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Old 07-10-2007, 12:27 PM   #1351
Mike Sigman
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Re: Baseline skillset

Quote:
Cady Goldfield wrote: View Post
The model of the Nepalese child raised in America echoes my question and point -- that it is the daily exposure to such a physical task as load-bearing that forces individuals, perhaps by trial and error, to discover for themselves the ground path. Growing up in a culture where no such responsibility is present means not having the stimulus needed to make oneself learn. Again, necessity being the mother of invention.
I see your point, Cady, but I'd say that probably no Nepalese child gets a load thrown on them without the mother giving some directions or without other people serving as examples, and so forth. Same with your subway problem, although I'd admit that germy possibilities have forced me to invent innovative ways to use public restrooms, their door handles, and so forth.
Quote:
Someone had to be the first to discover "silk reeling" or winding. My hunch is that it came from some homely activity such as net hauling, or heavy skein-winding, and not from martial roots, but was later applied by some bright mind who saw the usefulness. Maybe they were able to break down the process into excercises that could be orally transmitted. But my guess is that for the other uses of these body mechanics, the discovery was an intuitive one, again, spurred by the -need- to use the body in an efficient way to accomplish a specific task.

It is an interesting question, and one I've been pondering lately.
Hmmmmm.... maybe. I just don't have any idea beyond the speculative probability that both jin and qi development help me so much in chores, that I feel almost absolutely sure that they're labor-assisting devices from long ago. Some of the developments (such as reeling silk) *may* have been labor-related or they just may have been logical tangents to the original skills. Too far back in time to do anything but guess.

Best.

Mike
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Old 07-10-2007, 12:34 PM   #1352
Mike Sigman
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Re: Baseline skillset

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Ricky Wood wrote: View Post
I'm tracking with Cady here. I saw an episode on "Dirty Jobs" where they were filming the crew on a lobster boat. Mike Rowe did his thing for a bit and soon realized how inept he was, stepped off to the side and let the boys work. They were brothers I believe but it was pure poetry in motion. Every movement was synchronized and no movement wasted. I mentioned before in this thread how we farm boys learned to toss very heavy bales about, almost effortlessly. We were never "taught" these skills. We acquired them through repetition of movement and self correction. Interestingly, the value of these skills were not realized until after a few days of complete and total exhaustion from trying to muscle hay bales around. Once our bodies were completely worn out we would learn the body skills required to make our movements more efficient. Hell, I remember a guy with a steel rod in his back, who because he couldn't bend over, utilized a pitchfork to throw bales of hay high in the air. If you haven't tried handling a bale of hay with a pitchfork, you should try it sometime. I also remember a friend's father, who had lost an arm in a hunting accident, perform absolutely amazing feats. Who taught them how to do those things? The unique skills acquired were largley self taught.
I agree that someone can develop a certain skill out of necessity, Ricky. My input would be that not everyone can develop every skill and there's always that innovative, trick discovery that only a few can make.

The helpful thing about a place like China, which is the longest extant agrarian culture, is that once something good has been discovered, it will get passed down and improved upon by many succeeding generation. So a rare discovery is kept by the value of tradition (although I think that the ki and jin things were perhaps Indian discoveries, not Chinese).

I notice that when I carry loads, like for instance flagstones for the patio I'm building, I just trigger my ki strength (of course jin/kokyu is there, too) almost automatically and it strikes me that long ago someone discovered this same thing..... and the ONLY reason I know it is because his discovery got passed down for many generations. I would never have even known where to look nor would I have imagined it, so I don't think it's one that just anyone is going to stumble into.

Best.

