Analyze this... Intent

General discussions on Wado Ryu karate and associated martial arts.
kpettersson
Posts: 16
Joined: Sun Jan 25, 2015 2:10 pm
Location: Sweden

Analyze this... Intent

Post by kpettersson »

Hi!

Maybe this should go in an already existing thread but in that case Admin is free to move it.

During the last few weeks I have been working extra on kata. I have also been working solo on kihon gumite (also kata I guess). One thing that struck me as I was doing KG1 was that after the second move, which involves San mi ittai, moving, ”blocking”, and counter, simultaneously (well, almost), I end up with a totally different feeling and balance, depending on my intent.
When I first was introduced to KG1, I believe we were all lined up, and taught the movements (ten i, ten tai) solo, without partner, without any involvement of the hands, just the body movements. I guess this way of learning it got my mind set on avoiding. Focusing on getting my body away from the attacks. So my intent of the kata was from then, avoiding. Even after counter ura tsuki was introduced my intent as torimi was subconsciously set on avoiding rather than attack.
I find this strange because I know I have been told several times by instructors that the intent of both ukimi and torimi in kihon gumite (and in wado in general) should be attack. I even read Oneya’s article on the subject but didn’t realize it until I experienced the difference in the dojo by myself.
Now, realising that the intent should be attack, this has changed the whole experience of the kata for me. Same stance, same technique, same taisabaki, some change in posture and balance but in all a totally different experience, all based on something in my mind.
I guess for someone watching it, it may look the same but in my oppinion one way works, the other does not.

Have any of you out there in wado land have had similar experiences based on intent, or is it just me thinking too much?
--
Carl Pettersson

Wado Kokusai Suzuki-Ha
和道国際鈴木派
Sweden
Gary
Posts: 238
Joined: Sat Feb 26, 2011 1:14 pm
Location: South London, UK
Contact:

Re: Analyze this... Intent

Post by Gary »

Work beyond the physical "omote" of the kata and aspects like "Kobo ichi" (attack and defence being one), are what makes it tick.

It's the genius behind Kihon Kumite in my opinion - as it is an exercise in strategy.

The negashi-uke isn't just there to keep your opponents fist away from your face - by raising your arm you are giving your opponent a juicy target (in the form of your rib cage) and when he falls for it - you are in control.

You are the boss not the victim.

Of course not unique to Wado or Japanese martial arts as a whole for that matter. If you are into you medieval swordsmanship you'll have heard of a guy like Liechtenauer. His codex often promote the aspect of "stop your opponent by attack" - being very much about mindset and how to achieve your objective.

Gary
Gary Needham
Walton Wado Karate Club

清漣館双水執流英国稽古会
http://seirenkanuk.wordpress.com/
oneya
Posts: 857
Joined: Sat Feb 26, 2011 2:31 pm
Location: Mornington Victoria Australia

Re: Analyze this... Intent

Post by oneya »

Not forgetting that metaphysical intent is intangible (mukei) and so not the initiator of the sequence.

It is one’s Will which is the tangible (yuukei) precursor that ensures sente and the counter attack ending for Torimi is already entrained by holding ko bo ittai in a pre-eminence where the willful ‘attack' equals both defence and attack in reality.

Perhaps this is why Ohtsuka Meijin is purported to have said. "The difference between the possible and the impossible is one's will.”
Reg Kear.
Wado Kokusai San no Ya.

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

Re: Analyze this... Intent

Post by Gusei21 »

Speaking of intent, I am cutting and pasting a post I made on my private site.
I did not write the article. I wish I had because it is good. Intent is a prerequisite for internal power.
Without intent you have nothing. Nothing. A lot of people misunderstand intent.
They think of 'intention'. It is not intention. It is intent meaning you are actually doing 'something'. You are actually created a physiological reaction in your body that will hopefully generate an action on someone else.
This probably belongs in the internal power section.


Great definition of Intent. It is hard to explain but she explains it well.
Without intent you can't do internal power. Not possible.
Written by a lady - Katie Simpson. I found it on the internal arts site.

Consider the act of reaching out to pick up a cup. This begins by imagining it happening. If your desire for the cup is sufficient then you will physically carry out the action. At this point you will discover if your mind body coordination is sufficiently skillful to accomplish the task successfully. Once you have attained a template of competent behaviour you can ingrain the skill more rapidly by "visio-motor rehearsal" i.e. imagining yourself actually performing the behaviour rather than imagining watching a 'version of yourself over there' doing it. This will cause all the neurological pathways and connections and pathways to activate, which in turn causes strengthening of synaptic neural connections, increase in nerve conductivity, and even micro twitch of muscle fibre. It has been shown that visio-motor rehearsal accelerates skill more rapidly than the equivalent amount of time in physical practice. The key here of course is to have a template of competence to be rehearsing. If you do not have such a template that has been demonstrated/modelled to you then you will become proficient at incompetent action.

