Arm-Swinging Evolution & IMA

[Interloper]

Interesting article on why humans swing their arms when they walk:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090728/sc ... rmsoffbeat

I was going to post it in Off-the-Topic, as it seems only tangentially relevant to IMA. Yet, there are some interesting ramifications posed. Combined with ground path and winding, swinging the arms while in motion can have some pretty interesting consequences in terms of power output. Think of the "sumo slap."

[middleway]

Interesting ... thanks!

Our 'walking' in Daito Ryu used 'an opposite-to-normal swing' i guess as defined by that article and our Shiko a arms held in line motion. I wonder what the result would be if looking at someone trained in moving in this Hitoemi way rather that a volunteer 'trying' to move in that way. which is probably completely Un-natural to them.

cheers
Chris

[Dmitri]

That's some pretty basic balance mechanisms... I had no idea it was something that "has long piqued scientific curiosity"...
Moving one leg forward, by itself, creates a torque, and to provide an efficient and balanced forward motion as one "carries their weight" forward arm-swinging seems to me like a very natural way to "counter" that torque, converting that partial rotation to forward movement.
However, at least IME, the way of movement (forward in this example) in IMA has little to do with "carrying one's weight" (which implies lack of control over one's balance/center) and is done very differently from casual walking. I don't think the emphasis in efficiency in IMA is as much on conserving energy in general (like with normal walking) as it is on maximizing energy utilization to achieve a specific focused movement (e.g. strike, sweep, etc.) while not committing any "weight" to the action (again, unlike with regular walking which uses "weight carry" to minimize energy spent on the process of moving forward).

[Interloper]

That's another, even more interesting point, Chris. Holding the arms "in line" while practicing internal power-generation makes them a unified extension of the entire body -- another use of power combined with structure that is a force to be reckoned with. It looks to me like there are potentials for great power in both approaches -- the relaxed swing combined with internal power, and the in-line "opposite-to-normal" held arm position, combined with internal power, that results in kuzushi upon contact.

[Chris Fleming]

"That's some pretty basic balance mechanisms... I had no idea it was something that "has long piqued scientific curiosity"... "

My thoughts exactly. Whether people want to realize this or not, there is plenty of science-for-science's-sake and plenty of "studies" to be funded

[Interloper]

Dmitri,

Like I said, this topic is only tangentially relevant to IMA... My thought was more that the intuitive relaxation of humans when they walk, to the point of letting their arms swing relaxedly without trying to "do a thing" with them -- no muscle flexing -- is a state that seems to fly out the window when people try to "do" IMAs. They immediately flex and "choke up," making internal power transferance out the arms impossible. Yet, the natural tendency to relax and swing is a potent ingredient in soft power application. Sumos used to do it. Gorillas and chimps still do.

As for Western Science and their not-so-keen grasp of the obvious:
There was a New York Times article, I think 5 years ago, that had Belgian anthropologists baffled as to why Nepalese porters and African girls and women could carry disproportionately heavy weights while walking long distances, without expending the kind of metabolic energy that Western soldiers were burning when carrying packs considerably lighter than what the porters and ladies were toting. The scientists mused that perhaps these "superhumans" could do their thing because they had more red blood cells (due to high-altitude living), and other similarly unscientific conjectures. Go figure.

Like arm-swinging, it's a matter of efficient mechanics (in the case of the weight-bearers, a combination of ground-path/musculo-skeletal alignment and momentum), but still "piques scientific curiousity" because Western science just hasn't a clue about some things that Asian martial artists have known -perhaps both intuitively and intellectually- for centuries.

[BonesCom]

No to de-rail or anything but can we all just remember that "Western" science is rooted in empiricism, as I believe "Eastern" approaches are. However, we ("Western" scientists) prefer to also establish a theory of mechanism by which a phenomenom occurs that too is subject to empiricism with the tools we have at our disposal... and before anybody says so, reductionism is not a generality of science

[asiawide]

While reading 'The Japanese Army' by Yoshida Yutaka, I read an interesting paragraph. It says that when Japan began to set up modern army, the military officers had hard time to teach soldiers how to march. They hard hard time to correct the nanba walk of soldiers. It seems normal Japanese of early 20's walked unlike what we do now.

[middleway]

That's another, even more interesting point, Chris. Holding the arms "in line" while practicing internal power-generation makes them a unified extension of the entire body -- another use of power combined with structure that is a force to be reckoned with. It looks to me like there are potentials for great power in both approaches -- the relaxed swing combined with internal power, and the in-line "opposite-to-normal" held arm position, combined with internal power, that results in kuzushi upon contact.

sure thing, i think all 3 approaches have powerful aspects.

Natural 'normal swing' = cross body power (opposite shoulder hip)
Inline 'un-natural swing' = unified side power (same shoulder hip)
Arms held in line = Central axis power (Spine)

I like looking at shoulder>hip & spine relationship at the moment

cheers
Chris

[WongYing]

TONG BEI !