Mike
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Old 07-10-2007, 12:44 PM   #1353
Cady Goldfield
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Re: Baseline skillset

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Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
I notice that when I carry loads, like for instance flagstones for the patio I'm building, I just trigger my ki strength (of course jin/kokyu is there, too) almost automatically and it strikes me that long ago someone discovered this same thing..... and the ONLY reason I know it is because his discovery got passed down for many generations. I would never have even known where to look nor would I have imagined it, so I don't think it's one that just anyone is going to stumble into.
But, Mike, have you been carrying flagstones since you were a child in Nepal? Seriously, this is my posit -- people in labor-intensive cultures use their bodies in ways that post-industrial peoples have rarely, if ever, done. An occasional hardscape project in your yard is not akin to daily tasks over a lifetime. Girls start load-bearing when they are 6 years old, in countries such as Nepal (although it's hard to tell how old a child by looking at them in such a place...the lack of nourishment can stunt grown, and a 12-year-old can look like an 8-year-old). I saw unsupervised children carrying loads up steep mountain trails, for long distances (deforestation forces villagers to walk farther for firewood, and outside of the valley areas in Kathmandu and Pokhara, trails to and from villages are all up-and-down, for miles. Often, the girls would be carrying an infant sibling in a sling, too!

One thing I observed, is that occasionally an elder woman would add sticks to the child's load. I don't know whether they were just seeing how much they could pack on to save another trip, or whether they were testing to see how much more the child could carry. Probably the former, but you never know.

Your trip to Home Despot was likely in a pickup truck, and your engagement with flagstones, brief. But if you had grown up in Kenya, carrying water jugs on your head for 5 miles to and from the river, maybe you would have had to discover the "skills" for yourself.

It would be interesting to research as to whether village elderwomen have a codified oral teaching tradition for load-bearing, or whether they start their daughters with small containers and let them gradually teach themselves with increasing loads.

Last edited by Cady Goldfield : 07-10-2007 at 12:57 PM.
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Old 07-10-2007, 12:47 PM   #1354
David Orange
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Re: Baseline skillset

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Cady Goldfield wrote: View Post
Someone had to be the first to discover "silk reeling" or winding. My hunch is that it came from some homely activity such as net hauling, or heavy skein-winding, and not from martial roots, but was later applied by some bright mind who saw the usefulness.
Cady,

How about maybe it came from reeling silk?

It's been a huge industry in China for centuries. Doesn't it make more sense that when a master says to move "as if you're drawing out a silk thread" that his many references really are to silk manipulation than that it's a wholly "invented" activity that just happens to be exactly what's best for working with silk?

And compare that with your example of the lobstermen doing heavy work. in my experience, some of the toughest people to deal with are physical laborers who use power tools and have to learn to survive those dangers. It's easy to let a power tool pull your hand into a blade or a gear if you don't develop the kinesthetic sense and reflexes to know you're being pulled off balance and let go before it's too late. And that can be a milisecond. People with that kind of strength and responsiveness, taught an art like aikido, can be very powerful.

But while self-taught strongmen can accomplish great tasks with their coordinated whole-body usage, they might find it difficult to move as subtly as needed to draw out a thread of silk from a cocoon. That's the kind of thing Feldenkrais helps: people are used to doing big, heavy stuff, but Feldenkrais makes them work on a very tiny, subtle level. That's why I think it's highly applicable to internal mechanics. Like silk reeling, it helps you see more subtle interactions in the body. And it may make it possible to peform even better at the big, heavy stuff.

David

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

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Old 07-10-2007, 12:57 PM   #1355
Mike Sigman
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Re: Baseline skillset

Quote:
Cady Goldfield wrote: View Post
But, Mike, have you been carrying flagstones since you were a child in Nepal?
They only let me carry the water for many years, so I'll have to say, "no".
Quote:
Seriously, this is my posit -- people in labor-intensive cultures use their bodies in ways that post-industrial peoples have rarely, if ever, done.
Regardless, not all labor-assisting tricks are equally obvious, Cady. Some people discover better tricks than other ones. Obviously the ki/qi and kokyu/jin tricks are not obvious because there's many a hard-working farmer or dedicated martial artist who hasn't a clue. So this one (well, the ki one, at least.... a lot of jin stuff is fairly common among Asian farmers in certain areas). Notice that various solutions to the ki/qi stuff were found sporadically in China, India, etc., and there was a great seal of secrecy about not telling people.... if these things were so easily discoverable by hard-working others, that wouldn't be the case, would it?

Best.

