University Aikido Club

Regarding giving a shot at defining "recognize and accept responsibility for your contribution to failure," I would like to raise my hand. It would be easiest for me to do so by offering an example of what we did during last Friday's Aikido class.

Our teacher, Jack Bieler, and myself were in the center of the mat. I was asked to perform a two-handed shomen-ate. I placed both of my hands on his chin, with him leaning far back, yet in a static position. Then, as I stepped in to perform the technique he regained balance by grabbing both of my wrists then threw me as in sumi otoshi. We repeated that exercise several times and I remained perplexed as to how he, or anyone, could recover from such an inferior state and then take control of the situation.

Several of us were discussing where things went so "wrong" for me. Our conclusion was that I had defeated myself in at least two ways. First, by initially being in a static posture I was helping Jack retain his own balance. Second, I was leaning forward rather than maintaining my own posture. There are bound to be many other factors involved but those were the first that we've identified. So, using that as an example, I trust my interpretation of this principle is fair.

This is an excellent example on how this principle is to be applied.

The principle forces us to examine and question our own actions using an exterior criteria. It is not what we perceive in our minds as right that we use to judge our actions.

By learning to recognize our own failings, we achieve view of ourselves that is compatible with the "real" world around us. Many people cannot admit their errors, and hence set themselves up for catastrophic failure when their view of reality does not coincide with the environment in which they find themselves.

By accepting responsibility for our failures, we set into motion those actions which help us to eliminate the cause of the failure. If we blame them on something or someone else, we have no hope of fixing the problem. Sometime it is hard to see the root cause because we are not looking at the problem soon enough. But if we accept the responsibility we keep looking.

The principle also forces us to measure our solutions in terms of real factors, elimination those solution that are the result of mental conversation with ourselves, but cannot be verified in practice.

The principle applies in aikido in much the same way that mathematical induction does in mathematics. It allows us to get to the next level, with the confidence that we can continue doing so indefinitely.

The principle also helps us to refine our definition of failure and prevents us from defining success as winning.

I cannot help to comment that if more people applied this to their everyday life we would all benefit and I'd be out of a job. I constantly see people who cannot, in their everyday dealings with other people or institutions, admit to their own level of responsibility in how things went. Instead, they "shut their mind to the chaos" and plod along blaming everyone and everything for their own actions all the while one a downward spiral they could stop if they really wanted to do so.

It has been stated that every technique has a built in way to defeat it and that we cannot underestimate the human potential. So, this would mean that there is no technique that is "fool proof" and would work all of the time. A person could attack you in a way that would be just perfect for a certain technique, but after you initially take their balance they go to recover in the "wrong" direction and completely mess up your technique. This is why it is crucial to be able to change directions. "Nothing works" all of the time. Body posture, such as keeping your weight 50/50, staying on the balls of you feet, having your knees slightly bent, and moving from your center enables you move in any direction at any time. You never want to make a committed defense that would leave you unable to change directions.

In the Ju Nana Hon Kata there are many techniques which have the same initial off balance. The technique is determined by how uke responds. As much as we practice all of these possible responses, a person attacking could react in a way we never have imagined. So, we need to be prepared for anything and be able to respond in any direction. Randori is the best place to experiment with this since it is a free form and uke is totally unpredictable.

Automatic First Response or
"To boldly Go where No one has Sen before"

Of primary (and obvious) importance in any martial arts training is "How do we respond to an attack?" Various styles take differing approaches to this question. Some styles ask the question back, "What kind of attack?" They then proceed to tell the practitioner to step to spot B or grab or strike at target Z depending on uke's attack (a conditional response). This approach is problematic for several reasons, therefore, Fugakukai aikido takes an approach that trains a standard first response to any attack

The principal problem with conditional first responses is that misjudgement of uke's intent could and probably will be catastrophic. Even with a significant number of years of practice, the time required for the human mind to process the immense number of variables in uke's attack and then process an appropriate response from his internal "catalogue" is so substantial that error and failure on the part of tori is probable. A beginner in such an art stands almost no chance in processing these factors succ

In building an automatic first response, we try to minimize what the brain has to process. We build upon natural, reflexive motions and make them more efficient. We simplify and distill options. Simplification includes the use of natural motions and universalization of response. Use of the below listed principles allows us to worry less about where we end up (to uke's inside or outside/left or right/etc.) and focus on, as Renard Jackson Sensei says, "The Principle" (getting out of the way of the attack).

Another tool of internalizing our first response is reiteration. Casual observation will show that people react to situations according to what they have most practiced. Kata provides a forum for reiteration of principle. Also, because the number of principles are actually quite small, we are able to reiterate them with high frequency.

Typically Fugakukai first response involves three major components:

1. falling off the line of attack;
2. raising our arms to approximately should level with wrists back;
3. an intuitive understanding of maai, or attack distance.

All three of these components work together to protect tori should the other components fail; they act, as others have pointed out, as a redundant system. These systems also allow for recovery from mistakes. Should tori err in application of these or other principles, all of these components allow tori to correct, disengage, or at least minimize damage from uke.

We build upon natural foot movement; we acknowledge that at the time of the attack tori will likely be loaded on one foot. We then train the more efficient method of "falling" out of the way rather than proceeding through a full gait cycle. We build upon the natural reaction of lifting our hands in surprise. We add components to it such as having the wrist back, the fingers up, the arm centered and same hand/same foot.

The least natural component, judgement of maai becomes ingrained through most of the kata in the system. Practitioners constantly are asked to make judgement of maai in kata. Thus, tori (and uke) quickly internalise effective distance to avoid attack or land an attack. As Henry Copeland Sensei recently pointed out, in order for maai to become internalized, or automatic, maai must remain the same throughout the katas and practitioners should ensure that a standard is set and maintained.

In conclusion, we want a first response that maximizes our use of time. The best way to accomplish this is to internalize a set of principles useful in any situation and that allows for errors. In Fugakukai, our use of movement off the line of attack by falling, the shomen ate arm/hand, and internalization of maai has provided these necessary components.

