Chiba - rough Aikido

[D_Glenn]

Don't stop translating though as it helps for after effect overall descriptions of what happened... AFTER.. You know what to really do

Over a roughly 2 year period I've been collecting some various translations, writings, etc. that pertain to this and posting them all in one place: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=18676&start=62

Cheers

.

[Bodywork]

lot of good stuff from Mr Hairson..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EngIAQ9DT6g
Rich

Blech
He has some things verbally right and many working parts wrong. His actual use of the legs is disconnected from what he trying to accomplish and much of his body is simply...disconnected in a power sense. Most anyone could do what he is doing with just a little training. and many could vastly improve over what he is showing.... with just a little training.
Follow it along to his staff series one and two. His body does many wrong and disconnected movements. You will NEVER deliver real power with a staff the way he is moving. In fact you have zero chance. In some cases he is perfectly wrong, doing the opposite of what should be done to accompany his own narrative.
One thing I have always found humorous is people quoting the classic "Up from the ground, controlled by the waist and out the hands."
1. It's utter nonsense. WHAT...is coming up from the ground? The spirit of Gia? Midi-chlorines giving us the force? Its perfect horseshit missing the key element to give it any meaning. The classics are implicit, not explicit.
2. Much the same with controlled by the waist. If all there was to it was turning the waist...well then I should have been asking any Tom and Dick and Harry on the street and stop wasting or should I say...waisting...all these years.
That one line? Is a life time investment in correcting so many wrong things. I have NEVER...EVER met anyone who could do it without agonizing and focused reworking.
3. Relax as a value? That is such a waste of time the word should never be uttered in martial arts ever again.
Relaxing a joint? Good lord.
What we really need is a proper introduction and explanation of expansion and contracting and loading bows and how it is done.
4. Yin and Yang. Well, he did say it. Its a shame he didn't move in accord...with it. Sustaining yin and yang starts at the hara to the ground and to the hand, then in movement? In matched pairs that I will not go into here. Suffice to say it is such that if anyone touched him at any point; yin and yang should be producing jins or a myriad of types in any part of his body. In the aiki arts ...aiki would be present in his head, shoulders upper amrr, lower arms, back, legs, hara, anywhere and instantly revealed.
There are many better examples of correct movement for power. Sadly, virtually all of them lack an explanation. Why? Because they are Asian teachers and they have no interest in anyone but them actually knowing what they are doing.

[Spncr]

You could be right, but I never was one for seminars when I was only into IMA and nothing else anyway. I think you need that regular 1 to 1 or personal contact with an IMA teacher to 'get it'. You have to be saturated in it and absorb it through your pores. That's has always been the traditional way.

For the most part I think your right. However one of the things that impressed me most about Dan (and also Sam Chin in this regard), was that his distance-learning/seminar students seem to "get it" (relatively speaking considering time invested) faster in comparison to most IMA environments that I've been exposed to, and without regular exposure to their teacher (just periodic check-ups). I was very impressed by that, and also by many other things

[Bao]

He has some things verbally right and many working parts wrong.

Tough statement. Your post is... a bit harsh. Would you say it the same way to him in person? (I don't know, just a question)

... But there is certainly a disconnection between what he says and what he does, no doubt about that. ...

One thing I have always found humorous is people quoting the classic "Up from the ground, controlled by the waist and out the hands."
1. It's utter nonsense. WHAT...is coming up from the ground? The spirit of Gia? Midi-chlorines giving us the force? Its perfect horseshit missing the key element to give it any meaning. The classics are implicit, not explicit.
2. Much the same with controlled by the waist. If all there was to it was turning the waist...well then I should have been asking any Tom and Dick and Harry on the street and stop wasting or should I say...waisting...all these years.

Don't go commenting ol' classic if you don't understand what they mean,

1 = Movement is coming up from the legs. It just means that the movement is supported from the legs.
2 = Well, waist can be called "waist area". Chinese is always a very contextual language. The dantian is a part of the waist area as well. It means that the movements are controlled and organized from the center. Any good and professional dancer would understand what is meant by this, because any good dancer knows how to organize the rest of their body from the center. This is why any dancer's body looks controlled.

