really saying something as you almost never see this many people all on the same page.

So, there comes a point at which any single individual, when faced with so much information to the contrary, especially when that individual has zero direct experience with any of the folks we are talking about here, when anyone with the least open mind would say, maybe there's something going on I need to find out about. Perhaps with so much information coming from such collection of folks with such varied and lengthy experience, one should decide that maybe they could be mistaken in their opinion. At least until he or she can get more information to back that opinion up.

Not all opinions are equal. Some opinions are simply opinions on subjects that are truly subjective. And other opinions cross the line into being unfounded. When an opinion consists of a set of statements, not backed up by direct experience, which are made in direct opposition to statements which are backed up by personal experience, historical reference, etc. then you pretty much have crossed the line into unfounded.

It's like trying to have a conversation with my old born again college friend about evolution, which he firmly disbelieved in. You could ask him how all those dinosaur bones got in the earth and he'd say, "God put them there". You'd ask why, he'd reply "It's a mystery". You ask him about Carbon dating of remains, he'd simply say the "scientists are wrong". No amount of factual information could cause him to reconsider his viewpoint for a second.

That's why folks get testy and some simply bow out and others push even harder, making it seem like they are "jumping on" a particular person. When you happen to also agree with the person being jumped on, it may seem unfair. But it is also unfair to expect the vast majority of folks who have experience with the subject at hand to suspend what they know to be true to make folks with no direct experience of what is being discussed feel validated in their opinions. It is possible to simply be mistaken.

Sorry, there are so many posts to reply to, that I'll just have to make some blanket statements.

What is IP, I really haven't seen any answers about that. Rob suggested that it's some kind of body skill. Others have suggested similar things. If this is the case, if IP is a body skill, then it seems to me that it would be an athletic practice. If this is the case, why aren't sports teams all employing IP teachers. We saw from Hunters example that at least NFL teams are aware of these types of teachers, yet they choose not to employ them.

Others have suggested that IP is some kind of, for lack of a better word, impulse that goes into your opponent's neuromuscular system, or something similar, and disrupts it. Is this what IP is?

These two seem like different things to me. Which one is more like IP? I'm only asking because different people seem to give slightly different answers. Is it a physical body skill, or is it some kind of energy that you send into someone else's body?

Dan Harden wrote: Here is a quote from Doshu to that shihan/ "Yes I have heard, I can never do that stuff, if I did ...they...would kill me. I have to do the art the way my father did".

Ninjas... Damn.


A bit more seriously,

If in the last, let's say 50 years, thousands people all around the world have been buying an almost "empty" martial art as the real deal, why can't you guys & gals understand Chris concerns?

George S. Ledyard wrote: Not all opinions are equal. Some opinions are simply opinions on subjects that are truly subjective. And other opinions cross the line into being unfounded. When an opinion consists of a set of statements, not backed up by direct experience, which are made in direct opposition to statements which are backed up by personal experience, historical reference, etc. then you pretty much have crossed the line into unfounded. It's like trying to have a conversation with my old born again college friend about evolution, which he firmly disbelieved in. You could ask him how all those dinosaur bones got in the earth and he'd say, "God put them there". You'd ask why, he'd reply "It's a mystery". You ask him about Carbon dating of remains, he'd simply say the "scientists are wrong". No amount of factual information could cause him to reconsider his viewpoint for a second.

George,

That's why some people here are asking for a scientific approach to the IS/IT issue.

And it's not happenning. Why?

Demetrio Cereijo wrote: Ninjas... Damn. A bit more seriously, If in the last, let's say 50 years, thousands people all around the world have been buying an almost "empty" martial art as the real deal, why can't you guys & gals understand Chris concerns?

No point replacing an empty can with another empty can? I posted earlier that the OP is not fair; IP is done with the human body. It can be analyzed in terms of modern sports medicine.

If you say energy = kinetic energy , sure, if you say energy = mc2 I suppose you could say energy is being thrown around.

Forces are being passed around; Load , Pushes, Pulling. If there is any link to esoteric stuff it is not what is being discussed here.

George S. Ledyard wrote: If you added up the collective experience of the folks who have been posting about internal stuff here, it would be a truly staggering amount of experience. I'd be pretty sure that collectively, just counting the folks who have weighed in on the Internal skills being different than athletic skills, we might add up to 800 or 1000 years of martial arts experience. These folks are from different arts, they are not from any particular organization, in some cases they don't even like each other and fight all the time... yet on this topic, they are clear. From the newest newbie in internal training to the most experienced these folks are in agreement, which is really saying something as you almost never see this many people all on the same page.

George,
If you were to add up the experience of everyone in the world who doesn't do IP it would add up to a much larger number than 800-1000 years, and we don't know if those people agree or disagree. If you add up the years of training for the non IP community (which is larger then the IP community by far) their years of training are MUCH larger then 800-1000 years of training, and they don't agree, we know this because they don't practice IP at all. If you add up the number of training years of people in the IP community that don't agree with the small group found on Aikiweb, you again get a much larger number of training years. If it's a matter of how many people agree, than this group is way out numbered!

But we all know it's not a matter of numbers. It's not political. It is what it is. And we have yet to find out what it is, at least not yet in this discussion.

Chris Hein wrote: Sorry, there are so many posts to reply to, that I'll just have to make some blanket statements. What is IP, I really haven't seen any answers about that. Rob suggested that it's some kind of body skill. Others have suggested similar things. If this is the case, if IP is a body skill, then it seems to me that it would be an athletic practice. If this is the case, why aren't sports teams all employing IP teachers. We saw from Hunters example that at least NFL teams are aware of these types of teachers, yet they choose not to employ them. Others have suggested that IP is some kind of, for lack of a better word, impulse that goes into your opponent's neuromuscular system, or something similar, and disrupts it. Is this what IP is? These two seem like different things to me. Which one is more like IP? I'm only asking because different people seem to give slightly different answers. Is it a physical body skill, or is it some kind of energy that you send into someone else's body?