The distance you must train to always react to, defined by the exact space wherein if you are looking the other person in the eyeyou still barely have perpherial sight of the feet, roughly measured by the distance of two tegatana --middle fingers lightly touching, palms only seperate by a few millimeters. Learn to move and react from exactly there-- to walk on the edge of the world-- to define a consistant set of space/time coordinates that your subconscious can dependably trigger on and you have a key to some real mojo. Watch out and be ruthlessly vigilant withyourself in your practice and do not let yourself slipp into adding a little space to your maai -- measuring off then adding a little comfort step back etc. (it is a natural thing to want to do this -- maai sets off our "spidey sense" its uncomfortable and we'd prefer to start a little soonerand not feel pressed) Dont do it -- dont let yourself do it -- Stick to real maai-- live in the discomfort of that closer space, for by doing so you will be adding a condition that demands precision, and you will be forcing yourself over time to work under a pressure of reality that you just cant get if you allow yourself the little luxury of an inflated maai. it comes down to the idea that you train to handle the hard stuff cause if you can handle the hard stuff then the easy stuff is easy. . .

Sorry if I got a bit on the soap box there -- I am a reformed maai inflater and recovering maai dialater myself and once KG showed me the light and the error of my ways Ive been ranting insufferably on the subject ever since.

Thanks, Nick, For the insightful comments on ma-ai inflation. I concur wholeheartedly with what you have to say and we have been emphasizing this topic recently in class. I have some comments on it, though.

This may seem like gnawing this bone to death...

You mention that the hand-to-hand thing is a rough measurement or an approximation of ma-ai and you DEFINE ma-ai in terms of peripheral vision. I have always considered the peripheral vision thing to be another approximation - not the definition of ma-ai. I have always considered the definition of ma-ai in terms of distance. Specifically the distance at which uke has to make a step toward you in order to reach you. Recently in our hashing over this my definition of ma-ai has become more rigorous in that I consider it to be the distance at which uke with one full down step can barely reach you. But in either definition I think of it in terms of distance.

Some of my friends think of it in terms of time instead of distance or peripheral vision. Perhaps they would expand upon this. I think that the time and the distance thing is roughly the same thing.

So we have to develop an acute, intuitive feel for this distance/time relationship. The peripheral vision thing is one approximation of this distance. The eye-contact thing is an approximation of ma-ai based on parallax (which is basically a time/speed measure). The hand-to-hand measure is another approximation. By taking these several different approximations and (SORT OF) averaging them then we rapidly develop this intuition of where our boundary of success is and where uke's is.

Am I close to on track or is THE definition of ma-ai based on terms of peripheral vision?

The hand-to-hand "approximation" is the most precise and reproducible definition. It, fortuitously, gives a very good measure of all the other definitions. It is the preciseness of this definition which we can internalize, and is independent of how we feel and what we want and what we would consider better and all those other arbitrary criteria that keep us from developing a clear decision point.

In definining Maai in terms of peripherial vision I am recalling Karl's description of how Mr. Tomiki defined it -- that the hand to hand mesurement was an approximation of the vision condition, but he did not say that the vision condition was an approximation also so I will have to think on this further..

From how Nick recently described this to me, it would seem to me they are both the same thing... Try measuring ma-ai using your hands. You will notice that this is the same point at which the other person's feet disappear. I have also heard the time definition of ma-ai and it too seems to be describing the same physical distance as well as time. It is just another way to describe it and gain the advantage of another viewpoint. The critical thing is that you are retraining your subconsciousness to set off those alarm bells when you are no longer at a safe point... (Like Nick's "Spidey-Senses.")

The measurement of ma-ai via hand-blades and the measurement of ma-ai via peripheral vision are not universally equivalent. There are many common anatomical deviations (assuming a "normal" human anatomy can be defined) that can affect the measurements.

Suppose a person with rather long arms also had exceptional peripheral vision. It is quite likely that such a person could see a portion of the gound between himself and his partner when standing at ma-ai as defined by arm length.

As a more concrete and actual example, I have small growths in the back of my eye near the optic nerve interface. These growths (referred to as drusen, I believe) effectively limit my peripheral vision. As a result, I generally can not see the lower portion of my partner's legs when standing at ma-ai as defined by arm length.

Should I be training my "spidey-sense" to trigger at the distance I can no longer see my entire attacker, or should I be comfortable allowing the attacker to approach to arm length? For that matter, what should I do about rocks that "disappear" just as I should be stepping over them?

On an aside:

I think that the loss of peripheral vision due to the drusen would bother me far less if I had adapted since birth to deal with the situation. Unfortunately (or fortunately), I have only begun to notice a significant loss of peripheral vision within the last year or two.

These days, I am increasingly likely to stumble over objects, and I have to keep looking away from people with whom I am speaking in order to maintain awareness of my immediate environment. Hopefully, these problems will dissapate as my brain develops a more accurate and efficient extrapolation routine.

I have finally read this thread on Maai, and am interested in the thoughts of everyone on the way maai is introduced in "aikido and the dynamic sphere". THey talk about the unified power of force (pg. 58). Basically, they talk about maai as the distance at which uke's power reaches its limit just prior to contact. i.e. the distance at which they punch and can almost reach you is maai, any closer and you receive the full power of impact, any farther and they probably would not attack. What is everyone's thought on this?

The definition of Maai in terms of attack distance is correct, except it is subjective and cannot be reproducibly measured. It will always reflect how comfortable we are with our position.

There are two sides of Maai. If you are too close, both tori and uke are within attack distance. If uke attacks from mai (define by arm length), he can be less than maai when his attack fails, in fact he can be one arms length (the other magic distance) away from tori and subject to an immediate application of force. If the distance is to large, then tori must move at a point where he cannot achieve the one arms length geometry. Hence, uke can sneak across maai, cause tori to respond, and be momentarily immune to attack, giving him the opportunity to adjust his attack from a distance will within maai.

The one arms length definition is fairly precise (most shodan and above can walk up to maai no matter who they are approaching), easily measured, and not subject to internal adjustments. Once the distance is imprinted, adjustment for weapons are easily adapted.

I seem to be following what you are saying, but I get confused with how you diferentiate between two "magic lengths." One seems to be maai and the other one arm's length. But isn't maai approximated by one arm's length?

What's the difference that I'm missing?