Mike
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Old 07-10-2007, 01:05 PM   #1356
Cady Goldfield
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Re: Baseline skillset

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Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
They only let me carry the water for many years, so I'll have to say, "no".
Liar! Boys do exactly "SQUAT" in Nepal. They play while their sisters work. They even get carried around by their sisters while the girls are also hauling firewood and water. Go play with you flagstones now.

Quote:
Rgardless, not all labor-assisting tricks are equally obvious, Cady. Some people discover better tricks than other ones. Obviously the ki/qi and kokyu/jin tricks are not obvious because there's many a hard-working farmer or dedicated martial artist who hasn't a clue. So this one (well, the ki one, at least.... a lot of jin stuff is fairly common among Asian farmers in certain areas). Notice that various solutions to the ki/qi stuff were found sporadically in China, India, etc., and there was a great seal of secrecy about not telling people.... if these things were so easily discoverable by hard-working others, that wouldn't be the case, would it?

Best.

Mike
I think the "great seal of secrecy" was more likely to be employed when a particular body skill had a direct martial or "magical" (as in, doing a public demo of "supernatural" skills for the purpose of advertising and selling potions, healing sessions or whatever) use. The everyday skills that people perhaps intuitively developed to carry loads, haul nets and wind big skeins of silk, etc., may have been pretty mainstream, but their possessors never put two-and-two together to associate those skills with any activity other than the one they'd wired themselves for. Average Joe fisherman, compared to someone with a spark of genius who saw the other possibilities.
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Old 07-10-2007, 01:15 PM   #1357
Mike Sigman
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Re: Baseline skillset

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Cady Goldfield wrote: View Post
Liar! Boys do exactly "SQUAT" in Nepal. They play while their sisters work. They even get carried around by their sisters while the girls are also hauling firewood and water. Go play with you flagstones now.
Omigod! Is Nepal the only country where the correct laws of Nature are diligently observed?!?! That is the way it should be, Cady. You may not appreciate the demands on the human body, but as much work as we men do having to sire children, we deserve a rest whenever we can get it.
Quote:
I think the "great seal of secrecy" was more likely to be employed when a particular body skill had a direct martial or "magical" (as in, doing a public demo of "supernatural" skills for the purpose of advertising and selling potions, healing sessions or whatever) use. The everyday skills that people perhaps intuitively developed to carry loads, haul nets and wind big skeins of silk, etc., may have been pretty mainstream, but their possessors never put two-and-two together to associate those skills with any activity other than the one they'd wired themselves for. Average Joe fisherman, compared to someone with a spark of genius who saw the other possibilities.
Well, I'm just saying that these skills don't arise when you need them. They have to be trained in every case I've heard of, so the discovery was not something that happens very much. Besides, if you look at how 99% of the literature about qi/jin is from apparently the same ancient sources, that's an indicator that it was a great and almost singular occurrence.

Best.

Mike
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Old 07-10-2007, 01:18 PM   #1358
Mike Sigman
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Re: Baseline skillset

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David Orange wrote: View Post
How about maybe it came from reeling silk?
Actually, I'm quite sure that it came from silk-reeling toddlers after they'd been Feldenkraised. Or something like that. Hmmmmm.

"Silk reeling" describes what a caterpillar's body looks like as it lays out the thread on the inside of a coccoon. Picture the worm body turning and twisting as the spinneret lays out the silk. It looks like an arm doing a silk-reeling exercise.

FWIW

Mike
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Old 07-10-2007, 01:21 PM   #1359
Cady Goldfield
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But doesn't it just seem weird that that team of Belgian anthropologists simply couldn't figure out how Nepalese porters and African women carried those heavy loads? (reference to a NY Times article on the topic)? Something that was mainstream wiring for the people doing the tasks on a daily basis, was beyond the ken of individuals from a culture where they likely spent their lives using their intellectual skills more than their bodies.

You'd think they'd have the good sense to have a translator ask how they were doing it. It would be interesting to hear any responses.

Just sayin'.

