Internal Power

[Gusei21]

Once in a while I come across an interesting essay.
Here is one from Ellis Amdur.
I will just post the link.
http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/showthrea ... post321942

Enjoy!

[kyudo]

Once in a while I come across an interesting essay.
Here is one from Ellis Amdur.
I will just post the link.
http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/showthrea ... post321942
!

Thanks for posting.
Ellis Amdur wrote 'Hidden in plain sight' about supposedly lost internal strength techniques that are in fact hidden in plain sight, if you have the eyes to see. One could wonder how much is hidden in plain sight in Wado. Only recently, I came across a few such techniques. But before I explain about that, let me first take a few steps back.

Last year, Bob pointed me to the concept of fascia, which are an important part of what is referred to as 'anatomy trains'. http://www.anatomytrains.com/
For me personally, this proved to be an important piece of a puzzle wich then revealed a picture that includes fields as disparate as Tai-Chi, koryu, Aikido and offcourse Wado. It enabled me to make a lot more sense out some pieces of puzzle, collected over the years, that I hadn't been able to fit properly into my Wado.
You could think of anatomy trains as wires that run through the body, connecting all the parts of the body. This image of the body is quite different from the classic Western image of the body where arm movement is powered by the arm muscles, the leg movement by leg muscles etc. The image that now comes to my mind is that of a push puppet:

From the push puppet, it is only a small leap to the tensegrity pelvis:
http://vimeo.com/48982696
...and a model of body movement that depends on pulling strings rather than exercising muscle power locally. For me, this changes my whole perception of Wado body dynamics. It also drives home once more the value of kihon and correct posture. Because as the cliché says: if kihon fails, everything else is useless. Which means that my research on internal strength has led me to re-examine my kihon and posture.

Back to hidden in plain sight:
A few weeks ago I attended a seminar by Kazutake Otsuka. The theme of the day was 'connecting'. Which, obviously, has everything to do with internal strenght. Pulling the strings, right?
But the most surprising part of the seminar, for me, was the warming up. Kazutake came up with a number of workouts that I had never seen before. Or maybe I had, but forgot because it didn't impress me at the time. The workouts consisted of laying on the ground and moving the knees, with the legs folded in intricate ways. Based on what I recently saw of fascia workouts, I'd swear that these are exercises to train the fascia. So I asked Kazutake where these workouts came from. He told me they are his own interpretations of traditional warm-up exercises they used to do back in Japan. Apparently, the internal strength exercises have been there all along, and we may have mistaken them for simple warm up exercises.
Unfortunately I didn't have the chance to take notes or shoot some video. At the end of the seminar I had trouble reproducing the exercises. If anyone knows what I talking about, I'd be grateful if you can point me to some description.

Amdur remarks about Internal strength:

...given sufficient intense and intimate interactions with an expert, one can unconsciously steal some degree of the skill, without really knowing what one has accomplished, or at least, how one accomplished it. A product of such osmosis would surely reply, when asked how to replicate the remarkable things he can do, "More practice," which results in the skills passing onwards in increasingly attenuated fashion to subsequent generations. Without a curriculum, transmission is almost impossible.

Which sounds pretty familiar to me. In my life, I have been fortunate enough to train under the tutelage of some exceptional martial artists, capable of doing remarkable things. But they were people who mostly figured it out on their own. They lacked a curriculum, a system, to transfer their abilities. While I learned a lot from them, I was never able to properly reproduce what they did. Offcourse this could also be due to lack of talent and lack of effort on my part. But still, I'm pretty certain that given a proper curriculum, I could have done a whole lot better. It wasn't their fault or mine. But simply the way things are.

I don't subscribe to the notion that some individuals 'have it', and the others don't. As far as I'm aware, some people 'have it' to some degree. I have some students that have an innate ability to punch and kick, and some that don't. Still, they can all punch and kick, though some obviously better than others. I don't think internal strength is any different. Some will do better than others, but we can all learn it to some degree. It is too bad that we lack a curriculum in Wado to transfer that part of system. Or maybe the curriculum is right in front of our nose, but there is no one there to help us open our eyes to see it.

This may well be the responsibility of our generation: trying to figure out ways to transfer the techniques that lie under the skin.