I am reminded once again that this is just another way to describe the actual objectives we are trying to accomplish in the first place. The whole point of any measurement of ma-ai is to help us become aware of our "safety zone." If we never get used to making an effort to learn where this is, we will never be able to subconsciously recognize it when we need to in a real life situation. As an instructor, it is my responsibility to take physical limitations into consideration and modify techniques as needed. In your case, I would have to re-define ma-ai to fit your particular vision problem. (The description itself and perhaps the physical distance as well.) One of my students has a birth defect (bad hand) which prevents him from grabbing people on one side for releases. In his case, we only have him grab for one side and get as close to approximation as he can on the other. Another person has stiff knees preventing him from doing squatting side falls so I have him do them from a sitting position instead. If a person is physically unable to do something a particular way, it should be modified to fit his\her situation as needed while maintaining the principles and final objectives.

Maai is two arms lenghts, one for you and one for the other guy. One arms length is when it one for you and zero for the other guy.

We generally think of ma-ai as the space which tori defends. We often do not consider it from uke's point of view. Uke must internalize the distance which is the boundary between success and failure of an attack. Any attack from further away must fail. When this distance is internalized, uke will automatically know when tori is close enough. The transfers when uke becomes tori.

It is a more refined sensitivity for uke to walk up just to ma-ai and then attack than it is for tori to repond when uke crosses ma-ai.

The other distance, just one arms lenght away, is the closest distance an attack can be initiated with a straight arm. Tori internalizes these distances when he attacks in the kata. It is the space between uke's attack distance and tori's attack distance in which tori can be harmed and uke is most vulnerable to catastrophic failure. Uke learns to deal with this failure in its extreme form to survive.

Ma-ai with weapons carries the same idea. In san kata, the transition, hand-knife-sword-stick, addresses the problems with changing ma-ai. With hand you can attack uke's center. With a knife you can still attack his center in some cases or attack the attack in others. With the sword you attack the attack. With the stick, you again attack the center, but after an extra step or two.

In randori, we learn to deal with the other person in the space between ma-ai and one arms length. It must be recognized that you are in the same space.

Some tori in the release movements present their hands too high or too low. The ideal position would be if uke is at a distanct just touching tori's chin, tori's places his hand so as to just concide with uke's grasp if uke allows his hand to drop to the grasp position. The reinforces the same ma-ai. You have to practice to create a single ma-ai. Otherwise, you will always be deciding when to move, rather than moving.

There is a famous frog experiment. A frog, because of his independent vision in each eye, has a left ma-ai and a right ma-ai. If a bug crosses into either, the frog eats. But if bugs arrive simultaneously at the two ma-ai, the frog is unable to act. In fact, he freezes and is unable to react to other stimula as well.

Thank you Henry, I wasn't sure if I was getting it right about Maai. So many of the words required to express the idea work two ways if I'm not careful. You've a nack for cramming a lot into few words.

Most likely my last posting did not make it to you before your's was sent. I got back to the ART issue. I'm not as married to the ideas I sometimes expound as it would seem. I would personally be gratefull if you'd shoot whatever holes in what I've said as you would.

Part of making this system self regulating and self separating and naturally disengaging is allowing for the possibility for uke's system to fail catastrophically at any time but not trying to make this happen.

Something that we practice every so often is having uke fall out of the offbalances in junana. If uke has much momentum and you do the offbalance to #1 then uke takes a forward otoshi fall. If you do the 45 degree offbalance like in #3 then uke spins and takes a side fall or a back fall. If you do the offbalance to #14 or any of the floating throws then uke spins into a guruma-like fall.

WARNING: use a crash pad. These falls from these off-balances will kill people.

But anyway - what does this have to do with self regulating and naturally separating? If we are clinging to uke expecting a certain reaction but we accidentally happen to get everything right then when he falls we're screwed. On the other hand, if we are depending on getting everything right and shit happens then we're screwed again.

By living on the edge between expecting nothing to work but being prepared for it to work dramatically the techniques begin to evolve toward a form that will work in either situation. This is part of self-regulation.

This is a partial example of the concept. In the "what he does, he references his activity to uke. In the "what he doesn't do" he avoids creating expectations that are derived from within himself.

I have even seen people build this into kata. Someone will analyze a technique thus:

I "do something" to uke. Uke then "does something". Then I can throw uke. That tori will then find a willing uke to practice the scenario and things work. He then proclaims he has found the "Holy Grail" for the technique and begins proselytizing others to buy in to this form of the kata. Without testing this becomes a self-reference loop.

When your actions are dictated by uke, the techniques become self-regulating. Uke determines the direction. Uke determines the time. Uke determines the technique.

In keeping with Henry's thermodynamic approach, another way of describing a self-regulating system is to say that the optimum is a low-energy state of the system. In other words, to do it wrong, you have to actually put energy into the system. In the motion of a body, there are an immense number of variables, corresponding to all of the things that uke might do, as well as all of the different physical parameters, such as height, weight, etc. If each demands an adjustment to tori's technique, then tori is put in the position of having to determine and execute the appropriate corrections at a time when things are moving very fast and tori is probably not in the best mental state to be making complicated calculations. On the other hand, if the technique is designed to be self-regulating, then all tori has to do is not interfere, and the dynamic system will spontaneously seek its minimum energy trajectory--which will be the correct path for that set of variables.

It sounds very simple, but as usual, simple does not mean easy. People who go into the martial arts tend to be control freaks in some sense or other. We like to *decide* where we are going to put our foot down, and the idea of ceding that decision to our opponent goes very much against the grain, even when we know intellectually that the only way to truly be in control of the situation is to stop actively trying to control it.

I was at Winter Clinic many years ago, when the fireplace was on the porch, and twisting balloon animals was a major side activity, and during one of those conversations that often break out at the front of the dojo, Karl made the point that learning anything is essentially building up the vocabulary of the new discipline, along with the required physicals kills. Karl was using a very broad definition of vocabulary, I think, but within that definition the point was fairly true.

So if the discipline is Aikido, everyone will build a vocabulary to teach themselves and supplement the physical learning. I don't know that this vocabulary--dialect if you will--is going to be the same for every aikido practitioner, or every region. What should be true is that despite the dialectal differences, the underlying physical experience is the same.

We are asked to explain what some of Henry's analysis into words of the principals of aikido means to us. I can only do that in terms of my own dialect and experience. I don't know how this will map exactly onto Henry's interpretation of the terms, nor anyone else's.

All of this is by way of being a big disclaimer: everything below is my interpretation, as I understand things right now. Measure any truth it may have through the filter of your own experience.

