Aiki Walk

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Re: Aiki Walk

Postby willie on Sun Apr 15, 2018 8:01 pm

[quote=interloper]

Here is my aikijujutsu sensei, Salahuddin Muhammad:


[/quote]

Your Sensei looks very interesting.
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Re: Aiki Walk

Postby Interloper on Sun Apr 15, 2018 8:35 pm

willie wrote:Your Sensei looks very interesting.


He is using all of the mechanisms of dantian, mingmen, kua, etc. that you would find in high-level Chinese internal arts. Six-directional force is the baseline condition, and it is a matter of manipulating that force in many different ways to achieve different effects in martial application. It is in the martial applications that the stylistic differences are evident among these various arts, both Chinese and Japanese.

Last edited by Interloper on Sun Apr 15, 2018 8:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Aiki Walk

Postby willie on Mon Apr 16, 2018 10:10 am

Interloper wrote:
willie wrote:Your Sensei looks very interesting.


He is using all of the mechanisms of dantian, mingmen, kua, etc. that you would find in high-level Chinese internal arts. Six-directional force is the baseline condition, and it is a matter of manipulating that force in many different ways to achieve different effects in martial application. It is in the martial applications that the stylistic differences are evident among these various arts, both Chinese and Japanese.


There appears to be a lot of Tai Chi influence in his style. I believe that I have said this before and your reply was no if I'm not mistaken? But a lot of the applications that he is working off of are from Chen Style. It appears that they have been altered a little bit for his purposes. As in the cover picture of that video itself. That is him kneeling down but at the same time he is applying single whip. It appears that he is using some Dantian in his applications, I did not see any evidence of the higher-level use of the Dantian. But of course it is just a demo. I like what he's doing, it's pretty cool
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Re: Aiki Walk

Postby jaime_g on Mon Apr 16, 2018 10:46 am

Really good daito ryu uses silk reeling and dantian
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Re: Aiki Walk

Postby willie on Mon Apr 16, 2018 11:46 am

jaime_g wrote:Really good daito ryu uses silk reeling and dantian

Cool, do you have any video's of silk reeling and dantian usage from early Aikijujutsu, as proof?

To me higher level dantian usage is a bit complex to even speak about, but it is not simply turning the body or just
connecting the upper and lower body as described in a different thread.

higher lever dantian use is the ability to create explosive power in the form of fajin. This requires extensive guidance to acquire.
It requires that all area's of taichi are there first.
You must have qi or it is not fajin, it would be more like fali.
You must use the bows of the body in correct timing with the dantain.
You must be able to augment/ovalize and create bows in the area of the dantian.
You must be able to gather energy.
You must be able to use your internal organs to power the art. "this is the highest level of internal"
This is taichi.

The dantian is the engine. The form just an extension/expression of that power.
This is me practicing Xinja. You should be able to see the augmentation/gathering phase just before the jin is released.



For the purpose of comparison, I added this very old video of me before I had higher level dantian usage or short power.

The reason why I posted these video's is because interlooper had stated the higher level usage of the dantian, which is not
apparent in "None" of the Aikijujutsu video's that i have seen so far.
In-fact there is ton's of broken/un-powered applications in all of those video's.
Not that this is a Problem, some arts are powered like that.
Thanks
Last edited by willie on Mon Apr 16, 2018 12:50 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Aiki Walk

Postby Interloper on Mon Apr 16, 2018 1:15 pm

willie wrote:There appears to be a lot of Tai Chi influence in his style. I believe that I have said this before and your reply was no if I'm not mistaken? But a lot of the applications that he is working off of are from Chen Style. It appears that they have been altered a little bit for his purposes. As in the cover picture of that video itself. That is him kneeling down but at the same time he is applying single whip. It appears that he is using some Dantian in his applications, I did not see any evidence of the higher-level use of the Dantian. But of course it is just a demo. I like what he's doing, it's pretty cool


Hi willie,

Salahuddin Muhammad had only one aikijujutsu teacher, the late Okazaki Shuji, who was a direct deshi of Yoshida Kotaro (Daito Ryu), as well as of several koryu (old school, classical) Japanese martial arts. The art is an amalgamation of Kukishin Ryu (weapons), Takagi Ryu (bodyguard practical system), Kosen judo (for ne waza/ground grappling).

