Internal Power

General discussions on Wado Ryu karate and associated martial arts.
Gusei21
Posts: 403
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2011 1:43 am

Re: Internal Power

Post by Gusei21 »

Gordon,

Holly is right on. She is approaching it from a different path but it is the same stuff.
In fact I own the TRX suspension trainer and I am in the process of ordering the rip trainer.
I use the TRX suspension for that very purpose and am still in the process of experimenting and trying to find more ways of using it effectively to develop power.
Notice Holly was in a sort of yoko seishan...hmm....
In the seishan kata when we go from yoko seishan to tate seishan with harai uke and two punches it has the same affect and more that Holly is covering.

Get a copy of Thomas Myer's Anatomy Train. Everything is pretty much mapped out there.

There are no secrets. Just finding better ways of accessing and internalizing it. At the end of the day these are just tools. You have to know how to apply them.

Another great tool I found that really helps is using a pvc pipe 8 feet long by 1 1/16 in diameter. We use it for pole shaking to develop our tanden and to work on building a more connected body. I have all my senior students using it. I am curious to see how they will be developing an year from now.

The beauty of all of this is that externally everything looks the same. It's just that the kihon is now just sharper, faster and more powerful.

Lifting weights in the traditional way is a waste of time. It only serves to make you tighter and make your myofascial connections worthless for our use.

I am waiting on more people in Wado to become more familiar with this sort of stuff so we can have a larger dialogue on the subject because it will only serve to make people better.

But again the only caveat is that your kihon has to be good otherwise everything will go to crap and most people's kihon needs more work before they can integrate this stuff into their martial art.
Bob Nash
Tim49
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Re: Internal Power

Post by Tim49 »

Will look at it again but virtually everything she did reminded me of what people who worked in agriculture and horticulture used to do all day long.
Which in a way may say more about modern lifestyles.

Tim Shaw
Essex
UK
zim
Posts: 41
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2011 11:01 am
Location: Aalborg, Denmark

Re: Internal Power

Post by zim »

I'd highly recommend kettlebells. The TRX is great but requires a bit more space. I've been working with them for about 8 months and the difference has been noticeable in my balance and power.

Worth a go if you can find an good instructor but I think I've heard that before...

Chris Zimmerman
DK
Chris Zimmerman
oneya
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Location: Mornington Victoria Australia

Re: Internal Power

Post by oneya »

Tim49 wrote:Will look at it again but virtually everything she did reminded me of what people who worked in agriculture and horticulture used to do all day long.
Which in a way may say more about modern lifestyles.

Tim Shaw
Essex
UK
Absolutely Tim, I spent the 1950s seafaring followed by a few years as stevedore and it came with the toil. Japan was an agrarian culture and it came with their art forms. Evolution and its inevitable cultures changes often means loss as well as gain so this stuff has to be learned all over again.

oneya
Reg Kear.
Wado Kokusai San no Ya.

http://www.sannoya.com
Gusei21
Posts: 403
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2011 1:43 am

Re: Internal Power

Post by Gusei21 »

So one of my friends who trains in this stuff said to me ' but she is doing it all wrong!!. Her butt sticks out!. How can she possibly generate any power thru her spiral connection....'
Yes...true...but that is not the point. The point is that this knowledge is being rediscovered thru the works of people like Thomas Myers who is is actually dissecting cadavers and literally pulling the spirals out of the bodies and the physical education industry is starting to listen to this kind of stuff which had already been known for years by the Chinese as is evident in their bodies of work from acupuncture and tai chi.

Holly might not be generating any power but she is on the same path.

Another friend of mine and I were chatting yesterday and we both think that this knowledge has ramifications in all sports. Basketball, baseball, swimming, cycling, racketsports. In basketball we can use it for attaining and maintaining position under the basket for rebounds ( boxing out). It will give you superior unmovable structure. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

The initial friend also made a comment that perhaps the so called 'naturally talented athletes' are naturally talented because they are using their internal connections naturally thus giving them the superior advantage in terms of strength and speed.