Power From Center

Shoulders Over Hips

The more I learn about aikido, the less is there. Things learned earlier by rote become manifestations of rules. Rules learned earlier through hard practice hours become manifestations of underlying principals. And those principals become consequences of even more fundamental principals.

Over time, I have established what for me is current Working Hypothesis that several of our most basic rules:

• Hand over foot
• Same hand, same foot
• Left, right, left, right
• Keep the Box

actually contribute to the more general physical invariant Shoulders Over Hips. I have watched gymnasts, golfers, speed skaters, and (due to the insidious influence of my teachers) NFL football athletes, and even martial artists of other styles (as well as our own)--and all of them keep their shoulders over their hips.

At one point in my youth, unfortunately not yet forgotten, my Dad tried to teach me to play golf. This involved various cruelties such as buying me golf clubs, taking me to driving ranges and golf courses, and of course, trying to explain and demonstrate how to play. At the time, I had the approximate physical coordination and body knowledge of a two-day old infant, and so these efforts were doomed from the outset. Golf had a number of strange things you had to do, such as Keep Your Head Down, Turn Your Foot, and Follow-Through (I am sure I am forgetting some). As I recall these lessons through my aikido-trained eyes, I realize that they all, together, had the intended effect of Shoulders Over Hips.

A couple of days after this revelation (if it deserves such as fancy term),I was at my folks house watching world-class women's gymnastics on television. I realized I could tell every time the young woman would falloff of the balance beam, or break her tumbling run (before it actually happened). It was because her shoulders weren't over her hips.

By shoulders over hips, I mean that the spine is not torqued, and the back is relaxed, and if you drew a line from the right shoulder to the point of the right hip, and the left to the left, the lines would be parallel (or at least have an equal angle of convergence towards the spine).

Thus my working hypothesis is that good posture in aikido requires Shoulders Over Hips, not because it is fundamental to aikido (although it is) but because it is fundamental to the physiology of the human body. I cannot explain why in terms of skeletal anatomy or tendons or what not(nor even in terms of chi meridians) this is true, but it appears to me to be fundamentally true, by empirical evidence.

I notice that when I manage (rarely enough, but just once in a while lately) to keep my hand over feet, manage to use the same hand and foot(or manage to have that floating hand that goes with the non-power foot),and with one foot and then the other--magically, my shoulders are over my hips.

Shoulders Over Hips is the first element of what Power From Center means tome, because you cannot have Power From Center if the body is not in fundamentally good posture to deliver that power.

The Unbendable Arm

A small aside: the Unbendable Arm may sometimes be required to transmit Power From Center, but it is not part of the principal as I understand it, nor essential, because that power can be transmitted through any appropriate connection (such as a hip as in some variants of Gedan-ate, or through the upper body if an uke grabs on and doesn't--or cannot--let go, or through a jo, and so forth).

Timing and Opportunity

Shoulders Over Hips necessarily is the first, and easiest element, of Power From Center to learn. It must come first, because without it, no power can be transmitted. It is the easiest element to learn, because it is entirely within your own body. No feedback and interaction with an uke is required to know whether your own shoulders and hips are in alignment--just the physical experience to recognize it.

The second element I am just now beginning to learn, and I have no name for it. Since I am just learning it, I may be very clumsy in expressing it, so I hope you will be patient with my groping towards understanding.

In randori, a moment may occur when your partner attacks that if you drop your weight through your good structure into them, you know that it will have a deleterious effect on their balance. They might not be thrown on that step, but they will have a problem to solve, with more strictly limited choices, then if you had not allowed that body drop to happen. Without the body drop, they may complete an attack to you.

This moment, recognizing it, and allowing the body drop to occur in the right direction, to me is the second element of using Power From Center. It is a moment of maximum changeability in the system comprised of both randori partners, when a small motion can have a disproportionate effect.

There are many complex elements that I cannot yet express in words, having to do with how the cycle of the step works, and rising and falling, and which parts of the step permit changing of directions, and so forth. I suspect the fact that to me it is so complicated means that I haven't yet learned enough about it to make it simpler.

The best way I can explain when this moment occurs is to tell a story about some randori that helped me understand something about this time.

I was practicing randori with a person who is smaller than I am (I am pretty tall, and pretty wide, and have a consequently large mass). I was practicing with an individual who was much smaller than me, both in height and slimness. This individual therefore had a very quick step cycling time, unlike mine which is ponderously slow.

I would just be dropping into my right foot, and right handed unbendable arm, when this individual would be ready to change feet due to their quicker cycle time. They would try to change direction -into- me. There was no way for me to reset my body from falling and remove the power from that arm without completely destroying my own balance and structure--it was a time when I could legitimately use power, and the other individual could not. However, the only power I could legitimately use was the power I was already committed to: stepping into that foot, because anything else would have destroyed my Shoulder Over Hip structure. The time and opportunity was created by my partner's actions.

I suspect this is a more obvious example of what I am trying to express as the right time, and that many more subtle examples exist. This probably plays into not making arbitrary motions which Karl has frequently addressed, but I cannot express that connection coherently.

Life is Art

As for the biomechanics behind "shoulders over hips" as you call it, there are several elements:

Each of our joints has a neutral resting range. A place where it hangs out comfortably. Each of our joints has a position at which the muscles surrounding it can produce maximal force. The neutral place and the maximum force angle are rarely the same but they are generally similar.

Whenever we move a joint outside of it's neutral zone we create both active and passive insufficiencies. By this I mean that the muscles on one side of the joint will be stretched more than normal and will therefore be less capable of contracting forcefully (except in certain cases). This is called passive insufficiency when you stretch a muscle and make it weak. On the other side of the joint the muscles will be slacked. If there is too much slack the contractile elements in the muscle cannot take up the slack enough to move the joint. This is called active insufficiency. (active insufficiency can also be when you contract a muscle so much you can't move the joint any farther)

Henry and I played with this a while back in the context of ude osae gatame. If we lay uke on his stomach as in #6 of junana or #1 of san kata then we stretch one arm out above his shoulder level then when he places the other arm under him to fight to get up he creates active and passive insufficiencies in his chest and abdominal and back muscles. In this position uke is frequently too weak to lift his own weight off the ground. Tori, therefore does hot have to lean hard on the arm or torque the elbow backwards to hold uke down.