There were some other influences, but those four arts are the principle ones, and it was Yoshida's Daito Ryu that provided the foundational aiki. Because Okazaki Sensei was a seeker and martial scientist, always refining and improving his skills, It's very possible that he met Chinese internal martial artists and had some kind of exchange.
Muhammad Sensei started training at age 9 with Okazaki (before that, he had trained in jujutsu with another Japanese teacher, starting at age 6). He stayed with Okazaki until his teacher's death in 1991, at which time, Muhammad Sensei became the generational inheritor of the art. Okazaki had called his art Takagi Shin Ryu, but Muhammad Sensei retired the name and renamed it Hontai Hakkei Ryu to honor his teacher, because Okazaki Sensei had always referred to the explosive power of "hakkei" (transliteration of "fajin") that aiki generates.
It's interesting that the word "hakkei" is not one that you hear in Daito Ryu, and that it simply the Japanese word for "fajin" Daito ryu has this explosiveness, but I believe they use a term that is not taken from Chinese.

It's an interesting conundrum, because in the several years I have been training in HHR-AJJ, I have noted many similarities to the other internal art I study, which is a Chinese family art that has a very deep curriculum for developing the connected, internal body method. For that reason, the two arts are compatible with each other, despite their being very different in terms of outward expression and martial application.
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Re: Aiki Walk

Postby willie on Mon Apr 16, 2018 1:59 pm

Interloper wrote:
Hi willie,

Salahuddin Muhammad had only one aikijujutsu teacher, the late Okazaki Shuji, who was a direct deshi of Yoshida Kotaro (Daito Ryu), as well as of several koryu (old school, classical) Japanese martial arts. The art is an amalgamation of Kukishin Ryu (weapons), Takagi Ryu (bodyguard practical system), Kosen judo (for ne waza/ground grappling).

There were some other influences, but those four arts are the principle ones, and it was Yoshida's Daito Ryu that provided the foundational aiki. Because Okazaki Sensei was a seeker and martial scientist, always refining and improving his skills, It's very possible that he met Chinese internal martial artists and had some kind of exchange.
Muhammad Sensei started training at age 9 with Okazaki (before that, he had trained in jujutsu with another Japanese teacher, starting at age 6). He stayed with Okazaki until his teacher's death in 1991, at which time, Muhammad Sensei became the generational inheritor of the art. Okazaki had called his art Takagi Shin Ryu, but Muhammad Sensei retired the name and renamed it Hontai Hakkei Ryu to honor his teacher, because Okazaki Sensei had always referred to the explosive power of "hakkei" (transliteration of "fajin") that aiki generates.
It's interesting that the word "hakkei" is not one that you hear in Daito Ryu, and that it simply the Japanese word for "fajin" Daito ryu has this explosiveness, but I believe they use a term that is not taken from Chinese.

It's an interesting conundrum, because in the several years I have been training in HHR-AJJ, I have noted many similarities to the other internal art I study, which is a Chinese family art that has a very deep curriculum for developing the connected, internal body method. For that reason, the two arts are compatible with each other, despite their being very different in terms of outward expression and martial application.

Hi Cady. That sounds pretty impressive. As I said before, I don't know anything about aiki Jujutsu. But there is several very similar applications in Chen Style. The obvious ones being single whip and the ending posture of Pat the horse High, which he uses extensively. The other very interesting and very compatible similarities are the fact that he uses an extensive amount of flank positions. His execution of those flank positions is very similar to Chen. I must say that he does an Exquisite job of it as well, but it appears that he does not have the Gathering phase of the dantian. I have not seen the Gathering phase in any of Roy's or Dan's videos either. So perhaps it's just not part of that art.
But like I said, it's very cool, I like it.
willie

 

Re: Aiki Walk

Postby Interloper on Mon Apr 16, 2018 4:56 pm

willie --

I agree, it's not what you do in Chen style, but dantian ("tanden") work -- tanden-ho -- is part of this system, as well as soft-tissue (Yin/In tissue) absorption and re-direction of the opponent's force. What you do, is perhaps more in line with the fajin practiced in Zhong Xin Dao I Liq Chuan (the Chinese art I also study).