Last edited by Cady Goldfield : 07-10-2007 at 01:33 PM.
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Old 07-10-2007, 01:59 PM   #1360
Thomas Campbell
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Re: Baseline skillset

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Cady Goldfield wrote: View Post
[snip](reference to a NY Times article on the topic)? [snip]
To wit:

The New York Times June 17, 2005

Why the sherpas of Nepal would leave our fittest soldiers standing
By Mark Henderson, Science Correspondent

NEPALESE mountain porters who climb steep Himalayan slopes carrying more than their bodyweight are the fittest and most efficient load-lifters in the world, scientists have found.
Their combination of technique and physical ability makes their performance far more effective than that of Western soldiers marching with backpacks, according to research. It even surpasses the most efficient carrying methods studied to date: those of African women whose loads are balanced on or suspended from the head.

A study by Belgian researchers has quantified the remarkable efficiency of Nepal's porters, most of whom come from the sherpa, Rai or Tamang ethnic groups, for the first time. They carry huge loads in a basket known as doko, which is supported with a strap looping around the top of the head.

A team led by Norman Heglund of the Catholic University of Louvain, in Brussels, conducted tests on eight porters travelling to a bazaar in the town of Namche, which lies 3,500m (11,500ft) above sea level close to Mount Everest.

The dirt-track route from the Kathmandu Valley to Namche covers 62 miles (100km), with combined ascents of about 8,000m and descents of about 6,300m, and takes seasoned porters between seven and nine days to complete. Hundreds of porters make the trek every week; on the day before the bazaar, the scientists counted 545 men and 97 women, along with 32 yaks, with many more passing earlier and later in the darkness. The youngest porter was 11 and the oldest 68.

All were carrying loads that seemed unfeasibly heavy to Western observers. The men bore an average of 93 per cent of their bodyweight and the women an average of 66 per cent. A fifth of the men were carrying 125 per cent of their bodyweight and one managed an astonishing 183 per cent.

By contrast, the greatest loads carried by African women, such as those of the Kikuyu tribe in Kenya, amount to 60 per cent of bodyweight, and the loads typically included in military backpacks are lower still.

Dr Heglund, whose results are published today in the journal Science, recruited eight of the porters for further investigation, which has shed some light on the nature of their amazing skills. The porters were asked to walk along a 51m flat track at five different speeds, carrying six or seven different loads, while their oxygen intake and carbon dioxide output was measured.

The tests revealed that loads of up to 20 per cent of bodyweight were carried "for free" — meaning that the porters' metabolic rate did not increase at all compared with an unladen walk. With higher proportional loads, their energy efficiency was far greater than seen with the most efficient head-based carrying techniques used in Africa.

Previous research comparing Kikuyu women with army recruits found that the former carried heavy loads much more efficiently. For loads of 20 per cent of bodyweight, Kikuyu oxygen consumption rose 2 per cent compared with 13 per cent for the soldiers. The difference was even greater for 70 per cent loads: the soldiers used 100 per cent more oxygen, but the women only 50 per cent more. The porters did even better. While they were not subjected to quite the same tests, they were able to carry an extra 30 per cent of bodyweight, on average, while maintaining the same metabolic rate.

Their secret seems to rest on three factors. The first is physiology: the combination of a short but powerful stature and a high red blood cell count evolved as a result of living at high altitude. Also critical is their carrying technique, by which a strap around the head bears the majority of the load. The final element seems to be the regular rests that they take during their climbs.

TAKING THE STRAIN

SHERPA

Technique: doko basket on the back supported by namlo strap around head

Load and efficiency: male porters carry average of 93 per cent of bodyweight, females 66 per cent. Maximum was 183 per cent. Can carry 100 per cent of bodyweight for same energy used by an African woman carrying 70 per cent

AFRICAN WOMEN

Technique: loads balanced on the head or suspended from it using straps. The most efficient method, used by the Kenyan Kikuyu, uses bindings across the forehead to support a load on the back

Load and efficiency: Loads do not generally exceed 60 per cent of bodyweight

SOLDIER

Technique: backpack with shoulder and waist straps

Load and efficiency: US Army guidelines say that a backpack should weigh no more than 15 per cent of a soldier's weight. A 70 per cent load raises oxygen consumption 100 per cent

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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Old 07-10-2007, 02:09 PM   #1361
Cady Goldfield
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Re: Baseline skillset

Thanks, Tom. Their "hypotheses" of short stature, high red blood cell count (what about the low-altitude Kikuyu, who have far fewer red blood cells than high-altitude Sherpa, and who also are tall and slender?), and "regular rests" are just silly. Little girls and old women were blowing past me on mountain paths, and they had twice the burden I was carrying! They weren't taking frequent rests.

