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Old 10-13-2010, 01:12 PM   #1
MM
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3 Videos from Chen Zhonghua

Interesting to watch. Doesn't cover a lot of explanation, but two of them are previews of a DVD. I have the book Chen Style Training Methods and it was worth getting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWrVKrSn67U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sB9W6wxtbY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=035Y9LPH-VU
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Old 10-13-2010, 01:47 PM   #2
Howard Popkin
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Re: 3 Videos from Chen Zhonghua

wow,

very interesting
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Old 10-13-2010, 04:51 PM   #3
Erick Mead
 
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Re: 3 Videos from Chen Zhonghua

Two words:

Torsional shear

Zero shear is maximally stable -- maximal shear is irresistibly destructive.

Here.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
一隻狗可久里馬房但他也不是馬的.
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Old 10-13-2010, 05:40 PM   #4
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Re: 3 Videos from Chen Zhonghua

Quote:
Erick Mead wrote: View Post
Two words:

Torsional shear

Zero shear is maximally stable -- maximal shear is irresistibly destructive.

Here.
Really interesting reading. Thank you Eric.

And thanks to Mark for the videos of course
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Old 10-13-2010, 11:29 PM   #5
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Re: 3 Videos from Chen Zhonghua

Nice clips.
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Old 10-14-2010, 08:55 AM   #6
Thomas Campbell
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Re: 3 Videos from Chen Zhonghua

Quote:
Erick Mead wrote: View Post
Two words:

Torsional shear

Zero shear is maximally stable -- maximal shear is irresistibly destructive.

Here.
Shear madness.

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Old 10-14-2010, 02:02 PM   #7
Howard Popkin
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Re: 3 Videos from Chen Zhonghua

Eric,

I just have to ask. With whom did you train ? Did you study something other than Aikido ?

With whom ?

Just curious where you get all this info.

Thanks ,

Howard
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Old 10-15-2010, 08:57 AM   #8
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Re: 3 Videos from Chen Zhonghua

Some highlights to view.

From the middle vid I had originally posted
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sB9W6wxtbY

Watch from 0:16 to 0:26.

Notice the guy's elbow that's directly in front of everything. Notice how it doesn't move up to about 0:21. Then, when Chen Zhonghua actually does internal skills, notice how the guy's arm moves from 0:22-0:24. It spirals upwards. Yet, did Chen Zhonghua move? Look at Chen Zhonghua's left elbow and how it doesn't show an outward, physical spiral movement like his partner does.

Watch 0:59-1:01. Notice that even with pressure from his partner, Chen Zhonghua isn't affected in any way as he kicks. Watch his upper body as he kicks.

5:20 to 5:35, notice the connection he makes from his right arm to his left leg. Not right arm to right leg, but across the body.
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Old 10-15-2010, 03:41 PM   #9
Erick Mead
 
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Straight Face Re: 3 Videos from Chen Zhonghua

Quote:
Mark Murray wrote: View Post
Some highlights to view.

From the middle vid I had originally posted
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sB9W6wxtbY

Watch from 0:16 to 0:26.

Notice the guy's elbow that's directly in front of everything. Notice how it doesn't move up to about 0:21. Then, when Chen Zhonghua actually does internal skills, notice how the guy's arm moves from 0:22-0:24. It spirals upwards. Yet, did Chen Zhonghua move? Zhonghua's left elbow and how it doesn't show an outward, physical spiral movement like his partner does
Yes, he moves but in a more subtle way. Observe his wrist AND arm. Chen's whole arm sinks slightly like a suspended cable -- as his wrist turns. The wrist turns because an internal torsional stress was developed in the arm, which makes it turn to afford release of the stress. The whole arm sinks because the release of that torsion into the opponent was lengthening the whole arm, like paying out more of hanging rope.

The simultaneous turning and lengthening betrays the torsional shear action -- it is a 3-axis torque-free gyration -- the receiver cannot isolate any plane to resist them linearly, as no applied lever can be perceived without a generating torque. It is torque-free because the action is generated by releasing an existing developed torque (moment) into the continuous connection into the opponent's body rather than creating a "active" torque or lever in one plane to apply to the opponent's body (i.e.-- cranking).

Elsewhere he showed the same thing in his demonstration of his forearm against the opponents chest with the sliding-turning-extension action (sliding=shearing) (turning = torsion) -- and he shows the basic gyrating shear as it preserves inherent stability n his example of the water bottle -- which is sliding without shifting (shearing) by rotating (torsion) against the surface of the floor.

Quote:
Watch 0:59-1:01. Notice that even with pressure from his partner, Chen Zhonghua isn't affected in any way as he kicks. Watch his upper body as he kicks.
The kick is not at the time mark noted. So I cannot address it.