There are many better examples of correct movement for power. Sadly, virtually all of them lack an explanation. Why? Because they are Asian teachers and they have no interest in anyone but them actually knowing what they are doing.

Yes there is. And that might be the case sometimes. But many chinese teachers actually tries to explain things, but in a Chinese cultural way of explaining things that is hard for western people to grasp. When I think of it, it's often much more easy to teach chinese people tai chi. They seem to have a natural way to understand things because those things are very natural for their culture. Just as we think that "qi" and "yin-yang" sounds mystifying. But for chinese, they are parts of the everyday vocabulary just as we use words like "circumstance", "opportunity" or "balance". Chinese people don't tend to mystify or speak in riddles. They make things very clear and commonsensical. But in chinese terms.

[Bodywork]

He has some things verbally right and many working parts wrong.

Tough statement. Your post is... a bit harsh. Would you say it the same way to him in person? (I don't know, just a question)

... But there is certainly a disconnection between what he says and what he does, no doubt about that. ...

One thing I have always found humorous is people quoting the classic "Up from the ground, controlled by the waist and out the hands."
1. It's utter nonsense. WHAT...is coming up from the ground? The spirit of Gia? Midi-chlorines giving us the force? Its perfect horseshit missing the key element to give it any meaning. The classics are implicit, not explicit.
2. Much the same with controlled by the waist. If all there was to it was turning the waist...well then I should have been asking any Tom and Dick and Harry on the street and stop wasting or should I say...waisting...all these years.

Don't go commenting ol' classic if you don't understand what they mean,

1 = Movement is coming up from the legs. It just means that the movement is supported from the legs.
2 = Well, waist can be called "waist area". Chinese is always a very contextual language. The dantian is a part of the waist area as well. It means that the movements are controlled and organized from the center. Any good and professional dancer would understand what is meant by this, because any good dancer knows how to organize the rest of their body from the center. This is why any dancer's body looks controlled.

There are many better examples of correct movement for power. Sadly, virtually all of them lack an explanation. Why? Because they are Asian teachers and they have no interest in anyone but them actually knowing what they are doing.

Yes there is. And that might be the case sometimes. But many chinese teachers actually tries to explain things, but in a Chinese cultural way of explaining things that is hard for western people to grasp. When I think of it, it's often much more easy to teach chinese people tai chi. They seem to have a natural way to understand things because those things are very natural for their culture. Just as we think that "qi" and "yin-yang" sounds mystifying. But for chinese, they are parts of the everyday vocabulary just as we use words like "circumstance", "opportunity" or "balance". Chinese people don't tend to mystify or speak in riddles. They make things very clear and commonsensical. But in chinese terms.

You misunderstood my meaning.
I...know what it means and more importantly what is implied as to how it actually works. I think it is pretty clear he doesn't.
You wrote:

1 = Movement is coming up from the legs. It just means that the movement is supported from the legs.
2 = Well, waist can be called "waist area". Chinese is always a very contextual language. The dantian is a part of the waist area as well. It means that the movements are controlled and organized from the center. Any good and professional dancer would understand what is meant by this, because any good dancer knows how to organize the rest of their body from the center. This is why any dancer's body looks controlled.

1. Power does not come up the legs without something else happening first, Earth is yin. And that something else...is rather critical to what is obviously missing. Nor does it mean what you offered " the movement is supported from the legs." The legs do some rather decisive and specific things to manage load and force. The likes of which I have only heard twice discussed here.
2. Both the Japanese and Chinese share the ambiguity of the "waist area." I am- once again- speaking directly to that. It was I that was stating that the sayings are implicit not explicit. That said. I am well versed in the complexity, and even several different arts "inside teaching" of what it takes to train qua, dantian and waist. None of which is in his movement.

Would I say it to his face? I understand your point and the answer is.... Yes. Unabashedly and pointedly and then show the difference. Then? Talk it, feel it and experiment. We all need to get past the personalities and the individual teachers. This stuff has been around for eons. We need to chase what is real and not our own egos or our own tails. Let correct movements that makes power make us friends, and not enemies. It is not our knowledge- its someones else's. We stand on the shoulders of giants.

