JEM618

Like I said, Ueshiba put it best: Rely not on the brush (written word) or mouth (oral explaination) for understanding the technique. Attain enlightenment through practice. To see what I am up against, please choose the most difficult technique or form you have ever learned and then type it out, a set of instructions, if you will, so that when I read it, I will be able to understand the instructions and perform the technique exactly as it should be done, with out actually seeing any pictures, or video clips, or 'live instruction'. With nothing in my hand but your set of instructions, would you feel confidant that I would be able to read the instructions, practice by myself without any feed back and then perform the technique exactly to your expectations? Just imagine reading a set of instructions for passing the guard to a side mount position, or how to apply jujikatame from the mount. So difficult, explaining how person ‘A’ is positioned and how ‘B’ is positioned, which hand is on which side, what the next move is, what moves happen simultaneously, what to do if a variable is introduced, etc. Here I am trying to explain a principal or concept, something that is to be applied to a technique to enhance its effectiveness. Although it’s difficult to explain a principal or concept, I think it’s even harder to understand it or figure out how to apply it. It was and still is. If we could all understand principals and techniques, we’d all be math wizards, right. When you study any level of math, you lean simple stuff – addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, etc. Then you apply those to solve problems – actually learning addition, subtraction, multiplication, division is not the goal, it’s to understand the concept or principle and apply it; when your at the store, do I have enough money to but these things (addition), balancing your checkbook (subtraction), how much is a years worth of lessons? (multiplication), we are going to split the bill at the restaurant (division). I higher levels of math, many of the concepts are abstract, and although they can be described mathematically, the take a much higher level of abstraction, not only to understand, but to apply as well; a much higher level than, ‘You have five apples and you give Tom two apples. How many apples do you have left?’ What you are asking me to do is more like explaining the formula for hydroplaning based on vehicle weight, speed, tread pattern, and water depth. And give you a formula that will accurately predict at what speed and at what point a vehicle will lose tread contact with the pavement based on all the variables. Possible, I assure you, but not as easy as the ‘take away two apple’ scenario.

I am here to discuss ‘ki’ (Japanese) not Qi (Chinese) It seems to me that you try to define Ki 1. as the sum of all physics that incorporate what our bodies can do 2. as a special energy that permeates the body 3. as an energy that connects all living things to each other I’d say it’s a combination for all of those to some extent. It’s funny, isn’t it, even though I gave you the watered down translation, and the literal translation, it’s still confusing. Relax is simple and straight forward. Not trying to be difficult, but some level of confusion always exists here when explaining the concept to Japanese and westerners. It seems most people's idea of relax completely is to be something like cooked spaghetti. Now, my heart is not below my navel, what does "keep one point" really mean? 心 doesn’t mean your heart in physical terms, it means your heart in terms of your mind's intention. Keeping centered or balanced, both physically and mentally. Actually, we could say number 1 is closer to how you define number 3. #3 simply tells me to keep a low center of gravity. Not quite, a low center of gravity is different than 'keep weight underside'. ３．身体の総ての部分の重みを、その最下部におく。 The weight for all parts of your body should be at the lowest part of each. As I mentioned before, there are 15 ‘ki’ exercises; the one that demonstrates this principal is 上がらない手、(agaranai-te) or the ‘unraiseable arm (Since ‘unraiseable’ is not proper English, let’s call it the arm that cannot be raised [easily]). This is performed in a similar fashion as the ‘unbendable arm’. The arm is extended and from the under side of the arm, your partner tries to raise your arm. If you flex your muscles, or try to meet your partner’s upward push with a downward push, eventually he will overpower you raising your arm. It’s simple he standing on the ground pushing up, you are standing on the ground pushing down; eventually his leverage will overcome your strength. Now, if you that same ‘dynamic tension’ you use in the ‘unbendable arm’ ‘keep weight underside’, that being the weight of your arm, he will have a much harder time raising you arm. (Again, if he tries hard enough, he’ll be able to raise it, agreed. But, that’s not the point. The point is for you to notice the difference between the two, that being tense, rigid, static, and trying to match strength to strength is not as effective or practical as remaining ‘fluid’ or using ‘dynamic tension’ for control. Later you can try to apply those principals to your techniques. #4 loses me. Sorry. Well, Ueshiba put it best: Rely not on the brush (written word) or mouth (oral explaination) for understanding the technique. Attain enlightenment through practice.