Why don't you try it? Then you can draw your own conclusions about what's going on.

NFL teams don't spend a lot of money on dance instructors, either. That doesn't mean dance isn't a valid practice. Different training for different goals.

In your posts, I see two very questionable assumptions: first, the assumption that all body skills are definable in athletic terms, and second, insistence on a bright line between "mental" and "physical" skills. IP challenges those assumptions, but so do lots of other examples from lots of other domains.

Olympic rifle competitors make their hearts "pause" at the instant they take the shot. Sounds like a body skill to me, but I can't imagine any way in which conventional athletic training would develop it. Meditation and breath training, however, might.

Katherine

Alfonso Adriasola wrote: No point replacing an empty can with another empty can? I posted earlier that the OP is not fair; IP is done with the human body. It can be analyzed in terms of modern sports medicine.

"It can be analyzed" doesn't mean "It is being/has been analyzed".

Can anyone provide citations of peer reviewed published studies? I'm all ears (read: eyes)

If there is any link to esoteric stuff it is not what is being discussed here.

Big can of worms.

Chris Hein wrote: What is IP, I really haven't seen any answers about that. Rob suggested that it's some kind of body skill. Others have suggested similar things. If this is the case, if IP is a body skill, then it seems to me that it would be an athletic practice. If this is the case, why aren't sports teams all employing IP teachers. We saw from Hunters example that at least NFL teams are aware of these types of teachers, yet they choose not to employ them.

i believed i wrote somewhere about at the beginning part of learn IP skills, you need to rewire your body where most of the stuffs you have done before won't work, at least for a year or two, depends on how much change you need. kinda hard to tell the NFL football team, multi-billions industry, that for a year or two, the other teams will plow through your defensive line like hot knife through butter. would you jumping on that band wagon? i wouldn't if i was the owner of such team.

the term i used is IS (internal skills), not IP (internal power). it's learned skills to mind manage body movement for efficiency, for long duration, against various constraints such as size, speed, age that common folks could do to enhance their performance vs genius such as Ueshiba, Kano, Funakoshi. there is nothing magical about this. these are skills that were kept secret for a long time, and still are. these skills can be trained once you understand the various parameters and so on. also helped with folks who know to give a helping hand.

Chris Hein wrote: George, If you were to add up the experience of everyone in the world who doesn't do IP it would add up to a much larger number than 800-1000 years, and we don't know if those people agree or disagree. If you add up the years of training for the non IP community (which is larger then the IP community by far) their years of training are MUCH larger then 800-1000 years of training, and they don't agree, we know this because they don't practice IP at all. If you add up the number of training years of people in the IP community that don't agree with the small group found on Aikiweb, you again get a much larger number of training years. If it's a matter of how many people agree, than this group is way out numbered! But we all know it's not a matter of numbers. It's not political. It is what it is. And we have yet to find out what it is, at least not yet in this discussion.

Chris, This isn't what I am saying... Of course, on any given topic one can always find superior numbers on the side of the folks who have no knowledge of the subject. We can completely ignore, for the purposes of these discussions, that group of folks who have no opinion whatever because they haven't even heard the term internal skills. We can also discount the opinions of those martial artists who haven't heard of the topic and have no opinion. In fact, the vast majority of people have no opinion and can currently be discounted. I am only interested in talking about the very small, relatively speaking, community of folks who have expressed any opinion at all on the subject.

What we are talking about here is the community of folks who do have knowledge and experience with the topic at hand. Most folks who don't know, know they don't and simply do not express an opinion. So we don't need to consider them. So what we have is a very small group of folks, currently represented by you as point man, but I am sure you are not alone, who have expressed a viewpoint on a topic, with no direct experience of what the folks represented here do, that a very large number of people with direct experience of the subject differ with completely.

I cannot see at this point how any further argument or explanation would shift your viewpoint. The next step is to get some direct experience with one of the folks who we have been talking about. You can choose not to do some and that would be fine. Or you can choose to do so. At that point I think we can resume discussion. I am definitely interested in talking to someone who, after experiencing for themselves what the internal skills teachers are putting out there, still thinks they are standard athletic skills and not a paradigm shift in how one uses his or her body.

Demetrio Cereijo wrote: George, That's why some people here are asking for a scientific approach to the IS/IT issue. And it's not happenning. Why?

Yeah, it is.

Take the Modern Aikido world and think of all of them in a room.

Then take the IP/aiki people and put them in a room.

The Modern Aikido room is the control. The base. It's all the same in regards to comparisons to the IP/aiki room.

Now, slowly take subjects from the control room and add them to the IP/aiki room. Allow saturation. Remove subjects and report results.

The results? 100% of subjects state that what the IP/aiki people are doing is *not* what Modern Aikido people are doing. It is *different*.

I don't think you can get any closer to a scientific approach than that in this field/study/area of IP/aiki.

this topic is a big can of worms.

A great place to start is on the physical plane. For example; Balance is a body-mind skill. Because mind is employed you can veer off into the largest can of worms you could possibly conceive; so let's leave aside the mind games a bit.

One aspect I think people are glossing over is that largely the interactions and examples used in this discussion involved having the "Internal guy" doing feats on the "Non-internal guy" . In my opinion the superiority comes from being able to do unexpected things that mess up your Non-Internal map of what's happening. That's a good advantage in a fight.

Mark Murray wrote: Yeah, it is. ... I don't think you can get any closer to a scientific approach than that in this field/study/area of IP/aiki.

OMG!!!