Spill over

If a person has a relatively high degree of internal development, how would that kind of movement affect conditioning in a "non-internal/aiki" body?

What aspects of internals might spill over "accidentally?"
...Would any?

Matt, I'm not sure I follow.

Jason Casteel wrote: Matt, I'm not sure I follow.

I'm not sure I led. I've tried to ask this question before but it didn't seem very well formed then either...
I'm curious about the kinds of effects one might get simply by training with people who have a highly developed internal strength process. If O Sensei came up to you and started moving your body around, what, if anything, would be the result as it relates to having IS? I gather from past conversations that many people essentially don't know how they do what they do (w/re: to abilities with IS) and I'm wondering to what exent being able to do something you don't understand might come about simply from having large degrees of exposure to people who do.

How do IS/aiki bodies (highly developed) impact non-IS bodies (not developed) as it relates to making an "aiki body?" Do IS or proto-IS qualities get transmitted simply through interactions?
Another way of asking might be, "what can you get simply from being affected by an aiki body?"

Matthew Gano wrote: I'm not sure I led. I've tried to ask this question before but it didn't seem very well formed then either... I'm curious about the kinds of effects one might get simply by training with people who have a highly developed internal strength process. If O Sensei came up to you and started moving your body around, what, if anything, would be the result as it relates to having IS? I gather from past conversations that many people essentially don't know how they do what they do and I'm wondering to what exent this might come about simply from having large degrees of exposure to people who do. How do IS/aiki bodies (highly developed) impact non-IS bodies (not developed) as it relates to making an "aiki body?" Do IS or proto-IS qualities get transmitted simply through interactions?

Well I think that's how the people who got something from him actually got it. When you feel a certain quality from someone enough, it probably clues you in on replicating that quality in yourself, but as we see, that's not a particularly reliable way to get those skills and not a good one when it comes to passing that sliver along to other people. I don't think you can put any hard number on it, but experience tells us it's not much, IMO.

edit: The chinese arts don't seem any different BTW. IMO it takes feeling and good instruction to at least get a foot in the door where you can take more control of your training.

I am convinced my body understood something by continuously trying to adjust against the subtle attempts of my teacher to take my centre (by which he personally means something that occurs before visible movement). So my body had a some idea of "ground paths" and even an inkling of "stupid jin" before I once went to a seminar with Mike Sigman from whom I take that terminology.

OTOH, much like Jason I do not think its very efficient at all to practice that way, and I do not think it will lead to an "IS body". Well, maybe unless you are amazingly talented.

I think mostly not. I've practiced with students of teachers with high-level skills who seemed to have picked up very little from osmosis. Conversely, teachers I know who are successful in passing on skills generally have very explicit ways of describing what they're doing.

Daito-ryu as O-Sensei taught it through the 30's seems to have had explict practices to instill IP skills, solo exercises particularly. After the war, those same exercises seemed to have been treated like warm-ups, optional for aikido practice.

So I'd argue mostly no. If you want to learn them, they have to be taught.

In my perception, what one is learning is how to do things that the teacher is enacting within his own body and transmitting into his uke's body on contact. Uke's body is compelled to move in a mirror set of motions that are amplified versions of what has been created in nage's body, like cogs and gears on a locomotive. If uke is intuitively astute enough, over time and repeated exposure, he will be able to duplicate them.

So, teaching/learning can be by feel, with a minimum of verbal or systematic instruction. In some internal training traditions, some people learned their skills almost wordlessly, by sensation and feel, perhaps in some cases combined with a very cursory and simple set of physical instructions. I wouldn't call it osmosis, but a body intelligence that can sense and parse out complex sensations and positionings, and duplicate them.

However, I do believe that this is why, to learn aiki, one has to have repetitive experience with an adept and willing teacher, at a slow enough rate at first for the student to perceive and parse the sensations. In that respect, it "has to be taught." A person who does not want someone to learn aiki, will not provide the opportunity. They will demonstrate on you, using rapid applications you don't have time to fully sense out and parse where they're coming from, and how.