The Ura of Kiai

ROTFLMAO (in a most soft, centered way, I assure you).

James Huang wrote: Hello fellow pinoy, My post may have confused you as I am in absolute agreement with Dan. He has described many phenomena which confirm that he is also a follower of the soft, healthy, and internal methods, just like me. I believe you, however, are a follower of the path of a more Shaolin-based, muscular, tension-based, commericialized, one-side weighted method... which incidentally is not good for your back health and cannot be used to wield long weapons like the naginata, which is a disadvantage since you never know when you'll need to wield a naginata. However, since the man that espouses this method was able to defeat Tatsuo Kimura (a great exponent of the aiki path who sometimes did 10,000 shiko a day) in spite of only practicing his method only 30 minutes a day while making a living selling alarms, I have respect for this man, and thus, you, as well. - James

Lol this is great. For a troll, this is entertaining, nothing like Buck, anyhow.

Who ever it is they are obviously breaking the rules and posting under a false registration...oh well

They are hilarious. It is a well versed humor with surgical precision. Obviously, he is attempting to make a point. One only hopes it is cathartic for him/her.
Dan

Dan Harden wrote: Who ever it is they are obviously breaking the rules and posting under a false registration...oh well They are hilarious. It is a well versed humor with surgical precision. Obviously, he is attempting to make a point. One only hopes it is cathartic for him/her. Dan

I like the guy - at least we can use him as an archive for all the aiki points made over the years - wait, maybe James is not human at all - maybe we can just call him HAL.....

Hi,

I just got bombarded with e-mails assuming James Huang must be my alter - ego.

Sorry, there's only room in my head for one, but I do appreciate Mr Huang's sense of humor.

Toby Threadgill

Toby Threadgill wrote: Sorry, there's only room in my head for one, ...

Reminds me of the old poem:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
I'm schizophrenic
and so am I.



Mike

Toby Threadgill wrote: Hi, I just got bombarded with e-mails assuming James Huang must be my alter - ego. Sorry, there's only room in my head for one, but I do appreciate Mr Huang's sense of humor. Toby Threadgill

I didn't think it was you. Mike, maybe. Didn't think it was you.

David

Toby Threadgill wrote: Hi, I just got bombarded with e-mails assuming James Huang must be my alter - ego. Toby Threadgill

That's interesting to know
Dan

Mike Sigman wrote: Reminds me of the old poem: Roses are red, Violets are blue, I'm schizophrenic and so am I.

I didn't really think it was you, either.

But I did.

David

I think James is the avatar of Sokaku Takeda sent to earth to enlighten us with the true meaning of Aiki

David Orange wrote: ...For empty-hand, knife or sword, kiai means crossing the gap and blasting through the opponent, knocking him down or impaling him on the sword. So how could aiki be the ura of that? I conceived that it would be not crossing the gap or putting your power into the opponent, but holding your ground immovably and letting him run into your sword (or fist) with his kiai attack, so that all his own power (not your power) goes back into him.

This bit from Alan Featherstone's thread on "The Realms of Possibilities" sounds exactly like what I mean:

Alan Featherstone wrote: Dong Haichuan (Baguazhang) Dong stretched out his right arm and said, "Attack me!" Yin punched like lighting, but the moment that his arm made contact with Dong's, his punch was deflected and Dong's right hand followed with a thrust to Yin's mouth which knocked out his front teeth. The tobacco pouch was still gently nestled in Dong's left hand where it had been at the onset of the action.

That perfectly expresses what I intuited. Not that I can do it, but that I've recognized it.

Of course, this view of the ura of kiai would not comprise all elements of either aiki or kiai, but this is what I thought of.

Also, Mochizuki Sensei specified something like, "If you're walking along and an attacker suddenly emerges in front of you, if you shrink back from him, that's not aiki. If it's aiki, you surge right into the attack. Aiki attacks the attack."

So there's lots of ways to defenestrate a flying squirrel....

FWIW.