But I wouldn't call it 'flexing' because 'flexing' requires the opposite muscle group to relax. E.g., if you flex your bicep completely, your tricep must relax completely. However, you can flex both at at varying degrees that equal 100%. Again, I wouldn't call it a 'trick' as much as I'd call it a concept or principal. And, as I've mentioned before the word 'ki' or concept of it was around long before the western terms 'body mechanics', static, dynamic, etc. How does this help you improve your skill? Well that's for another day but something I'd be happy to discuss. But for now, I’ll leave you with this: Throughout the years, Tohei Sensei has maintained his focus on spreading the study and practice of the four basic principles of ki: （This is the English translation.） Ken, I assure you, reading this myself, in English, it’s hard to understand. Four major principals of ‘ki’ 1. Keep one point. 2. Relax completely. 3. Keep weight underside. 4. Extend ki. Lost in the translation! These are the same four points in Japanese, just by comparing the English and Japanese, even if you can read Japanese, you can see something is missing… Below each line, I’ve tried to write the literal meaning – it will sound really strange, but that is the point… 心身統一の四大原則 １．臍下の一点に心をしずめ統一する。 Below your navel, in the center of your body, relax your heart. ２．全身の力を完全に抜く。 Completely remove all the power from your body. ３．身体の総ての部分の重みを、その最下部におく。 The weight for all parts of your body should be at the lowest part of each. ４．氣を出す。 Extend your ‘ki’. (I’m not gonna even touch ‘ki’, but I got the following off the net.) Ki is a Japanese word which is written with a Chinese character so there is a Chinese meaning and a Japanese meaning of the word Ki which are very different which creates much confusion. Of course for the Chinese meaning -I suppose that the Chinese pronounce it as Qi or something like that-you better ask the Chinese people, but since I am Japanese I prefer to use the word Ki in the Japanese way. So in the Japanese meaning Ki is something which is unclear, something that cannot be defined. In daily life it means something like feeling, sentiment or emotions or ideas which are not yet clear but will become clear later. Or some motivation, etc, etc. That is why to understand Ki is very important in the sense that it is a process of understanding one's own life and understanding ourselves. You are fortunate, show your mom the Japanese and ask her to compare it to the English; I’m sure she'll laugh at the brevity of the English compared to the Japanese. Also, and this has nothing to do with your moms English, I’m sure shell have trouble explaining what the Japanese means in simple English. It’s just not simple. Cheers

分かるよ! Your name being Ken, is that short for Kenneth or was it chosen because ‘Ken’ is a popular Japanese boy’s name? Both read ‘Ken’ 健 = healthy、賢 = smart