A foundational thing to know here is that there are three primary components giving rise the mental/emotional state you experience. (The default assumption in most western conciousness is that this is the other way round, that mental/emotional state gives rise to these.)

1 - Posture - this includes deportment, internal tension/relaxation and very, very importantly whether you are breathing from dan tien ( hara in Japanese systems) aka diaphragmatic breathing or as the majority of westerners are, the upper chest which is part of the fight or flight response leading to tension, physical instability and a neurotic mindset.

2 - Mental imagery indulged - not only will this 'colour' your mood but consider this - if you want to reach out and pick up that cup, you think about reaching out and picking that cup. If you worry about (visualise) fumbling picking up that cup, guess what, you reach out and fumble picking up the cup. Visualise what you want to happen, not what you don't. Breathing from dan tien is again, foundational to visual function and mindset. Upper chest breathing will create a tunnel vision visual state, predominately foveal vision controlled by the left, problem analysis criticism part of the brain and therefore linked to delay between perception and reaction. Breathing from dan tien takes us out of this mind set, activates peripheral vision operated from the intuitive, instinctive right brain and enables us to react much more instantaneously such as when an object rolls of a bench in the periphery of our vision and we reach out and catch it before we think of doing it. This vision state is traditionally described within the martial arts as "See far mountain eyes."

3 - Language - all, yes ALL, language has hypnotic influence especially your internal self talk. We understand language by creating from it a virtual internal reality that the subconscious cannot differentiate from actual external reality, leading us to project a waking dream onto the outside world. Of particular importance here is to understand that when we practice dysfunctional upper chest stress breathing we activate the 'sound bite/loop' part of our language centres of our brain, internal chatter, the distracting inner critic. Breathing from dan tien silences this.

Mindset and posture/imagery/language are a feedback system. In order to master these you must be fit. You must have enough physical fitness to maintain posture otherwise you cannot maintain mindset. We inherently have 'monkey mind' jumping all over the place, doing its default job of looking out for any changes in our environment that are important to us. Mindfulness training/meditation is predominately overlooked in much western martial arts training, or at best superficially incompetently dabbled in. This is akin to trying to become an Olympic runner by only training one leg. Of utmost importance is ensuring you breath from dan tien otherwise all other practices will be akin to trying to stick a band aid (sticking plaster) to a block of butter. Always practice your forms, kata, kion, basics with this understanding moving only so fast as you can perform your actions correctly. Practice slowly, mindfully, correctly. Practising in this way releases a chemical in the brain, gamma-aminobutyric acid,which accelerates learning.

Lastly (although there is much more I could write on this) we live in the information, digital age. Watch videos of those you know to be competent in the skill you wish to express performing that skill. Observe closely the nuances, not just the macro image. It is in the nuances that the treasures lie. Observe facial expression and tonality (consider how you read another person's mindset, mood, emotions from their expression) Facial expression is an aspect of posture and thus is foundational to creating mental/emotional state. put the tiniest of secret smiles at the corner of your eyes and mouth and breath from dan tien now and experience what happens throughout your entire mind body instrument. Then pretend to be that person, physically pretend. In this way you will get a direct transference of knowledge. Video yourself performing these skills and use this to tweak your skills to come closer to what you observe from the videos. Of course, there often comes a point where the nuances are internal, requiring 'academic' study and/or direct physical teaching, direct physical correction from someone who is both a competent practitioner AND instructor (the two are not necessarily coincident)
Namaste
Bob Nash
oneya
Posts: 857
Joined: Sat Feb 26, 2011 2:31 pm
Location: Mornington Victoria Australia

Re: Analyze this... Intent

Post by oneya »

Speaking of intent, I am cutting and pasting a post I made on my private site.
I did not write the article. I wish I had because it is good. Intent is a prerequisite for internal power.

Without intent you have nothing. Nothing. A lot of people misunderstand intent. They think of 'intention'. It is not intention. It is intent meaning you are actually doing 'something'. You are actually created a physiological reaction in your body that will hopefully generate an action on someone else.
This probably belongs in the internal power section.

Great definition of Intent. It is hard to explain but she explains it well.
Without intent you can't do internal power. Not possible.
Hi Bob,
I agree completely with your summary of intent with just a little qualifier, like you I have always accepted the conventional wisdom of the concept of ‘intent’ in internal power but not without a certain ambivalence when I considered its western etymology, meaning and - to some extent - limitation in the matter of its place within the sequence of developing internal power. Translation from eastern to western concepts being what they are I have come to sleep peacefully despite my lighter bedside reading sometimes paddling through lengthy tracts of a philosophical and etymological nature and in one particular case of Arthur Schopenhauer’s (“The World As Will And Idea. Vol 1”) critique of Emanuel Kant’s works, part of which has a bearing on the sequential position within a field of action of one’s idea and one’s Will.