Then these researchers vaguely mention "technique" and the tump line that crosses the forehead -- but they have no clue as to what that "technique" might be. Instead of researching that deeply to see what's being done and what's going on in the load-bearers' bodies, they drop the ball. That is the first thing they should have been analyzing and studying.

Flawed scientific process from start to end.

Last edited by Cady Goldfield : 07-10-2007 at 02:12 PM.
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Old 07-10-2007, 02:14 PM   #1362
Mike Sigman
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Re: Baseline skillset

Quote:
Cady Goldfield wrote: View Post
But doesn't it just seem weird that that team of Belgian anthropologists simply couldn't figure out how Nepalese porters and African women carried those heavy loads? (reference to a NY Times article on the topic)? Something that was mainstream wiring for the people doing the tasks on a daily basis, was beyond the ken of individuals from a culture where they likely spent their lives using their intellectual skills more than their bodies.

You'd think they'd have the good sense to have a translator ask how they were doing it. It would be interesting to hear any responses.

Just sayin'.
Well just what makes a "Belgian Anthropologist" any different than the average educated individual on an Aikido forum but who has never experienced these skills and who assumes that they certainly know everything any primitive farmer knows.

Note, BTW, that despite your implication that male children did "squat", someone apparently raised them little boys to carry heavier loads than their sisters.

Mike
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Old 07-10-2007, 02:17 PM   #1363
Mike Sigman
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Re: Baseline skillset

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Cady Goldfield wrote: View Post
Little girls and old women were blowing past me on mountain paths, and they had twice the burden I was carrying!
Satan, get thee behind me!!!!!
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Old 07-10-2007, 02:21 PM   #1364
Cady Goldfield
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Re: Baseline skillset

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Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
Note, BTW, that despite your implication that male children did "squat", someone apparently raised them little boys to carry heavier loads than their sisters.
Note, BTW, that the porterage done by men from Sherpa, Garung and other ethnicities in Nepal are -paying- jobs. Boys who want to earn money, start apprenticing in their early teens. Girls and women are expected to haul loads from age 6, on, for no pay, as part of daily housework. They don't have a choice.
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Old 07-10-2007, 02:35 PM   #1365
Mike Sigman
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Re: Baseline skillset

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Cady Goldfield wrote: View Post
Note, BTW, that the porterage done by men from Sherpa, Garung and other ethnicities in Nepal are -paying- jobs. Boys who want to earn money, start apprenticing in their early teens. Girls and women are expected to haul loads from age 6, on, for no pay, as part of daily housework. They don't have a choice.
Well, your argument seems to be that men go to work to earn money and women stay home and do the housework but they don't get paid directly. Both genders apparently work, unless you're positing that Nepalese men don't work. I'm not sure what the beef is other than it's a male-dominated society. Life isn't perfect, I s'pose, but generally the least inefficient systems in a given environment fail and the most efficient (not perfect) come out on top. C'est la vie.

Mike
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Old 07-10-2007, 02:47 PM   #1366
Cady Goldfield
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Re: Baseline skillset

Not a beef, Mike, just repartee.
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Old 07-10-2007, 03:09 PM   #1367
David Orange
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Re: Baseline skillset

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Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
"Silk reeling" describes what a caterpillar's body looks like as it lays out the thread on the inside of a coccoon. Picture the worm body turning and twisting as the spinneret lays out the silk. It looks like an arm doing a silk-reeling exercise.
Then why don't they call it "spinning silk?"

And isn't it odd that the movement looks just like someone turning a silk reel, which actually "reels" silk?