Explained, again, to the best of my ability below. Comment below. I am not judging you posts, I told you to take the 'Expert Self Test'. If you did, and you found that NONE of your posts fell into any of the four categories, that's fine with me. Well Ken, I agree, that exercise, albeit the easiest of all the ‘ki’ training / testing exercises, was difficult for me to grasp. When I first started to train at my dojo (incase you haven’t noticed, I live in Japan), my Japanese was limited to; ‘Good morning’, ‘My name is…’ ‘Thank you’, and ‘Have a nice day’. Imagine my frustration when my sensei demonstrated it, then asked me to do it, and when I couldn’t, tried to explain it for about five minutes in Japanese. The end of his explanation was tagged with three words in English, ‘OK, you do’. The only way to ‘get it right’ is to keep playing around with it until you can ‘feel it’. I have used the term or expression ‘fluid tension’ to describe the feeling. Perhaps dynamic tension would be easier to understand? I really don’t know, after all, how could I explain dynamic tension? Anyway, the simplest explanation that seems to work nearly 100% of the time is this: If you recall the previous explanation, the exercise is done in two parts; first it’s done with the arm extended, fist clenched and muscles tensed. This shows that when the muscles in the arm are locked in a static position, with equal force applied to them, the arm will bend. Now, with the ‘unbendable arm’ the arm is extended the hand remains open and the muscles are held in a state of ‘fluid’ or ‘dynamic’ tension. Here is where the confusion lies; when told to relax the arm, most people relax too much, and the arm bends quite easily. But what you’re really trying to do is find muscle tension that lies somewhere between a totally flexed or ‘static’ state and a relaxed or ‘fluid, dynamic’ state. I know this sounds ‘warm and fuzzy’ but try to imagine: In the first part your arm is like an iron bar that will bend with appropriate force applied. In the second part, imagine your arm is like a fire hose, water under heavy pressure is streaming from the end of the hose, i.e., your finger tips. The pressure of the water is so great, that the water travels from the tip of the hose away from you as far as you can see. I’m sure that at some point in your life, you have seen that it sometimes takes two grown men to handle a three inch hose coming off of a pump truck at a fire. Moreover, if you were to try stopping the flow of water coming from that hose by bending it, it would not be an easy task. (Yes, it’s possible – I’ve been out washing my car and when I’ve wanted to take the nozzle off the hose, I just kink the hose and unscrew it, then let the water flow again (40 psi). I’m talking about a 3 inch hose with an average nozzle pressure upwards of 250 psi – Just a guess, maybe some firemen can help on this one) You will notice that I have called it an EXERCISE not a TECHNIQUE. It’s simply used to demonstrate a concept. It’s rather sad that this forum goes round and round on this one ‘unbendable arm’ topic, as there are fourteen other ‘ki’ development exercises that could be discussed. That’s right, FOURTEEN more! I imagine that ‘unbendable arm’ gets so much attention because it’s the first one we learn and tends to be the easiest to do or teach others. No, it’s not a technique, I would never imagine using as one, but I would defiantly use the concept it teaches us. No, I don’t wish you would go away, not at all, without resistance there is no growth. I just wish you would bring more to the discussion than what you have so far. After telling you at least ten times ‘ki’ is not worthy of the ‘Randi challenge’ you continue to post that we should take the challenge, which is rather silly. Your position is static and arguments stale. I appreciate you trying. Have a nice day!

I just made a statement, I’m not passing judgment. And really, what do you care what I think? Try this: ‘Expert Self Test’ Click on your profile Click on view all posts Count all the redundant posts, i.e., the same information, opinion or belief over and over again. Count all the posts that contain inflammatory, condescending, or sarcastic remarks. Count all the posts that are not in you area of expertise and offer no insight or information regarding the topic. Of course, many of the posts could fall into one or more categories, so to be fair, if one does fit in more than one category, count it once. Subtract those from your total, to find out your ‘useful, intelligent post count’. Oh yeah, that classic remark about nuclear power being a ‘trick’… Well I don’t know what category to put that one in except ‘posts that make me look sub intelligent’. But if you make that category and count up all those post, it will severely hurt your ‘useful, intelligent post count’. Disclaimer: We could ALL do this exercise and with an open and honest mind drop our post counts by at least 10-15%. BTW, Ken - Did you try the exercise I suggested in one of my replies to you? Awaiting your reply... Have you located any dojos in your area? Shall I repost the link? Curious to hear... Have a nice day!

I am really starting to believe that TBK is posting here just to up his post count. Most of his posts are of the 'cut & paste' variety stating the same old stance. Moreover, on an topic he knows little or nothing about and refuses to discuss in a logical manner.