Another common example of this is in judo when we take the bottom position on the ground and "crotch lock" or "guard" the top man. If we use our arms to hug his neck or hold both of his shoulders then the top man is in a symmetric position and can more readily fight us. If, however, we hug one shoulder or one of his lapels to us then this creates an asymmetric position from him to fight from. This creates these muscular insufficiencies in the top man and makes him weaker.

In addition to the insufficiencies mentioned above, the angle at which the pulling muscle/tendon inserts upon a bone changes as the joint position changes. As the angle of insertion changes the ability of the muscle to exert force on the bone changes.

Karl sort of talks about this on one of his tapes where he talks about the slightly bent unbendable arm with the hand pulled back. This position of the arm places the muscles of the arm (especially the tricep) under a slight tonus. This means that the tricep will more readily fire when something hits the end of your arm trying to bend it. This means that it is easier to maintain unbendable arm in this position than in any other (except maybe locked-out elbow but then the elbow becomes unstable backwards.).

Basically these factoids say that outside the neutral range of a joint (or series of joints) the system is weaker and/or less stable. For a pretty good discussion of these topics, check out this link: http://www.uq.edu.au/~anvkippe/an212/muscmech.html

So, back to Scott's discussion of "shoulders over hips", when we maintain this neutral position we are muscularly and skeletally more stable and capable of exerting force. When it gets down to it, we are only made to so a few things well: pushing and pulling forward and backward, bending and straightening our knees, and bending and straightening our hips straight forward and backward. The motions are tightly wired together so that pushing with our arm makes us bend forward with our abs makes us...

Since we mechanically suck at twisting and turning and bending, when we introduce a twist into this system it is magnified throughout the body and our muscle forces that we exert screw us up.

Here is an interesting little posture experiment to play with: try spinning in a tight guruma motion round and round with good posture. Then try it while bending forward at the waist about 45 degrees and see don't you almost fall on your head!

This is the theoretical basis, which explains the source of the "magic" in aikido. One of the things Karl Geis did was to demonstrate the magic was possible and also teachable. You did not have to be a genetic freak to learn to do the magic. In most arts, crafts, and physical activity, if you do not have a born in ability, you can not achieve a high degree of proficiency. Not so with KG aikido.

To apply this principle, you do not have to understand it. It is much like driving a car. Very few people understand the intimate details of its operation, but almost anyone can drive. Most people can drive a car at 60 mph. A few can drive at 200 mph. Karl demonstrated that if you can drive 10 mph you can drive faster than is necessary.

While the fine details of structure and muscle action are not completely known, the overall external characteristics have had extensive empirical verification. The science of control theory provides a framework to which these characteristics can be imbedded without employing mystical concepts. It provides the theoretical verification of what has already been experimentally observed.

Suppose to every attack, I only step right. Then we might develop the17 kata with right hand attack, and that would be the end of it.

This is the approach of most Karate systems. They postulate a few punches and kicks, develop a series of 1-2 or 1-2-3 responses (blocks, punches, kicks) and you have the system. Somehow this is supposed to always work.

In KG aikido, we respond to the flow of energy and learn to move when constrained by that energy (walking, releases, 17, big 10) and adapt these to each situation (randori). Since the flow of energy can come from anywhere, and we are randomly related to the energy, we are able to generate an extremely large number of responses. Two skilled randori players may attack and respond 10-12 times or more before one them cannot respond. Given we have at least two directions and at least 4 hand positions, these variables alone give us 1,073,741,824 responses (8^10). This is considerably more than can be experineced in a lifetime.

the ki hand takes some extra variables out of the equation.

Ki hands place a tonus on the tricep which aids in the unbendable arm without having to consciously lock the arm.

Ki hands reduce the tendancy to grab the other guy and lock yourself to him. the tendons in the back of your hand are too short to grasp while making a ki hand.

Ki hands place the muscles throughout tehe body in a favorable position for pushing or pulling. We do this all the time - if we push a car or a heavy door we extend our wrist and point our palms away from us. When we pick up a heavy box (one without handles) we flex our wrists and point our palms at our face. These are ki hands

when picking up the arms, extending the wrist before raising it effectively shortens the arm making it easier to raise. this also places a tonus on the arm-raising muscles. It also prevents you from having to extend the wrist when the arm is moving fast. This is important because the faster someting moves the more energy it takes to move it even faster. If we raise our arm fast and we extend our wrist during this it creates postural deformations in us. If we make ki hands then raise the arms then it is easier and more reliable.

For these (and other) reasons, using the ki hand tends to create more organization in tori's half of the system thus causing uke's half of the system to get more chaotic. (thermodynamics again)

it also looks cool and makes people think that you can shoot your life energy out to the ends of the universe!

Ki hands means not to grab hold of anything. Especially don't grab hold of a lock or throw and stick to it no matter what. Grabbing does bad things to body stability. It will immobilize your feet and cause your body to lean over with any movement. If uke grabs, it makes the technique too easy for tori and doesn't teach anything to uke. If tori doesn't open his hand and bend his fingers back, then it's just as bad as grabbing something. It's pretty easy to have a student leave his hand limp as you grab his arm and drag it around. He'll lean over with the pull and make all sorts of openings. Then when he makes the ki hand his whole body moves with the pull. I see it as an integral part of the unbendable arm and posture in general. It makes yielding with the attack possible.

Okay, I'll admit that I had to get a good bit of lecture before I started to understand what this meant. Hopefully, my regurgitation of the information doesn't reflect badly on Jack.

I'll start off with an Aikido related example. If every class, I work on the techniques with the same partner, react in the same manner, and the results are the same every time, I could say that through rigorous testing I've proven that blah, blah, blah. However, while the results are true within the scope of that testing, they are not globally proven. The scope of the sample that I'm basing my conclusion on is too narrow. I need to introduce more variables. It doesn't necessarily mean that the conclusion is arbitrarily wrong, just not supported properly.

Now let's see if I can clarify that without all the scientific jargon. The demonstration that Jack gave me was, he grabbed one of the new people in our class, Jason, and said to attack him. Jason gave a pretty straightforward Aikido attack. Of course Jack easily took control of the situation and we could say that the technique Jack used is effective against an attack. But all we've proven is that it is effective against _THAT_ attack. If we want to avoid Self-Referencing and prove that our techniques are effective against _ANY_ attack we have to introduce random variables. Jack told Jason to attack him again, and to use any attack he wanted. Jason threw a circular boxing punch, and got a palm to the face for his trouble. Jack didn't know what attack was going to be thrown, but just reacted and fell into Shomenate.