Maybe there's a reason for that.

David

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Lao Tzu

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Old 07-10-2007, 03:14 PM   #1368
David Orange
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Re: Baseline skillset

Well, there's your answer, right there:

Quote:
Thomas Campbell wrote: View Post
Also critical is their carrying technique, by which a strap around the head bears the majority of the load.
The porters themselves bear very little weight since the strap bears the majority of the load.

Now if I only had a strap like that....



David

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Lao Tzu

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Old 07-10-2007, 03:17 PM   #1369
David Orange
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Re: Baseline skillset

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Cady Goldfield wrote: View Post
Little girls and old women were blowing past me on mountain paths...
I've heard that the old ladies who bring snacks and drinks up to the rest stations on Mt. Fuji are like that. Hikers think they're doing something big, carrying maybe a sleeping bag, while the old ladies are carrying boxes of food and stuff, blowing them off the trails!

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

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Old 07-10-2007, 03:21 PM   #1370
Thomas Campbell
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Re: Baseline skillset

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Cady Goldfield wrote: View Post
[snip]
Then these researchers vaguely mention "technique" and the tump line that crosses the forehead -- but they have no clue as to what that "technique" might be. [snip]
Having been to Nepal myself and made a careful study of the load-bearing issue (I couldn't afford a porter), I noted that the primary training technique appears to be hoisting a basketful of chorten stones on one's back, securing it with a tump-line over the forehead, then doing Daito-ryu shikkos without losing one's balance or the basket on the back.

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Old 07-10-2007, 03:24 PM   #1371
Mike Sigman
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Re: Baseline skillset

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David Orange wrote: View Post
Then why don't they call it "spinning silk?"

And isn't it odd that the movement looks just like someone turning a silk reel, which actually "reels" silk?

Maybe there's a reason for that.
They don't call it "reeling silk". They don't call it "spinning silk". They don't call it "winding silk". Those are just translations that people have picked for "chansi", which is what they call it. You're not the first person to base a theory (and often teach) on a loose English translation and I doubt you'll be the last.

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Mike Sigman
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Old 07-10-2007, 03:41 PM   #1372
Cady Goldfield
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Re: Baseline skillset

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Well, there's your answer, right there:

The porters themselves bear very little weight since the strap bears the majority of the load.

Now if I only had a strap like that....



David
Yesindeedido.
You'd think the researchers had forgotten that the strap is connected to something (the person), which in turn is connected to something (the ground), and that even a Magic Tumpline can't suspend itself in the air, free from the pull of gravity. Oy.
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Old 07-10-2007, 03:49 PM   #1373
David Orange
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Mike Sigman wrote: View Post
You're not the first person to base a theory (and often teach) on a loose English translation and I doubt you'll be the last.
Probably not. And you may not be the last to make your own loose translations between Chinese and Japanese.....

So what's a better translation for the term?

David

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

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Old 07-10-2007, 03:50 PM   #1374
David Orange
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Cady Goldfield wrote: View Post
Yesindeedido.
You'd think the researchers had forgotten that the strap is connected to something (the person), which in turn is connected to something (the ground), and that even a Magic Tumpline can't suspend itself in the air, free from the pull of gravity. Oy.
No, I'm thinking it's probably made from the same stuff as those ropes they charm out of the basket, then climb to the top of and disappear. We don't give magic enough credit in this society. I would really like to get one of those dang straps!

David

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

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Old 07-10-2007, 04:38 PM   #1375
statisticool
Join Date: Apr 2006
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Re: Baseline skillset

Quote:
Hunter Lonsberry wrote: View Post
I would be happy to show you some of the aunkai exercises (in a completly non-confrontational manner, I have a couple people who practice them with me twice a week in Fairfax and are all very friendly guys who aren't out to prove anything),
Thanks for the offer, but we've been down that road before. I'm frankly still wondering why lunges and turning the body suddenly becomes axis training and 'internal' strength and when it is Japanese or Chinese natural suddenly people don't know about it except for a select few.

A secret of internal strength?:
"Let your weight from the crotch area BE in his hands."
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