David

Hi David,
That phrase, "The Ura of Kia", which you've mentioned before…
Well..I don't know what this is; but a vague unformed idea at this point; .. maybe something someone can connect to.
ok:
… you know; when you do a Kiai? -- the energy ‘in you' moves or is sent. Whether it is breath-pressure (i.e. a shout; or silent kia) or whatever.
I was thinking here of the effect, or backside, of that energy, again, ‘in you', . Again; the ‘backside' or ‘effect' of creating the kiai effort: in you. (i.e. like the moment of distinguishing/separation of the yin from the yang)
Here; was thinking that the character of the ‘ura' side is that it sinks and that it is the foundation for the ‘sent energy'. The backside that connects the circuit into a whole.
And a vague thought of (which I think may connect to your idea); no longer using *your own kiai* but rather allowing the opponent to offer their kiai; and then you providing the ‘support', or ura side of it.
So in your example; stabilizing yourself internally using the ‘ura of your kiai'.
How: by separating yin from yang in yourself; connecting to uke; and balancing the equation the way you see fit.

Ok. Now I'm just going in circles. I'm not even sure I just said anything meaningful.
Just some mouth sounds..
josh

Josh Phillipson wrote: Hi David, That phrase, "The Ura of Kia", which you've mentioned before… Well..I don't know what this is; but a vague unformed idea at this point; .. maybe something someone can connect to. ok: … you know; when you do a Kiai? -- the energy ‘in you' moves or is sent. Whether it is breath-pressure (i.e. a shout; or silent kia) or whatever. I was thinking here of the effect, or backside, of that energy, again, ‘in you', . Again; the ‘backside' or ‘effect' of creating the kiai effort: in you. (i.e. like the moment of distinguishing/separation of the yin from the yang) Here; was thinking that the character of the ‘ura' side is that it sinks and that it is the foundation for the ‘sent energy'. The backside that connects the circuit into a whole. And a vague thought of (which I think may connect to your idea); no longer using *your own kiai* but rather allowing the opponent to offer their kiai; and then you providing the ‘support', or ura side of it. So in your example; stabilizing yourself internally using the ‘ura of your kiai'. How: by separating yin from yang in yourself; connecting to uke; and balancing the equation the way you see fit. Ok. Now I'm just going in circles. I'm not even sure I just said anything meaningful. Just some mouth sounds.. josh

In some ways to me it seems like a duality, but in other ways it seems like the two are overlapping. It sometimes feels like if there's such a thing as kiai (not the ura), then that's what I feel like I've been learning from my teacher. I'm no Japanese speaker, so I make no definitive claims about what is or is not kiai. I'll use Ark for a point of comparison because it seems relevant...

I remember when I went to a seminar with Ark, and he was showing standing - maho - and he must have come around to me about 3 times correcting me just to get my elbows straighter. I have some sort of joint defect that prevents my elbows from fully straightening, so I remember that point in the seminar vividly. Even shiko or tenchijin, the emphasis seemed being fully extended on the axes.

Whereas when I work with my teacher, it's like the total opposite: the body always seeks full extension, but never gets there, it's an asymptote likened to generative death. Or as he put it, "When fully extended, the body can not exert power", and he was talking about the point of impact even, not the movement that got you there. When I was later talking with him about the shoulder and elbow joint, he had mentioned that it makes more sense to keep these joints more in the strongest extremes (fully extended or bent at the sides) when applying sustained force. The idea of being extended vs. extending.

It seems like these drills start large in space, and then move in, to where the game is all in your head, whereas what I was learning, I started small, non-movement, and then am gradually struggling to be larger and extend movement in space, and to quoth the teacher, "Don't get stuck in your head. Keep the focus on the real thing outside you."

Even the paired drills seemed fairly opposite. With Ark on the push-out drills and other likewise stuff I was lucky enough to see, you were taking in force smoothly and trying to put it into the partner smoothly, the whole affair being extended in time. Whereas when I was practicing partnered drills with my teacher, it was more: you explode into the weakness in their structure, during contact okay, on contact better, before contact best, and if there is no weakness, you find the ideal place to make one and put one there by your impact.

Whereas the overlap seems like in the idea of being extended vs. extending and the control of the body you need to develop to do them. At least for that moment of contact (but leaving Chuck Norris out of this), you are either the immovable object and they bounce off you, or you are the unstoppable force and they feel hit by something that disappears before they realize why they're shaken, but either way there is a solid structure in the body between a stable support like the ground and the thing acting on you.

It seems sorta reductive to where you might think there's only one thing you train to get one, and one thing you train oppositely to get the opposite. But it more seems like each one is subdivided into a lot of stuff that one needs to work on, with the end goals being more synthesized from all that than an individual thing. The duality is probably just an artifact of looking at the expression, and not necessarily all the skills that create it.