If we conduct a test where we already know what the outcome will be, either because we have previous knowledge of or control over all the variables, then that outcome is too subjective. The outcome is still valid for that situation though. To achieve a truly objective outcome, you must have chaos. This is one of the reasons why we do randori. If all we ever practiced was the katas, well, the katas are truly subjective. One of Uke's jobs in the katas is to not react in a random manner. In randori, that constraint is removed, and anything can happen. I don't forsee anyone trying a flying side-kick during randori, but the possibility is there (would hate to be the poor guy who tried it).

I had to contemplate this one for a while. I think what henry is talking about is that there is a big difference between trying to live and trying to win.

when we place the condition on ourselves that we have to "win" or we die then we have no room to screw up. anything that screws up can prevent us from unilateral, hands-down victory. On the other hand, if we decide that we don't have to defeat the other guy, and get it in our heads that we only have to keep ourselves alive then we have much more tolerence for screw-ups (which combat is full of)

The NLP guys have as one of their guiding principles that the only way we can lose is to define limits for ourself (i.e. to say "i'm not popular right now so i have failed - i cant be popular - i'm a failure"). While i don't fully believe that this is the only way we can fail, there is a lot of validity to the idea that we set limits and conditions upon ourselves.

As Karl says "You miss a lot that is excellent when you go for perfection."

Karl has also talked about our groundwork system as being an example of this concept. as long as we are JUST TRYING TO STAY ALIVE we are successful but when we start trying to WIN then we lose because we all of a sudden need to have a LOT MORE SKILL.

This is what i think of when Rich mentions "strategy for survival." What do y'all think? Is this what you were talking about, henry?

I had started an essay on this one but couldn't quite get what I wanted to say from my head to the virtual paper.

I definitely agree with you here, Pat. It seems to me that the strategy for survival involves a couple of things.

One, which you mention here, is working to control only our own internal structure and system. Our chances of survival deteriorate the more we try to take control over our environment or our partner (uke, attacker, etc.). Once we give up the illusion that we have control over the world and realize the truth that we can only control ourselves (this is a good general life philosophy in addition to self-defense) and our own reactions, we begin to utilize true aikido survival strategy.

The second part of our survival strategy involves the placement of redundancies in our system (our backup mechanisms). We can fail to utilize one or two principles but we have fall-back principles (hands to the face and centered; falling of the line; etc.) to help us survive. Survival depends on a true ability to react w/o thinking much and so we train core principles over and over and include "fail-safes" in case we freak out so much we forget others.

That's my take.

I think survival means "don't be self-destructive." There's no point in guaging your performance by circumstances beyond your control. We practice to learn what we can control and what we can't.

Once upon a time at our dojo there lived a genuine bad ass judo grappler (Korean/American National Judo Champ- been playing since he was 5 -- son of a judo 7th dan ) -- named gene shin -- he was around several years as I was just getting into judo and though my aikido made me comparable to him in standing work, on the mat in ground work he was so far ahead of me that he would inevitablly destroy and humble me. I hated ground work anyway and gene's crunchin on me didnt help any. But I had to put up with this shit to do judo -- so I took my licks -- one day the light dawned on me that maybe the aikido ground work was the way to go with this guy-- Karl had emphsised that the survival/pure defense game is much more efficent than the offense/ win/playing beat game by a factor of 10 to 1. So what did I have to lose? I was getting trounced anyway, day in day out, why not just slip into survival grappling mode and see what would happen with ole gene? So I tried it out -- I didnt try to do a dam thing to gene -- I just kept my ass moving, rollin, turnin, bridging, shrimping, any way I could-- I gave him a constantly moving target and never tried to stop and do anything to him -- it was amazing -- went on for about 20 min. -- Gene finally got so frustrated that he stopped and asked what was doing -- how was I thwarting him ? When just the day before he had been so clearly superior , this day he suddenly found himself in another reality... I must say I enjoyed my ground work time with gene after that though our sessions got to be fewer and farther apart.. Thank you Karl and thank you Gene for a really important lesson in my martial arts life -- "just survival" is a great equallizer -

----- INTRO

I don't see how I can improve much on what Karl, Henry and Pat have said on this list, so I'm quoting them, and I'll add some comments at the end.

----- KARL GEIS

Dear nick

You will carry the work forward. It is of little importance that others fully comprehend the body of knowledge or the principles therein. It is important to know that true self confidence comes from the development of the subconscious to handle chaos both physical and mental.

Normally, without pause or reflection we try to erase the chaos around us. We do this by choosing to ignore chaotic events, thereby closing off our subconscious mind's efforts to develop a viable protective strategy in our behalf. Out of sight out of mind.

Unfortunately almost all accidents that we have could be prevented if we learn to trust our subconscious. for example, 4 out of five of the emergency room events in this country are from common falls. Especially in older people over 50 yrs of age.

On the TV the other day the commentator was giving advice on how to prevent common falls. His advise was all left lobe conscious advice keep stuff off of the floors, off of the stairs etc. Take smaller steps.

At no time did he ever say. You need to learn to fall automatically safely under the worst unpredictable chaotic conditions.

The effort to control every aspect of your life fails in the face of chaos. It is the plate spinners dilemma, at some point there is no time for the next plate and any little event will bring the whole thing crashing down.

Unfortunately, it is when we are under the most stress that we fall over stuff. People who expect to fall don't because they mediate the situation. It is When we are preoccupied that the dirty deed occurs. If our subconscious has received proper permission and training in the areas of how to handle the chaos created by a fall and thereby instantly derives a strategy, The result is a dirty or torn skirt or slacks and the attendant irritation of having dirty or torn etc. Not a broken etc.

So our subconscious is our great protector, if we let it? Most of the people that we teach have a hard time learning to trust the subconscious and fight the process, that is just the way it is. It takes us a long time to do our job right.

There will always be those who understand and respect our work and those who do not. Those who do not, often bring us profound disappointment. If, However, we have learned to handle the chaos they cause our Zen mind will learn and grow while their efforts to control will ultimately bring them to a state of chaos.