But please note at 1:20-1:28 in the form displayed in particular the change of the hand position in the dynmaic -- in extension it is either palm up or palm down and in retraction the reverse. ( one can extend palm up or palm down but the retraction proper to each mode is always inverse). This shows the action is driven by the longitudinal torsion action of the body/limb acting together along the torsional shear stress lines, which results in contradictory (or more properly, complementary) stresses in different lines It is plainly not by isolated push-pull joint leverage in a fixed plane. In the move of the kata just before the whole-body turn, the change from full extension to incipient retraction is seen in the automatic and loosely relaxed reversal of the hand position just before the turn.

It is not what the hand position DOES that is important but what it REVEALS about the nature of action going on throughout the body, and which the hand is merely expressing -- not actuating. Many forms-based approaches fall into the error of trying to imitate the evident result but missing the cause that makes that form simply natural or unavoidable -- which is the true point of forms.

Quote:
5:20 to 5:35, notice the connection he makes from his right arm to his left leg. Not right arm to right leg, but across the body.
Yes. Like this -- the classical depiction of torsional stress lines on a cylinder -- compression on one spiral line gyrating around the cylinder surface, and tensile stress gyrating along the perpendicular spiral line (Juuji) -- connecting the top-left extremity to bottom-right and vice versa: The ribs and intercostals are disposed with angles appropriate to these stresses, you may note.

http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/attach...9&d=1215185239

Last edited by Erick Mead : 10-15-2010 at 03:48 PM.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
一隻狗可久里馬房但他也不是馬的.
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Old 10-15-2010, 09:46 PM   #10
Erick Mead
 
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Re: 3 Videos from Chen Zhonghua

Quote:
Howard Popkin wrote: View Post
Eric,

I just have to ask. With whom did you train ? Did you study something other than Aikido ?

With whom ?

Just curious where you get all this info.

Thanks ,

Howard
Howard. How are you? The Gulf is recovered, red snapper are in season and bill-fish are unaffected. Your invitation stands, BTW.

As to my background it is, to say the least, ad hoc. FWIW, as far as the citation in the linked article is concerned, I have never trained a bit of taiji or other CMA. He and I just arrived at the same physical facts from different roads.

I have had the unintended benefit of exposure to many threads of Aikido in much knocking about. Good or bad, that's me. I had the benefit of having to piece all those varying approaches together in some semblance of common principle -- which, truth be told, Saotome's learning paradigm -- through Hooker -- fostered in me. The common aim that each approach sought from a different direction to the art seemed to make the whole target pattern (eventually) clearer for me. YMMV. I have learned as much teaching as from being taught, quite frankly, which I credit to Saotome's method of teaching the close observation of principles of action, which I did apply fairly consistently to my learning everywhere I went.

I started here in '84 with Dennis Hooker, then the Gainesville Aikikai club; The only non-aikido I have on tap is a semester UF class in kick-punch karate (some species of Shotokan, if I recall). Passable kicking is about all I got from it, as far as I know. My kicks are much different and far mo-betta now. Then the Navy took me home for flight training and I hooked up with Frank Calhoun for a bit since Hooker had gone south; off to San Diego with Bernice Tom and then to Hawaii with Donald Moriyama;; There was also a lot of solo work that I developed on my own during a couple of deployments -- with a lot of bosun's mates watching and laughing at me initially -- until I started the more energetic jo kata, at which point they just watched. Back to San Diego mostly with Bernice; some limited and intermittent but very insightful time with Parker Shihan (my only introduction to Shioda's approach) who was still in Yokosuka when I was traveling the pond to teach Navy classes several times a year, and then a fair stretch with Chiba depending on law school schedules alternating with Bernice. Then back here with Frank and crew since. Couple few seminars, along the way, more than once with Ikeda.

So, an amalgam of ASU, Iwama, Aikikai and a dash of Shotokan for spice, in order of relative influence, near as I judge. The only flavors of Aikido I have no serious observation and experience in are Ki-Society and Tomiki.