If we moved away from the term 'internal power' and just called it superior body management then perhaps it would ring truer to more people.
Internal power sounds too mystical, too esoteric. Superior body management sounds much more attainable and reasonable. It is all about the myofascial chain. It is all about spirals and pulling on your internal lines. That is what makes Kuroda Kuroda. That is what makes Toby Toby That is why Takagi Sensei is so fast and powerful. He's not the only one. Inoue Sensei of Shitoryu has figured it out. You can tell by how he moves.

A few years ago Yoshinori Kono published a book on 'how to use this stuff in your daily life' sort of thing. He showed more efficient ways of carrying grocery bags, lifting patients onto gurneys, picking up old people, things you do in your daily life - except he is using his internal connections.
Bob Nash
Gusei21
Posts: 403
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2011 1:43 am

Re: Internal Power

Post by Gusei21 »

Since I mentioned Kuroda and Kono in the same sentence....

http://www.dojoofthefourwinds.com/kuroda.html
Bob Nash
wadoka
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Re: Internal Power

Post by wadoka »

Bob

What's happening from 11 minutes on, especially in the lab?

http://youtu.be/Tk4IXA2c6g0
Gusei21
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Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2011 1:43 am

Re: Internal Power

Post by Gusei21 »

Will create abbreviated transcript tonight. At work now...
Pretty interesting.
The guy in the gi is a former Japanese judo olympic medalist who should not be getting moved by skinny Kono.....
In the lab the researcher was shocked that Kono's hamstrings and glutes were going slack just before the peak of the toss when all common sense told the researcher that it should be still tense. What he saw was that Kono was spreading the load throughout his entire structure as opposed to having it localized in his legs, biceps and shoulders.

In the beginning of the clip they show him using a sword.
The point of that segment was to show how fast he move the blade.
He is saying that if you hold the handle of the sword with a gap between your hands then you end up using your hands/arms to swing the blade.
But if you bring your fists together then it forces you to use your body instead of your hands because you lose the leverage created when your hands are apart.
And because you lose hand leverage you have to fall back on using your body. And using your body ultimately is faster if you know how to use your body.

In the case of Wado it is the same thing. When you learn how to use your body you will be a lot faster. Most people punch with their fists and kick with their legs. But if you get heaven earth man going and you are fully connected and have cross body connection going then your arms are driven by your legs/body instead of by your arms and it makes you faster and more powerful. Same thing.

Another bit he was showing was how to do the nagashizuki like footwork. Most people push off their back foot. That will get you killed if the opponent has a sword. You never push off your back foot. That is slow and leaves a part of your body behind. Takagi Sensei talks alot about moving with both feet at the same time. He says it is one of the characteristics of Wadoryu - the ability to move both feet almost simultaneously. That is the footwork in nagashizuki, that is the footwork in kihon kumite when we do san mi ittai - when we evade and strike simultaneously.
Bob Nash
jaronlegel
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Feb 18, 2013 12:13 pm

Re: Internal Power

Post by jaronlegel »

Hi,

Maybe what I am about to write seems obvious, but it gave me goose bumps.
One of the courses I have to do for my degree is Learning disabilities. During the last couple of weeks we saw a very emotional movie, made in Bollywood, about a kid with dyslectic disabilities. When he finally got treated, one of the treatment emphasized heavily on writing the number 8, smaller and smaller until the kid made a nice figure 8. The teacher then explained to us why 8 is so important. It has to do with crossing over. (crossing the middle line!) When you give someone a hand, or throw a ball, you cross the middle line. She had us even walk a number 8. I realized this number 8 is also "spiraling in your body, but also in kata we cross the line or stay on it. The diagram of kata fit in a number 8.
I approached the teacher after class, since my fellow students are not that interested in Budo, and asked if she heard about spiraling of the body and if this connected with the therapy of LD. She knew and acknowledged the advantages of Martial Arts in helping persons with LD.

Needless to say that I was pretty excited of finding another dot in the Budo puzzle....

Yours in Wado,
Jaron
Gusei21
Posts: 403
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2011 1:43 am

Re: Internal Power

Post by Gusei21 »

Jaron,

I don't think you mean spiral.
I think you mean cross body connection.

Spiraling is too sophisticated even for top level athletes.
Bob Nash
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