In a lot of his videos, he is teaching or demonstrating at a seminar, and is only showing certain levels or degrees of the processes. Some things are avoided or not show altogether, because it's not the purpose of the seminar, level of understanding of his audience, etc.

Not very overt or visible in this video, but there are some punches being delivered by a combination of dantian-mingmen combined with small, explosive movement from the kua (kai-he) and some other components. His punches and strikes are deeply concussive. IME, most aikijujutsu systems rely more on the "Yang/Yo" than the "Yin/In," in striking, but in this particular system, there is more Yin/In than I have seen in other systems of aikijujutsu.


Last edited by Interloper on Mon Apr 16, 2018 5:00 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Aiki Walk

Postby klonk on Sat Apr 28, 2018 6:01 pm

This discussion has clarified for me a key point of difference between Japanese and Chinese approaches to internal power. Thank you, Interloper. You saw where I could not.

I recall a fellow who used to post here, from some or other Japanese school of training (I was never clear which one) who was working hard in the job belittling TCMA folks for talking about mere mechanics, not real internals.

I now see that from his standpoint he was right so far as that went. It does look like that if you see internal development as working toward grasping, in the moment, a complicated gestalt. Zen on the mat. It's very Japanese.

Here is a Chinese approach to internals. I do not say "the" approach because, as DeGaulle cleverly pointed out, China is a large country inhabited by many Chinese.

The beginner is given some movements to practice. After work on these is well begun, he is given some additional things to work on, such as zhan zhuang and/or other qigong, and it is elliptically observed that the one thing has to do with the other.

With either a low quality teacher, or a low quality student, or worst of all both together, the matter ends there, the student doing boxing and qigong but never at the same time, then his useless master dies and he becomes the new useless master.

But in a better case, flow between the heel and the hand is noticed first in the qigong and then in the punch.

I rather like something C.J. Wang wrote recently about internal martial arts being about recruitment and use of unusual bodily abilities, for otherwise, what do we mean by the distinction from external, meaning ordinary and everyday?
I define internal martial art as unusual muscle recruitment and leave it at that. If my definition is incomplete, at least it is correct so far as it goes.
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Re: Aiki Walk

Postby Interloper on Sat Apr 28, 2018 8:29 pm

klonk,
In the majority of Japanese internal arts schools, very limited "internal" material is passed on, except to perhaps a select handful. The rest get external material -- and it may be very good, just not anything incorporating the so-called "internal qualities" of the art. In that respect, it's very much akin to the Chinese internal martial arts.

In the Japanese arts, as with the Chinese arts, who gets the skills depends on how much jikiden (direct teaching/transmission -- physical, verbal and psychological) a student receives from the teacher. Beginning students are given what would be considered "external" sets of standing and moving exercises to do which don't in themselves exercise internal mechanisms, but which start the development of neural-muscular pathways that will lead to the student being able to physically recognize, locate, and activate the internal tissues and processes necessary to make internal structure and power. By themselves, these exercises could be practiced for a lifetime and never impart anything remotely "internal" in a person; the teacher has to know how to incrementally build on, and in, the student the necessary pathways. Some students will be given this key, and move on to more sophisticated skills. The rest may become exceptionally fluid and powerful from the "skeletal" foundation exercises, but never progress beyond the overt movements and products of the beginning movements they were taught.
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Re: Aiki Walk

Postby klonk on Sun Apr 29, 2018 2:01 pm

Interesting observations! Xingyi's Five Fists are outwardly (externally) good commonsense boxing. The blow arrives with a significant weight transfer behind it. Coordination and timing.

Then things get a bit strange. You are encouraged to place yourself into the position of just having landed a blow.

"Okay, what do I do now?"