I am not certain but perhaps the division between Intent and Will is purely a western notion whereas the Japanese kanji 意 allows for softer sides where the immanency of intent remains intact and unifying as it segues into willpower by means of the compound 意力 which also allows for Ohtsuka meijin’s qualifying aphorism "The difference between the possible and the impossible is one's will.”

Thinking this way I had also given some long consideration of the differences twixt English and Nihongo before making my previous comment but eventually decided that whatever came to pass might encourage a few more member to raise their heads above the parapet on this topic, so I have been expecting you.
My respects to Katie Simpson for the article and yourself for your eastern certainty but I cannot escape the occidental rust in my thinking that sometimes causes me to wander where dragons play.

Regards

Oneya
Reg Kear.
Wado Kokusai San no Ya.

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

Re: Analyze this... Intent

Post by Gusei21 »

Hi Reg,

Deadlines at work...so no time for an elaborate response.
Reg knows this stuff forwards and backwards but for the rest of you please google the 6 harmonies. Here is one random link I found.
http://www.plumpub.com/info/Articles/art_zoryaliuhe.htm

The intent we speak of in this case is Yi. There are 6 harmonies. 3 external and 3 internal.
Intent is the second of the 3 internal harmonies. This comes into play in many of the Chinese internal martial arts and also in a lot of Japanese koryu since we borrowed a lot of stuff from China. If you study many of the Japanese martial arts scrolls you will find a lot of reference to this idea.
It's not possible to do serious Japanese martial arts without understanding these principles to some extent.
When I ask Takagi Sensei about this sort of thing his standard answer is 'this knowledge is all meant to be kuden. You aren't meant to find the answer in books.' And when I look back to all the training I have done with him over the years I keep finding it all over his teachings. You have to be stupid or blind not to see. So that makes me pretty stupid and blind....lol. But sometimes I wish he would just say something like ' do you know why we do kette junzuki the way we teach it? It's so we strengthen our psoas to enhance our martial ability so we can enable ourselves to better do this - whack...'.
But no, he just tells you how to do kette junzuki then he whacks you without the verbal explanation that ties things together for the likes of me.


The first part of seishan is a major intent driven exercise. My hands are extending way beyond the natural ends of the limbs. My crown is extending way beyond the top of my head. The front of my anus is extending way below the....as is the tanden, mingmen, etc. We are a walking talking fugu at full expansion.

Back to coding.... Oh yeah....we sort of deviated from the point of the original post which is about having a sente mind which is not really intent.
But if you have intent active in your body my contention is that you will be able to move faster therefore if you have sente in mind then you will arrive first every time unless the opponent also has an intent driven body and mind....then I assume both of you will both just die....
Bob Nash
oneya
Posts: 857
Joined: Sat Feb 26, 2011 2:31 pm
Location: Mornington Victoria Australia

Re: Analyze this... Intent

Post by oneya »

We are a walking talking fugu at full expansion.
This should be compulsory dojo speak.

oneya
Reg Kear.
Wado Kokusai San no Ya.

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

Re: Analyze this... Intent

Post by Gusei21 »

Here's my buddy George Ledyard using intent within the context of aikido.
He mentions Toby Threadgill. Talking about the neutral pivot point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHZICmUAM2A

Wow...was just watching this video and at around 11:30 Little Meredith shows up pushing on George.
Meredith is not so little anymore... She got her blackbelt in Wado from JKF Wadokai a long time ago....and now trains in aikido under Saotome Sensei in Florida.
Bob Nash
tkaneshige
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue Nov 20, 2012 6:35 pm

Re: Analyze this... Intent

Post by tkaneshige »

When I would get tied up in knots discussing technique and intent and chi flow, my sifu, a combat vet of the Vietnam War, would tell me, calmly, "Kaneshige, grab hold the sword, they're coming over the hill." (Of course, he also suffered from PTSD.)
Gusei21
Posts: 403
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2011 1:43 am

Re: Analyze this... Intent

Post by Gusei21 »

Dude...lol...its not that complicated...at least not the way I understand it.

We will sort it out this weekend at the seminar in Berkeley.

Intent is the stuff that makes your chi flow....( I said yours, not mine...since my brain can't deal with chi/ki. I can only talk about pee with some authority since I've been peeing all my life. )

Without some level of intent you can't even lift the lid on the toilet. Your technique has to do with how good you are at missing the rim and hitting the toilet bowl square in the center with your pee flow.... :)
Bob Nash
Locked