IMHO: In a fight situation with your opponent moving around, positioning yourself in such a way that you have a clear shot at (a) target(s) the size of a silver dollar, then executing a 'poke' with an extended index finger at one eye, or a 'double poke' with your extended index and middle finger to both eyes would be extremely difficult. There are other considerations as well. We are hard wired to close our eyes (blink) when anything approaches our eyes. Eyelashes also act as sensors and aid the above, so even if we don’t see it, if our eyelashes ‘tell us’ to blink. Along with that, we automatically pull our heads back, or turn them away. The eyes are surrounded by bone, and the eyes are set back slightly to offer added protection. (Missing the eye and poking bone, you may sprain or break a finger.) OF COURSE, you may be able to get past all that and get a god ‘poke’ in. I’m sure that any technique you would be able to land, even if only 50% effective would cause your opponent some discomfort. That is to say, if you tried to poke him in the eye, and he closed his eye, pulled his head back, or turned it slightly, a poke to a closed eye, even if not direct, would still make him rather unhappy. Instead of a ‘poke’ how about a ‘rake’ in which the hand is used in a claw like fashion to attack the over all eye area; seems like many styles use that sort of facial attack. Again, IMHO, I wouldn’t bank on using it and probably not think about using it as an attack. However, as a defensive technique, I think ‘poking’ is effective. Not sure if poking is the proper term, maybe ‘gouging’? Anyway, a few situations I can think of: Your opponent has got you in a bear hug, face to face, and you can get your arms free. Your opponent is choking (throttling) you, face to face, both of his hand around your neck. You are on the ground, either in the guard or mounted, you are being choked (throttled) or attacked by your opponent. Technique: grab your opponent by the head as tightly as possible, one hand on either side of his head around ear level. Doing so will put your thumbs directly over his eyes. Drive your thumbs into his eyes. Although his eyes may close, he will not be able to pull back (enough) to avoid the pressure you will be able to apply. Another alternative, ‘cup’ his ears. Cup your hand slightly and hit him hard over the ears. Done properly, you can generate enough pressure to burst and eardrum. I agree with the poster above, life or death only, what you don’t kill can come back and sue you. And whether or not you kill, what you do can get you’re a** in plenty of trouble with the law.

No, that just means you post a lot. Don't confuse quality with quantity. Don't confuse efforts with results. Which is more powerful the hundred words that start a war or the one word that can stop it?

Pull a coin from a kids ear and tell its "magic" Shine a window so clear' date=' a bird hits it. Magnets help in curing illness. Skip a pebble across the pond, and so can you. Urinate on a blind man and tell him its raining. Yes, "Superman" CAN fly![/quote] IGNORANCE IS BLISS - Keep up the research 47MartialMan; I feel pity for the man who mocks Tao Teh Ching for a laugh... Suprised you didn't recognize it and have some respect for the point made...

The ‘unbendable arm’ is not a technique nor is it a ‘trick’. It is a simple tool, for some, to grasp the concept of static and fluid tension, period, end of story. When, and if you can grasp that simple concept, you can then apply it to your techniques to improve upon them. Why can't people read and retain information. You've been following the threads.

Well put...

Well put...

I have to ask, as others have when we post do you actually read the post? You’ve been pounding away on the Internal Arts forum for a while now and posting replies to my threads, but when I read this I have to wonder. Less than a week ago, I explained that the ‘unbendable arm’ is not a technique. I won’t bother expounding on its value; you can search my posts and reread them. I have been at my dojo for over nine years, and my sensei has never said, ‘OK, now when uke has you in jujikatame make sure you use the unbendable arm’. Even with all respect due to him, we’d laugh in his face. Simply put: In your dojo, I’m sure you do some type of warm up exercises, I don’t know what they are but to make my point, let’s say jumping jacks. Now, imagine your sensei is demonstrating some attack and you say, ‘OK, sensei, when that happens what’s my best defense?’ Your sensei replies, when your opponent does this, you do jumping jacks!’ It’s not a technique. It’s not a technique! To say it is a technique is pure ignorance. To even wonder if it’s applicable in a fight is laughable. However, the concept it teaches does have practical application and that’s where the confusion lies.

Kudos, aikidokid...

Certainly not. I am a Christian myself and it was not until I started to practice aikido and 'ki' that I could come to a better understanding of Christianity. A good read: ‘The Gospel of Buddha’ by Paul Carus in which he draws over 400 parallels between Christianity and the teachings of Jesus and Buddhism and the teaching of Buddha.