"You are doing it."

"What??"
I define internal martial art as unusual muscle recruitment and leave it at that. If my definition is incomplete, at least it is correct so far as it goes.
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Re: Aiki Walk

Postby Trick on Mon Apr 30, 2018 1:13 am

Interloper wrote:klonk,
In the majority of Japanese internal arts schools, very limited "internal" material is passed on, except to perhaps a select handful. The rest get external material -- and it may be very good, just not anything incorporating the so-called "internal qualities" of the art. In that respect, it's very much akin to the Chinese internal martial arts.

In the Japanese arts, as with the Chinese arts, who gets the skills depends on how much jikiden (direct teaching/transmission -- physical, verbal and psychological) a student receives from the teacher. Beginning students are given what would be considered "external" sets of standing and moving exercises to do which don't in themselves exercise internal mechanisms, but which start the development of neural-muscular pathways that will lead to the student being able to physically recognize, locate, and activate the internal tissues and processes necessary to make internal structure and power. By themselves, these exercises could be practiced for a lifetime and never impart anything remotely "internal" in a person; the teacher has to know how to incrementally build on, and in, the student the necessary pathways. Some students will be given this key, and move on to more sophisticated skills. The rest may become exceptionally fluid and powerful from the "skeletal" foundation exercises, but never progress beyond the overt movements and products of the beginning movements they were taught.

I don't understand this post, you say begginers exercises can lead the practitioner to get this Aiki, but you also say a practitioner need "special guidance" to get Aiki skill....A non Aiki skilled practitioner can become "exceptional fluid and powerful", so what will an Aiki skilled practitioner become then?
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Re: Aiki Walk

Postby Interloper on Mon Apr 30, 2018 4:35 pm

Trick wrote:I don't understand this post, you say begginers exercises can lead the practitioner to get this Aiki, but you also say a practitioner need "special guidance" to get Aiki skill....A non Aiki skilled practitioner can become "exceptional fluid and powerful", so what will an Aiki skilled practitioner become then?


Trick,
What I was trying to articulate, is that internal body methods (of which Aiki is a part) are taught incrementally, starting with exercises that work with movements and abilities that most people already have and can relate to. This is because the connective tissues -- muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia -- that are used in the creation of internal structure and power, are almost never already conditioned to do the kinds of movements required in internal method. A neural-muscular has to be developed, first.

And before that can be done, the individual has to be able to recognize, isolate and activate very specific tissues; so, his awareness has to be trained, as well. For example, a lot of people can't recognize or find their psoas muscles, and activate them willfully. The beginning levels of training thus must focus on helping students to be able to recognize the body parts they'll need to be using, and they do this by starting with the parts of the body frame and musculature that the student does recognize and know how to activate, and then work from there.

That's why in both of the arts I study (one Chinese, one Japanese), elementary exercises focus on skeletal/joint alignment, relaxation, balance and distribution of body mass. Then they move on to a variety of simple movements that address the full range of human motion, including martial movements such as strikes and kicks, stepping, turning and deflection. There also is simple power generation by conventional means, such as the turning of the hips (using large muscles of the hips and torso), and swinging of arms and legs, centripetal force from stepping and turning, etc.

At this stage, the movements do not have any "internal" component; they are conventional postures and movements. BUT... they lay the groundwork for developing the ability to recognize the tissues and movements that are needed for internal skills. Once you recognize and can feel where something is, the next step is to develop the ability to activate those tissues at will. Then you can learn -how- to move them, and when.

In some arts, that's actually all there is, though -- the external foundation drills -- and students become more refined in those movements, and learn to apply them martially. But in the internal arts, there is a next-stage set of mechanisms that are introduced,with which the students are able to replace "externally" motivated movements (e.g. swinging or rotating the hips to move the arms and legs, etc.) with "internal" ones (using a combined set of muscles, tendons, ligaments instead of those gross-muscle and joint movements) to achieve the same set of movements.

