WKU wrote:I would say that you have to be centered. So you have to be in control of your own center. And of course you have to be able to take away your opponents control of his center. Both incredibly difficult to achieve.
Kate WIlliams
Kate,
What does it mean to be in control of your center?
How do you get there?
What do you do to manifest this?
Gordon very eloquently spoke about extending oneself outward until you were on the verge of chaos.
I am stealing that one.....
These days I speak about sitting on an Ethiopean horse (anorexic steed) while it trots along the floating bridge of Heaven..
But I digress.
How do you control your center?
Where is your center?
I think part of the problem is vocabulary.
Toby Threadgill talks all the time about controlling the opponent's center.
What center? How do you access their center? How do you know it is the center when you touch it.
How do you touch it?
Where is it?
And even if you could carve out the location how do you develop the sensitivity in your hands/body to feel it in yourself not to mention feel it in the other.
I know one person who is extremely powerful who has no desire whatsoever in connecting to the other person's center.
He says 'why do I want become a 4 legged animal?'
But the other reason I think is because you never know what you find when you get there.
If the opponent has a more powerful center then you will be destroyed if you access it.
Different model.
If two people have equal powers of center then who wins? The one who arrives first.
How do you teach this?
How do you take away your opponent's center while you keep yours under control?
Takagi Sensei talked about this and showed it. I had a video somewhere where he destroys young Arakawa as he demonstrates it in a karate context. I thought I posted it once. Will look. Young Arakawa ends up on his ass upside down not knowing what just hit him.
There is a judo model, an aikido model. Toby Threadgill has his model. Degrees of sophistication in my opinion.
New competion judo uses muscle. Old judo uses aiki.
Current aikido...I won't go there. Ueshiba is doing something different.
Toby has developed sensitivity to touch and access your center on contact. What he does when he gets there depends on the day and time I guess.
Beyond my present abilities to comprehend.