I spend the better part of every year standing in open rooms in front of Japanese experts and senior teachers from a host of MA including bjj world champs and other assorted MMA guys. I am more than comfortable saying things to someone that they don't really understand what they are talking about, and or defending a better mechanical way to make martial power. I do it and make friends for one simple reason. I tell them I don't give a shit about my own theory either!!
"It is not about who is right
Its is about what is right.
Then... we compare notes in our own movement. Amazingly we continue to make friends.
Why?
I have found that once shown most serious budo guys, who have really been working themselves for years... really don't have an ego about this shit either. They want to know better ways to move. I know I did! The good ones are still searching too and really like talking shop about practical things.
I just did what you suggested two days ago, standing in room of martial artists from all sorts disciplines. Two were top ranked Japanese teachers with 35-44 years experience teaching their art. I told them they were wrong. Showed them what it really was and let them feel it. At lunch I explained their misunderstanding of several Japanese and Chinese classics. We are going to be training together regularly now.
So far...about 95% want to move this way. To be clear. I have no vested ego in what I do. It isn't mine, so how could I have an ago about it. I care about the best, most mechanically sound movement and sharing it. Weirdly, we find it fits the Japanese and Chinese models mysteriously well and works in budo in a universal way no matter what the culture.

[Bao]

Okey BW, thanks for explaining.

Good that you stand up for yourself and for what you believe in.
It's hard to understand people's intention through the screen of words.
It's too easy to misjudge people or misunderstand them. Most people who come of as a bit tough on the web are often very pleasant and easy going people.
...I wonder why written words can make us look different than we perceive ourselves and make it harder to understand each other...
Just some random thoughts...

But if theory is not important and "right" is understood from meetings, developed from experience, and shared through experience...
... Then why is "having right" through writing words important?

[Bodywork]

Okey BW, thanks for explaining.

Good that you stand up for yourself and for what you believe in.
It's hard to understand people's intention through the screen of words.
It's too easy to misjudge people or misunderstand them. Most people who come of as a bit tough on the web are often very pleasant and easy going people.
...I wonder why written words can make us look different than we perceive ourselves and make it harder to understand each other...
Just some random thoughts...

But if theory is not important and "right" is understood from meetings, developed from experience, and shared through experience...
... Then why is "having right" through writing words important?

Correct movement is not a belief system. It speaks for itself when you feel it. In and of itself it wins over many serious budo guys. The approach? The nuance of the body, expanded explanations, questions and answers, the eyes and the heart and soul and the warmth and caring only come out in person. I do that and offer that really well.
Writing is an art form as well.
Personally...I suck at it. And I openly and willingly apologize sometimes for my lack.

[Bodywork]

You also made a good point that most budo people, when we meet, seem to get asking very well.
It stands to reason that anyone who keeps slogging away at martial skills is used to eating bitter and mucking up a lot. And yet... we are right back to it again.
So, sincee we are of a like mind, showing people things that actually works, bridges styles and can't help but speak to that common thread in us all.

[GrahamB]

lot of good stuff from Mr Hairson..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EngIAQ9DT6g
Rich

Blech
He has some things verbally right and many working parts wrong. His actual use of the legs is disconnected from what he trying to accomplish and much of his body is simply...disconnected in a power sense. Most anyone could do what he is doing with just a little training. and many could vastly improve over what he is showing.... with just a little training.
Follow it along to his staff series one and two. His body does many wrong and disconnected movements. You will NEVER deliver real power with a staff the way he is moving. In fact you have zero chance. In some cases he is perfectly wrong, doing the opposite of what should be done to accompany his own narrative.
One thing I have always found humorous is people quoting the classic "Up from the ground, controlled by the waist and out the hands."
1. It's utter nonsense. WHAT...is coming up from the ground? The spirit of Gia? Midi-chlorines giving us the force? Its perfect horseshit missing the key element to give it any meaning. The classics are implicit, not explicit.
2. Much the same with controlled by the waist. If all there was to it was turning the waist...well then I should have been asking any Tom and Dick and Harry on the street and stop wasting or should I say...waisting...all these years.
That one line? Is a life time investment in correcting so many wrong things. I have NEVER...EVER met anyone who could do it without agonizing and focused reworking.
3. Relax as a value? That is such a waste of time the word should never be uttered in martial arts ever again.
Relaxing a joint? Good lord.
What we really need is a proper introduction and explanation of expansion and contracting and loading bows and how it is done.
4. Yin and Yang. Well, he did say it. Its a shame he didn't move in accord...with it. Sustaining yin and yang starts at the hara to the ground and to the hand, then in movement? In matched pairs that I will not go into here. Suffice to say it is such that if anyone touched him at any point; yin and yang should be producing jins or a myriad of types in any part of his body. In the aiki arts ...aiki would be present in his head, shoulders upper amrr, lower arms, back, legs, hara, anywhere and instantly revealed.
There are many better examples of correct movement for power. Sadly, virtually all of them lack an explanation. Why? Because they are Asian teachers and they have no interest in anyone but them actually knowing what they are doing.