The second set of movement skills are not something a person can teach himself, because it is so specific and so unconventional. The chances of stumbling across the "formula" for aiki and internal power, are pretty slim. So, while you might be able to teach yourself how to punch "externally," through trial and error, learning how to use your body effectively in the generation of internal power, or manipulative aiki, requires someone who has those skills to guide and instruct you.

The non-aiki person will develop fluid, powerful -external- movements. The aiki person will develop an unusual stability that is very hard to uproot, and a different kind of power that requires less overt-external movement, yet generates more force because it uses the entire unified body in a cyclical process that produces power at every stage (no starting and ending point), rather than "pieces" of the body in sequential chains of movement that have a beginning and an end, and then must be re-chambered or re-set.

Does that help?
Last edited by Interloper on Mon Apr 30, 2018 8:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Aiki Walk

Postby Trick on Tue May 01, 2018 12:39 am

Interloper wrote:The second set of movement skills are not something a person can teach himself, because it is so specific and so unconventional. The chances of stumbling across the "formula" for aiki and internal power, are pretty slim. So, while you might be able to teach yourself how to punch "externally," through trial and error, learning how to use your body effectively in the generation of internal power, or manipulative aiki, requires someone who has those skills to guide and instruct you.

The non-aiki person will develop fluid, powerful -external- movements. The aiki person will develop an unusual stability that is very hard to uproot, and a different kind of power that requires less overt-external movement, yet generates more force because it uses the entire unified body in a cyclical process that produces power at every stage (no starting and ending point), rather than "pieces" of the body in sequential chains of movement that have a beginning and an end, and then must be re-chambered or re-set.

Does that help?

Well it continue to help me to understand that the "second set of movement skill" belong to the secret teaching but you anyway want to tell that you and the school(dojo/teacher) you're affiliated with are in possession of this skill.....You continue to say that "The non-aiki person will develop fluid, powerful -external- movements" which sound as to contradict the "rather than "pieces" of the body in sequential chains of movement that have a beginning and an end, and then must be re-chambered or re-set."
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Re: Aiki Walk

Postby Interloper on Tue May 01, 2018 10:25 am

Trick wrote:
Well it continue to help me to understand that the "second set of movement skill" belong to the secret teaching but you anyway want to tell that you and the school(dojo/teacher) you're affiliated with are in possession of this skill.....You continue to say that "The non-aiki person will develop fluid, powerful -external- movements" which sound as to contradict the "rather than "pieces" of the body in sequential chains of movement that have a beginning and an end, and then must be re-chambered or re-set."


Trick,

We are talking about a body method here, a way to develop a structure and power-generation process that are very different from conventional methods you will find in the various schools of modern Japanese karate, contemporary Chinese wushu/kungfu, muay Thai, and other external systems in which the power generation is in the techniques themselves, not in the way the body is held and managed on the "inside." "External" exercises will help build coordination, balance, muscular strength, endurance, and more, but they are working different processes than "internal" exercises, which are developing complex interplays of tensions and releases of specific muscles and sinews.

In order for a person to learn aiki, however, they have to learn to feel inside their body and find those specific muscles and sinews, before they can learn how to control and use them for this unique purpose. The pathway to that, is to first show them how to FIND those tissues by visiting the muscles and tissues they already do recognize from conventional daily use. It's kind of like, if you don't know where the public library is, but someone tells you it's a couple of blocks away from a grocery store you do know, you can find the library by going to the grocery store first, and venturing out from there. :)

It's not necessarily a "secret teaching," though some teachers hold it close to the vest.
Aiki comes from the same principles that many systems of the Chinese internal martial arts do, and if you know about those, then you understand that different Chinese schools also have varying levels of internal method themselves, and varying levels of what they can and will teach to their students. I have trained with a number of individuals from different arts that have the same basic methods and principles as the ones I train in, and they had qualities that were both similar and different -- not better or worse, just different.

Anyway, I guess the only way to make this understandable, is for you to meet and be able to feel experienced people who have at least some of these skills, whether from Chinese, Japanese or other internal arts. I get the sense that perhaps you have not, which is why no amount of verbal explanation will make this understandable, and I apologize for not being able to be clearer.
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