The amount of chaos in each of our lives is about the same. The Zen way is to teach the subconscious to handle it as it comes along. The control way is to keep pushing the chaos away from our reality. The problem is when chaos is pushed away it eventually gets loose and comes crashing down on us like the hammer of Thor. Leaving the end of life a chaotic and barely endurable existence at best. Wealth and position will not mediate this existence.

Therefore, learn to live in THE WORLD with all of the people accepting all who accept you as you are. learn to live in the river of chaos without the fear of not being in control. You will always be living in chaos anyway so learn how to live there.

Thank you for the kind words.

I love you my friend

keg

ps you may share this with whoever.

Actualize others and they will actualize you.

----- HENRY COPELAND

There are two ideas that are imbedded in KG aikido, each of which would make it totally unique as a martial art.

The cause and effect concept separates KG aikido for all other martial arts in much the same way quantum theory separates classical and modern physics. It is a different way of looking at a martial art.

Striking arts all presume a effect that the opponent is disabled by the strike. I watch boxing and karate matches in which hundreds of strikes are initiated, yet both participants walk away from the ring. The have not factored in the affect of chaos.

Judo assumes that if certain things are done, a throw will happen. Karl's judo, however, make use of your own internal chaos. The arbitrary step, the meaningless hand movement.

In KG aikido, the outcome is not predicted. A little disturbance here, another there, keeping yourself in stable posture. Going with the flow, even when it appears to be wrong. Eventually all the chaos is in uke. He becomes unstable. The technique is determined by the point in time and space, not what some preconceived notion of where we were going.

----- PAT PARKER

Ranai

So, what are we trying to do in this art? In general we are trying to turn a chaotic situation into an ordered situation (ranai). One very important tool for achieving ranai is learning to synch as we did in the above exercise.

Combat/Shiai/Getting mugged is a very chaotic situation. Two (or more)people are scared shitless and/or mad as hell and they're vying and pushing and scratching and pulling and panting. (I've been there) But within the chaos exists nodes of peace and order.(there are those nodes again!) There are instants of quiet in the storm. These nodes are the same nodes we talked about earlier. These are the same nodes we want to practice finding in the kata.

In other words, for brief instants during the chaos the system will synchronize and a lot of the chaos will drop out of it. for a short time there will be peace. If we can learn to rapidly identify the instances where chaos turns to order then we have a vast advantage because the other guy still feels chaos while we feel peace. We feel as if we are taking a stroll and the other guy's world is getting more and more hellish.

Thus ki musubi (synchronization) and ranai (chaos into order) are inter-related and inter-dependant.

----- JACK BIELER

You cannot control chaos, only adapt to it. Chaos is by nature infinite, and the world is by nature chaotic. Trying to devise a system of rules to impose on the world is futile (and co-dependent).

For example, in Denton they want to make sure businesses have enough parking, so the council made a law that requires a certain number of spaces per square foot of business floor space. This ignores the fact that businesses are different. A book store may have a lot of floor area, but never have a lot of customers at one time. A restaurant will be packed twice a day. So if a book store comes in, they will have to make exceptions to the first rule. In fact, every business that does not conform to the prototype is penalized, and they will be making exception after exception (infinitely more rules) just to keep functioning.

Creating a system of specific rules to make decisions for you is trying to impose order on chaos. Investing trust in judgment is allowing for chaos with something pliable enough to adjust.

Physically, you make yourself neutral. You attach yourself to the chaotic movements of your partner, whatever they are, and by matching them they are no longer chaotic, at least with reference to you. This means no predetermined sequences or responses. It means relying on broad principles(like laws of nature) that are simple but consistent and applicable to all situations. The more specific a rule is, the less useful is will be.

Ki Musubi

I'll start with a personal anecdote and an example of an exercise. Awhile back on the list someone asked what was the most torturous, difficult part of aikido to learn. Someone else responded that it was randori. Randori was really difficult to me to get a handle on too. In fact, it really didn't make much since to me until well after shodan. The shodans that I see at clinics now often have much more of a clue than i did when i was shodan.

Then at a clinic we worked on a randori drill that really hit home and made this thing make sense. It gave me a launching point from which to begin playing with randori. It was a synchronizing exercise. It goes something like this:

Define an uke and a tori. Uke grasps tori's wrists lightly and uke and tori stand face to face both balanced and with flaccid arms. Tori gets one free move and uses it to move his body one step in any direction as in tegatana. Tori does not push or pull uke. Tori DOES ABSOLUTELY NOTHING but tai sabaki. There is a pause while uke and tori examine the shift in their center of balance. Then uke takes whatever step he can to fix his balance.

If, during uke's step, tori doesn't move then uke can fix himself. But if tori moves (almost anywhere) while uke is trying to fix himself then uke's fix that he anticipated will be screwed up and uke will be off-balance again. Continue in this fashion with uke trying to fix himself and tori doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING except tai sabaki every time uke tries to fix himself. You begin to notice some interesting things about timing and synchronization:

So long as tori does not move without uke and so long as tori never lets uke move without him uke will never regain balance.

This is synchronization. Sometimes this is called ki musubi which means becoming connected/in-synch to uke.

Ranai

So, what are we trying to do in this art? In general we are trying to turn a chaotic situation into an ordered situation (ranai). One very important tool for achieving ranai is learning to synch as we did in the above exercise.

Combat/Shiai/Getting mugged is a very chaotic situation. Two (or more)people are scared shitless and/or mad as hell and they're vying and pushing and scratching and pulling and panting. (I've been there) But within the chaos exists nodes of peace and order.(there are those nodes again!) There are instants of quiet in the storm. These nodes are the same nodes we talked about earlier. These are the same nodes we want to practice finding in the kata.

In other words, for brief instants during the chaos the system will synchronize and a lot of the chaos will drop out of it. for a short time there will be peace. If we can learn to rapidly identify the instances where chaos turns to order then we have a vast advantage because the other guy still feels chaos while we feel peace. We feel as if we are taking a stroll and the other guy's world is getting more and more hellish.

Thus ki musubi (synchronization) and ranai (chaos into order) are inter-related and inter-dependant.

Clocking (or Ben Johnson vs. my Granny)

We work on probabilities - not possibilities.

We have to design every aspect of our art so that we maximize our probability of success. We cannot afford to work on possibilities.

We have many tools for doing this, one of which is clocking. This refers to making sure that we train to make only one discreet move for each of uke's discreet moves. While it might be possible to make two moves for one of uke's moves (or even three or four or five to one) there comes a point where we are studying techniques that will only work if you happen to be twice (or three or four or five time) as fast as the other guy.