These are really interesting questions. I've been shown two basic ways of moving in Chinese Martial arts via different teachers that I find useful - (i believe both are sort of 'starting points' and never intended to be exclusive to each other), but I made a video about it once which I think tries to answer some of the questions above... but it wasn't made to specifically answer those questions, but you might find it interesting, or at least you can tell me all the things I am doing 'wrong'

Sorry - sound is poor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQXu9cYy8Ys

[Bodywork]

lot of good stuff from Mr Hairson..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EngIAQ9DT6g
Rich

Blech
He has some things verbally right and many working parts wrong. His actual use of the legs is disconnected from what he trying to accomplish and much of his body is simply...disconnected in a power sense. Most anyone could do what he is doing with just a little training. and many could vastly improve over what he is showing.... with just a little training.
Follow it along to his staff series one and two. His body does many wrong and disconnected movements. You will NEVER deliver real power with a staff the way he is moving. In fact you have zero chance. In some cases he is perfectly wrong, doing the opposite of what should be done to accompany his own narrative.
One thing I have always found humorous is people quoting the classic "Up from the ground, controlled by the waist and out the hands."
1. It's utter nonsense. WHAT...is coming up from the ground? The spirit of Gia? Midi-chlorines giving us the force? Its perfect horseshit missing the key element to give it any meaning. The classics are implicit, not explicit.
2. Much the same with controlled by the waist. If all there was to it was turning the waist...well then I should have been asking any Tom and Dick and Harry on the street and stop wasting or should I say...waisting...all these years.
That one line? Is a life time investment in correcting so many wrong things. I have NEVER...EVER met anyone who could do it without agonizing and focused reworking.
3. Relax as a value? That is such a waste of time the word should never be uttered in martial arts ever again.
Relaxing a joint? Good lord.
What we really need is a proper introduction and explanation of expansion and contracting and loading bows and how it is done.
4. Yin and Yang. Well, he did say it. Its a shame he didn't move in accord...with it. Sustaining yin and yang starts at the hara to the ground and to the hand, then in movement? In matched pairs that I will not go into here. Suffice to say it is such that if anyone touched him at any point; yin and yang should be producing jins or a myriad of types in any part of his body. In the aiki arts ...aiki would be present in his head, shoulders upper amrr, lower arms, back, legs, hara, anywhere and instantly revealed.
There are many better examples of correct movement for power. Sadly, virtually all of them lack an explanation. Why? Because they are Asian teachers and they have no interest in anyone but them actually knowing what they are doing.

These are really interesting questions. I've been shown two basic ways of moving in Chinese Martial arts via different teachers that I find useful - (i believe both are sort of 'starting points' and never intended to be exclusive to each other), but I made a video about it once which I think tries to answer some of the questions above... but it wasn't made to specifically answer those questions, but you might find it interesting, or at least you can tell me all the things I am doing 'wrong'

Sorry - sound is poor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQXu9cYy8Ys

Hi Graham
Those questions aren't for me, they are for the community, and No, your video doesn't answer any of them.
This is more of my commentary on movement from another thread:

If you want to separate those with true understanding from wankers who can only make empty engineering models ( or mindlessly quote the classics) but who actually *have* nothing? Start with this:

Discuss the idea of IMA, by discussing the human body.
1. Describe what you would do to your body parts, naming your body parts that you are moving, to achieve central equilibrium.
2. Describe what the body parts do to sustain equilibrium while generating force or load.
3. Describe what the body parts then do to sustain equilibrium in movement
4. Describe what the body parts do to sustain equilibrium against outside force or load.
For the vast majority of people? They simply haven't a clue. They will come back with all sorts of mechanical models... Then touch them and they feel like any other Tom, Dick or Harry. Why? They simply haven't a clue of what to really do inside the body to create internal strength. And that covers the vast majority of people in the martial arts and on internet forums

Knowing what each thing does explains the mechanics quite neatly. It also will and should, stand in defiance of the way normal people move.
Correcting movement so it moves in accordance with internal principles is quite a bit of work- years of work. But learning the basics to at least start to understand how and why it is different from normal body organization only takes a few weekends.

[emptycloud]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBM4doq ... e=youtu.be

gonna start picking my way this stuff, see whats on offer..

Rich

[LaoDan]

One thing I have always found humorous is people quoting the classic "Up from the ground, controlled by the waist and out the hands."

Hi Dan (Bodywork),

I think that I understand where you are coming from in your comments, but I think that there is a value to the phrase – in combination with other lessons. I typically think of it more as “rooted in the feet/legs, directed by the waist, and expressed in the hands (or any other point of contact).”

To my understanding, the ‘rooted in the feet’ corresponds to the difference between movements done while standing on the ground rather than the same moves while floating in a pool of water. It is said that the feet are the root of the body [although the hip is the ‘root’ of the leg, not the foot], but the principle would work in other contexts (such as someone’s rear when sitting...). Yes, force can still be generated when floating in a pool of water, e.g. in water polo to fire a shot at the goal, but it is less than when connecting to the ground. One can alternatively talk about the ‘core’ being where the reaction with the ground through the legs is coordinated [the root of the legs being the hips], which is more like what seems to be used in water polo, but still...

What I think is missing in the ‘rooted in the feet/legs’ is the other TJQ instruction to have the quality in the legs as if you were lowering yourself down to sit into a chair. That part seems more difficult for practitioners to implement, but rather than just having the legs primarily resisting gravity in order to hold our bodies up, it is my understanding that we want to balance that with the quality of pulling our bodies down towards the ground. We want a dynamic balance between up and down in the legs rather than primarily having just the up that everyone who is able to stand has.

The ‘directed by the waist’ is rather complex and involves the relationship between the dantien condensing and the mingmen expanding, the opening and closing of the kua, the sinking down the front of the body and the rising up the back, etc.

I currently use the above ideas, but please let me know if I am way off base here so that I could consider eliminating the phrase if it would only lead to misconceptions.

Thanks,
Dan

[Dmitri]

"Up from the ground, controlled by the waist and out the hands." is a mistranslation AFAIK.
It's not talking about anything "coming up" from the ground, etc.

It says, "jin is rooted in feet, developed in legs, controlled by yao and expressed through hands/fingers"
'yao' is the "small of the back" (again, AFAIK), including pelvic area, upper part of the hips and lower part of the waist.

FWIW

In the end, it's just another "phrase from the classics" -- meaningless without a way to "implement" it in real practice.

[Michael Babin]

Dmitri;

That translation you posted makes more sense to me in the context in which I and my students train... power seems "effortless" at least when doing structured exercises when the movement in the legs doesn't rely on moving the feet but involves a three dimensional shifting of weight within the confines of whatever space you choose to occupy. To me, that makes for more dynamic rooting than the more usual idea of "I'll plant my feet and you won't move me because I either weigh too much, force too much, can contort myself into avoiding your clumsy force or all of the above!" and replacing it with "I can move around to a considerable extent under certain conditions without having to move my feet unless I need or choose to do so."

When you connect that "shiftiness in the legs" to your "waist" and add a spine that is vertical without being stiff, you get something interesting that is rarely shown in most taiji circles that I have been in. It's not magic but it can seem that way if people have never experienced it.

Oh, and if you can't move your feet freely and functionally and do all the other stuff, than you're left with martial nonsense.

[emptycloud]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kvCnUTMpjI

stack of material here... @ Mark Rasmus..

Rich