The past five years here on AikiWeb have been an intentional effort on my part to seek a sort of "intellectual yaburi" accepting challenge to more closely define, articulate, and refine in practice the things I was feeling, seeing and doing. I resorted to physiology and mechanics out of 1) need 2) familiarity from experience and 3) desire for a bridge between very effective martial systems of similar "feel" or "flavor" but with (often intentionally) arcane systems of vocabulary, with no easy points of common reference between each other or ours. I have no "doctrine" nor have received any in regard to what you see here, nor any desire to create one. If I got to some place where I stopped progressing, stopped being able to explore new goals loosely seen on my horizon, or did not have means to reach it steadily, maybe I would feel the need to "get out" and meet people as many have advised me, kindly or less kindly. But that has yet to happen. It ain't broke ...I ain't fixin' it.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
一隻狗可久里馬房但他也不是馬的.
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Old 10-18-2010, 01:28 PM   #11
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Re: 3 Videos from Chen Zhonghua

Quote:
Erick Mead wrote: View Post
Yes, he moves but in a more subtle way. Observe his wrist AND arm. Chen's whole arm sinks slightly like a suspended cable -- as his wrist turns. The wrist turns because an internal torsional stress was developed in the arm, which makes it turn to afford release of the stress.
The jujutsu route of Chen's wrist doing the turning ... sure, that *could* happen.

Course, there's also internal spirals causing the partner's arm to physically coil like a spiral (don't forget upwards), which then because of following, Chen allows his wrist to not resist but go with the partner's physical movement. Leading yet following. Stillness in motion and motion in stillness. In this case, Chen follows the partners' physical movements until their power is quantitatively dissected to such a point that he can simply remove his finger from their power-less grip. If you really watch the vid closely, you'll see that the partner's arm move like something is forcing it upwards, then a spiral motion kicks in, and only then does Chen's wrist turn.

Of course, Chen's arm is moving backwards/down. He did say he was going to pull his fingers out of the partners' grips ... without muscle. Kind of natural to do that movement to "pull" your fingers out of that kind of grip in that set up of a situation.

Quote:
Erick Mead wrote: View Post
The kick is not at the time mark noted. So I cannot address it.
Sorry you can't see it. Maybe if you download the video and play it slower? Watch from 0:59-1:00 as the video transitions to a new setup. Watch at 1:00 as Chen's left leg kicks his opponent's left leg. Look closely how his opponent has his body weight on Chen yet Chen's posture never wavers through 1:01.

Please don't address this issue on my behalf. I only posted this to correct some things for the greater community.
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Old 10-19-2010, 09:29 PM   #12
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Re: 3 Videos from Chen Zhonghua

Quote:
Mark Murray wrote: View Post
The jujutsu route of Chen's wrist doing the turning ... sure, that *could* happen.
No. The wrist turned -- it is not doing the turning, hence NOT jujutsu --
effect, not cause.
Quote:
Mark Murray wrote: View Post
Course, there's also internal spirals causing the partner's arm to physically coil like a spiral (don't forget upwards), which then because of following, Chen allows his wrist to not resist but go with the partner's physical movement. Leading yet following. Stillness in motion and motion in stillness.
Now just name that spiral complement mechanically. Look at the classic torsion shear stress diagram in a column in the figure provided before. If you can see it -- I swear it will help you . If you can't, it won't and so stick to some other method that you can see.

Quote:
Mark Murray wrote: View Post
Sorry you can't see it. Maybe if you download the video and play it slower? Watch from 0:59-1:00 as the video transitions to a new setup. Watch at 1:00 as Chen's left leg kicks his opponent's left leg. Look closely how his opponent has his body weight on Chen yet Chen's posture never wavers through 1:01.
His foot never leaves the ground. I see a sweep, but I would not call it a kick -- Potayto-potahto. Good posture regardless, I agree. He is showing an application of the principle of movement he has them practicing (poorly) in the first one at 2:18-3:00. His movement in your "kick" example shows the whole body torsion and hows easily it both projects and retracts stably, whereas they mostly practice what he is trying to show in the portion just noted with (typical) push-pull mechanics. He is at some pains to correct that with the guy in the yellow shirt -- and which they seem to grasp only partly. The yellow shirt guy seems to get it and changes to more of a "cut" dynamic, which is right -- the guy in the blue Italia sweats does not. None of them manage to get that same dynamic in the lower body consitently -- mainly cause they are trying too hard to DO something rather than driving it and letting it happen-- like with trying to DO something with the wrist rather than driving core action of a nature that body and the wrist (and opponent) move in connection as a consequence.
Quote:
Mark Murray wrote: View Post
Please don't address this issue on my behalf. I only posted this to correct some things for the greater community.
Which things do you mean to correct?

Last edited by Erick Mead : 10-19-2010 at 09:40 PM.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
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Old 10-20-2010, 01:49 PM   #13
Howard Popkin
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Re: 3 Videos from Chen Zhonghua

Thanks for the clarification Erick. Best wishes.

Howard
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Old 10-21-2010, 04:54 AM   #14
Albert Simonson
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Re: 3 Videos from Chen Zhonghua

A lot of this is coming from his shoulders. There has been much talk and focus on the hips but little on how to use, strengthen, and gain proper alignment of the shoulders.
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