We can pretty safely assume that everyone on earth can take one step at the same speed, right.

At first this makes no sense. This says that Ben Johnson and my grandmother move at the same speed - right? No, it doesn't. It says that they fall at the same speed. It has been shown in biomechanical labs that the speed of a person's first step from a balanced position is dependant on the length of their legs. it is not dependant upon strength or mass or muscle fiber composition - just leg length.

While a matchstick and a tree might fall at drastically different rates, there is not much difference between the 95th percentile and the 5thpercentile of leg lengths in adult humans. therefore the difference in_first_step_ speed is negligible. We all take one step at the same rate.

So we know that if Ben Johnson attacks our Aiki-trained grandmother and granny took a step to the side as Ben took a step at her that granny would be able to make this move and have a good chance of success.

However, If Big, Bad Ben steps at our karate-trained granny and granny shifts her weight to her left foot (1 move)so she can kick him with her favorite kicking leg (another move) then she will have to be twice as fast as Ben Johnson. (her chances are not good)

In an extreme example, Ben punches at Granny and she has learned fromher3-week short course on self defense taught by Master Bubba that if someone punches she has to fix her feet(2-3 moves) elbow Ben in the groin (another weight shift or two) then push him down as he bends over (another 3-4 weight shifts). Here Granny has to be many times faster than Ben if she is to be able to do all these weight shifts while he makes 1-2 weight shifts.(no chance in hell)

By making sure we practice techniques where we are required to only take one move for each of the bad guy's moves we maximize our probability of being able to successfully do the technique.

This is clocking.

Excellent essay.

If you can synchronize your clock with the attacker, then your timing become internal and the moments of peace can become longer.

Karl made this point in an earlier posting:
" Therefore, it was no quantam leap for me to relax and let the energy flow. 1st I could walk really good with someone holding on to my gi. So walking apart without that restriction was easy. 2ndly my years of randori and practice had developed my subconscious to a level of anticipation of my opponants body and feet movements. in other words I always knew instinctively the relationship of my opponants feet to mine and his weaknesses from each foot positon. ..."

Well, this is my assignment and while I have no books on Aikido yet (Nick Lowry's is on order), I do have a great class and teacher. So, this may be short, but perhaps concise. :)

My understanding of this subject is essentially "following Uke, why it is a good thing". For me, it is one of the major lessons in aikido. Flow. The path of non-resistance. It embodies a spiritual philosophy for me that is expressed physically in aikido.

Uke attacks. If I resist, or have a pre-conceived notion of what I think should happen, then I am adding my energy into the equation, giving him my energy and helping him out. Let's say I am doing release #1. Uke attacks and I move, to find his off-balance point. At that point, if I do not wait for him, I can give him back his balance, and the upper hand. If I wait, I find that "decision point" he makes, and move with him, leading him effortlessly to another off balance. It is part of what makes aikido work for anyone. As a 5' tall female, there are many who are bigger and stronger than I am. My own strength is not going to help me as much as my intellect, my instinct, my trained responses, waiting so Uke makes a move that allows me to use his strength and size against him. Seeing a 5' woman do release #2 against a 6' man is something!

In class last night, Jack had us do a wonderful drill. Instead of firmly grasping the arm in a committed attack, we played with the lightest touches in a still-committed attack. This forces Tori to sense the slightest movement of Uke, and not anticipate Uke's movement. As Tori, I *have* to wait for Uke, or we lose contact. It really brought the concept home to me on "keeping up with/moving with Uke" When I didn't, the effects were much more pronounced.

Ok, I'll take a crack at this one briefly.

As I referred to before, I found this principle while performing the release movements. Make sure Uke has a very light contact with your wrist, and allow him to move as SLOWLY and as LIGHTLY as you possibly can. Now, if you are doing one of the last 4 releases in Hanasu No Kata, (going under the arm), do NOT pivot under that arm until your point of contact with Uke is directly over the top of your head, at the top end of the imaginary rod running vertically through your entire body. Doing the releases super slow with absolutely no strength improves one's sensitivity not only to Uke's movement, but to one's own use of arm strength. Keep it slow, and you will keep it pure. Hope this helps!!

I view this as something that occurs on 2 levels or planes.

First, is the concious reaction plane of uke. To me this is fairly self-explanatory. You should not resist that motions that uke is implementing. If uke is adding energy into the system in one direction, go with the flow of energy. This relates to the idea of working around the point of energy. Go with the flow and don't impede uke's movement but don't be on the line of the attack (see principle "avoid attack"). Thus, uke puts the effort or energy into the system for us to use later.

Secondly, and more related to what Karl has been emphasising the last few years (at least in my mind), is the natural motion built into the system from ukes concious reaction or energy input. This incorporates the principle of feed forward control (I think). Uke has started a motion and his body is anticipating a specific outcome. We use the motion that has been started and continue that motion in a natural flow. Since these motions are fairly structured, we can understand (at least I think I will someday understand) what they are. Thus we see the sequences that Karl has developed. Last year he called the drills the natural motion drills.

In short, uke starts a motion by adding energy, and we follow the initial input and continue this motion in a natural flow to a point of devestation or new input from uke. Does this make sense? What does the rest of the list think? I would appreciate comments.

This is a really good analysis.

When uki begins his attack, he as not factored in the effect of failure (because he doesn't know how the attack will fail--feed forward). Once tori and uki come in contact, uki is constrained to move relative to the contact. Tori (with practice and following the other principles) can learn to move with the contact if he is not adding significant muscular energy to the system (lets uki's energy direct the movements). Since the new movement will be close to what uki expects, he will not notice the affects until they become detrimental to his posture or balance.

The best way I have heard off line being described was in one sentence by Frankie:

"If you aren't there, you can't get hit."

Moving off of the line of force is one of the first things I learned when I began training. It is the beginning of the technique and sets up the off balance. The attacker is expecting to make contact at a certain point. When one moves off this line of force and that contact is not made, it kind of puts the attacker in a tail spin. This also opens the door for one to teach a lesson on the way of harmony and the error of the attacker's ways.

This principle can also be used on a verbal basis. When one begins a verbal attack, this is a line of force. One can verbally move off this line of force and redirect the conversation.

Just a humble shodan's point of view