[oneya]

Hi Igor,

Perhaps a good starting point is to understand Taiji, Koryu, Aikido and Wado are not at all disparate but simply one and the same thing viewed from different perspectives. A rose is a rose is a rose by any other name if you will. An even broader view will show also that ‘everything is connected to everything else’ on the planet and within the planet so if one is looking for connectivity it is obviously preferable to connect up the dots rather than see our arbitrary divisions. So perhaps the first thing we need to do if we are going to unearth or uncover these ‘hidden in plain sight’ parts of wado ryu is to deal with our own eyesight rather than just look through another’s prism if we are going to understand what we are looking for whilst we are looking at it. If we can see that everything is indeed connected to everything else and yet still hidden in plain sight then the answers we seek may well only be accessible with use of a wider mind coupled with a wider vision. Perhaps ‘enzan no metsuke’ is not just looking outward.

oneya

[wadoka]

That is an answer that can only come with time and trial and error. But, if you are in it for the long game, for the whole of life experience, then it seems to follow.

[oneya]

Hi Gordon,

So what I am talking about is the 'Do' in Wado ryu which we all talk about as a process or a journey if you like. You have to take that journey.

If Ohtsuka meijin had it or Takagi sensei has it or It is budding in Ohtsuka Kazutaka then go train with them because it wasn't or isn't hidden in plain sight from them and must be available given a process of looking, listening and learning or tanren if you will. Training with them may not work though if you continue to do what you have always done because you will always get the same results that you have always got.

If it is hidden from you the problem is you. Ellis Amdur's 'Hidden in Plain Sight' was not just a book it was a road map too but a map is not the actual territory. You have to adjust to that actually territory to get it.

oneya..

[wadoka]

I would definitely say that listening, looking and being on the receiving end has always been a nudge and an small incremental piece of education. The instructors do not hand out course notes! That is the difference, hence we have to grab what we can and then dwell on it.

It also means we have to have an empty cup, that never actually fills to the brim. But also we have to stretch it out towards the right sources.

This all probably sounds like my cryptic Saturday night musings but it grows more and more evident as I grow older.

[wadoka]

Following on from this line of discussion, I have been trying to get the warm up period in the lesson to work on, maybe unwittingly for students, aspects of body movement and engagement that bring the connectedness and smooth free flowing motion.

Maybe sometimes it is hidden as to imbued it without knowing.

[oneya]

You are right Gordon, one of the problems is also our tendency to place restrictive thought and parameters by our designations. If we call the beginning of Dojo practice our 'warm up' period then the chances are its name will remain to define its parameters in our training. Every movement and motion in wado ryu, Aikido Taiji and Koryu etc are there - at the beginning - for a reason and have a purpose. many demonstrate their purpose but many are key to the depth that will challenge one's own purpose.

The empty cup is essential but not as crucial as having the will to top it up to the brim each day.

oneya

[Gusei21]

For what its worth....

Scene: Last week in Tokyo. Takagi Sensei teaching Seishan. Finnish Wado guy who also doubles as a Tai Chi instructor in Finland.

Takagi Sensei to Finnish guy: 'You are not suppose to move your pelvis when you do the first half of seishan'.
Finnish guy: 'then how do you generate power if you are not allowed to use your hips/pelvis???'
Takagi Sensei: 'Use internal power'. (He used the word nairiki).
Bob who is translating this exchange: (Takagi Sensei just told him to use nairiki? Wonder where this conversation is going to go...)
Finnish guy: 'How do you use this so called internal power? How does it work?'
Takagi Sensei: 'You must practice correctly'.
Bob thinking: (that's lame.....)
Finnish guy: 'but how?'
Takagi Sensei: 'Thru correct practice you will discover this'.
Bob thinking: (Seriously???).
Finnish guy: 'OK..but how?'
Takagi Sensei: ' Correct understanding and training'.
Bob: (This is going nowhere. He is obviously choosing to skirt the issue. Instead he is probably going to show him by whacking him with his internal power..)
Then in a blink of an eye Bob gets punched in the stomach with a punch of blinding speed.....why does Bob get hit??? WTF....hit the Finn next time Sensei...

The End,

So to answer Igor's earlier query...the people that can really do it does not seem to want to teach it....at least to outsiders....
Come to think of it perhaps he chose to hit me for the same reason. He was not about to hit the Finn. He has no desire to show an outsider what it feels like to get hit with internal power.

[wadoka]

Maybe he heard your thoughts and hit you to shut you up :-)