Seems like we are caught up in a difference of definitions of 'ki'. As I have stated before, I do not think it's something super natural or magical, just something that exists in all of us and is something we can each develop to its fullest potential. From your posts, seems like you've been doing research for decades... Save yourself some aggravation, hop on a plane and come to Japan for a few days. Visit a couple of dojos, see what they are doing and formulate your opinion from first hand experience. I’ve read that you have been to many demos and have been refused to participate or test what is being demonstrated, which is truly sad. Here in Japan, all questions and challenges are willingly accepted. PM me if you are serious about you research….

Use the quote feature, it's easier to understand your reply...

My point exactly Sasori_Te, seems like we are caught up in semantics. I believe what I believe because of my experience and he believes what he believes because of misconception. My definition, understanding, and experience with ‘ki’ is one thing his is another. There is really no problem in that. No harm, no foul. To discuss the point beyond this is moot. Search my posts you will have a deeper understanding of my beliefs and feelings. In 1902 when people claimed powered flight was impossible most agreed. In 1903, when the first plane flew, it put debate to rest. 101 years later powered flight is just something we all take for granted. We have passenger planes that carry 4-500 people at a time, jet fighters fly at two or three times the speed of sound, we’ve been to the moon and back…. I offer this, from Ueshiba sensei, off the top of my head… Rely not on the brush or mouth for an understanding of the art. Attain enlightenment through practice. He insisted that no matter how good someone wrote about technique (remember in his day, they did not use pencils or pens but brushes and ink, hence brush = the written word) And no matter how well someone could explain a technique (the mouth) you could not fully understand the technique until you actually did it. So, I can completely understand why so many people don’t believe in ‘ki’. I would have told you it was a bunch of c*** until I actually experienced it firsthand. Cheers, thanks for the post, I respect your opinion.

My point exactly Sasori_Te, seems like we are caught up in semantics. I believe what I believe because of my experience and he believes what he believes because of misconception. My definition, understanding, and experience with ‘ki’ is one thing his is another. There is really no problem in that. No harm, no foul. To discuss the point beyond this is moot. Search my posts you will have a deeper understanding of my beliefs and feelings. In 1902 when people claimed powered flight was impossible most agreed. In 1903, when the first plane flew, it put debate to rest. 101 years later powered flight is just something we all take for granted. We have passenger planes that carry 4-500 people at a time, jet fighters fly at two or three times the speed of sound, we’ve been to the moon and back…. I offer this, from Ueshiba sensei, off the top of my head… Rely not on the brush or mouth for an understanding of the art. Attain enlightenment through practice. He insisted that no matter how good someone wrote about technique (remember in his day, they did not use pencils or pens but brushes and ink, hence brush = the written word) And no matter how well someone could explain a technique (the mouth) you could not fully understand the technique until you actually did it. So, I can completely understand why so many people don’t believe in ‘ki’. I would have told you it was a bunch of c*** until I actually experienced it firsthand. Cheers, thanks for the post, I respect your opinion.

Why so sarcastic, Ken? Nothing intelligent to say?

Certainly can. But after explaining it as simply and clearly as possible and getting back the same, 'It's a trick' response I get tired.

I am not talking about ANYTHING supernatural. As I stated in another post, in medieval times hard scientific facts that could not be explained were thought to be acts of God or works of the devil. We now know what causes thunder and lightning, it can be explained with science. No need to worry about getting the gods angry and getting struck by lightning. If I told you in the martial art I practice we practice the principles of static and fluid tension you would probably say, 'Hmmm, interesting, tell me more' or Hmmm I clearly understand the scientific principal of that but I don't see the practical application in fighting.' At that point, depending on what you said, the discussion could end or continue in an intelligent manner. But, when the word ‘ki’ is mentioned, your mind closes tightly like a fist and you keep babbling the same stuff. Fine, I was not put on this earth to make you understand, or try to convince you. If you don’t believe it, don’t and get off the subject. These threads are for people who want to discuss it in an open, intelligent manner. Have respect for other’s ideas and opinions. You can always start a new thread; ‘I don’t understand ‘ki’ and I don’t want to try, and I want to remain ignorant. Then all the people that agree with you can post ‘Me, too.’ And you’ll be happy knowing there are others out there like you.

Back under the bridge, Ken. You are starting to make an a$$ of yourself.