VKS KI TRAINING NOTES, OCTOBER '97 OCTOBER 97 VKS TRAINING NOTES INTRODUCTION The purpose of this document is to provide a dialog between students and the instructional faculty on training issues and answer questions regarding technique or training practices or procedures. It is NOT a forum for dealing with philosophy, except as it applies to training, nor business issues associated with the VKS. NOTICES: OCTOBER INSTRUCTOR'S CLASS Class will be held on 11 October at 2:00pm taking the place of the Taigi Class for that week. All instructors are invited to attend. CAMPS Its section will be reactivated next spring when the Camp Season resumes. SPECIAL NOTICE Sensei Hal Singer has decided that he needs a break from teaching after about 19 years and is taking a sabbatical of a few months so that he can return to being a student again. He has more than earned the rest (if you can call it that) or maybe just a simple change of pace while he becomes rejuvenated. Hal's departure from the teaching ranks along with the recent move of Chuck Auster to New Jersey has caused me to make some changes in the training schedule. I have added one new class, added an hour of formal instruction for advanced students to two other classes at Merrifield. Drop by and get a new schedule. It takes effect on October 1. GUEST COLUMNISTS Ki Notes Welcome to Ki Notes. This is the first of what I hope will be a regular column in the newsletter. I'm not going to promise anything. Those of you who know me know I have a great economy of words (I don't talk much), so this is a bit of a stretch for me. We'll see. I hope to accomplish several things with this column. I want to share some of the things I've figured out about Ki and aikido and how we interact in the dojo. I want to talk about how we think about Ki and aikido and get you thinking about them in different ways than you may be used to. By getting you to think about Ki and aikido in a different way, I'm hoping you can increase and deepen your understanding as well. I also want this to be your column. We all have the capacity to get insights into our study of Ki and aikido. Please share them. I will devote future columns to your feedback and thoughts on Ki and aikido. If you have a lot to say, you can write your own article for the newsletter. (Or you can still tell me your thoughts.) We've come as far as we have with our knowledge and understanding of Ki and aikido because people like you have shared what they learned. The opinions you'll see here are mine and don't necessarily reflect those of anyone connected with the Dojo or Ki Society HQ. I take full responsibility (blame) for the ideas expressed here. This column won't be a place for me to make official pronouncements about the latest thinking from Japan on Ki or aikido, just a place to share my thoughts. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Alan Cyr. I started my practice of Ki and aikido in 1990. I hold the rank of 2nd Kyu. I have recently started practicing again after a long absence. I'm no guru or expert, just someone who likes the philosophy of Ki and doing aikido. I like to think about Ki and aikido, about how to integrate what I learn in the Dojo with my life outside the Dojo. I like to try to figure out what these Ki and aikido concepts mean not from the point of view of someone who studies Ki and aikido, but from the point of view of someone who doesn't know anything about them. So how do I learn about Ki and aikido? What process do I use to figure out what I'm doing on the mat? There is one process I use that I'd like to describe as it relates to learning an aikido technique. I think everyone is familiar with this learning process, though you may not be aware of it. Let's say we're learning how to do a particular aikido technique. The first step in the process is to break the technique down into it's parts. "What are my feet doing?" What am I supposed to do with my hands?" "Where does my body go and how is all this going to get uke down to the ground?" I take a technique that is made up of several different movements all being done at the same time and try to do it with all the parts strung out in a line, that is, each movement done separately, one at a time. Of course, when you take a technique that is complete and whole in and of itself and you try to do it in pieces, it's going to feel awkward and disjointed. And it does. But that's okay. This stage of the process serves a very useful and important purpose. You're teaching your muscles to remember the movements without having to use your mind to remember. Step two of the process is to practice all the parts until your mind is convinced your body can remember all the parts. Until your muscles have memorized the movements, your brain must remember the parts. Your brain is much slower than your body. If you want to move, your brain must think about moving, then tell your body to move. With your body, it just moves. It cuts out all the thinking part, so it is able to respond much more quickly to what's going on around it. Your body also has a much better "muscle memory" than we give it credit for. Your body knows what to do even though your mind doesn't believe it. If we could just get our mind out of the way (Where could we put it? Maybe the one point? Hmmm.) and trust our bodies, we could do the techniques more easily and smoothly. Learning to trust your body is an important part of the process. (Perform with confidence!) The last step in the process is to blend all the pieces together until they are all one piece. At this point there is only one start and one stop in the technique. The technique flows from beginning to end. We have stopped thinking about the technique and have just done it. We have taken a whole technique apart and put it back together again. After seven years of practice, I'm still working on that last step. Well, truth be told, I'm still working on all these steps. I still have a lot to learn. That's the learning process. That's how a lot of things we learn are taught to us. Let me know if this is how it works for you. Leave me a note in the Dojo someplace I can find it. If you have e-mail, my e-mail address is: alan.cyr@cwi.cablew.com. Any feedback or comments would be appreciated. Thanks. The Changing Face if the Virginia Ki Society by George Simcox The VKS has been in existence for over 23 years. Over that time there has been a lot of change. Some of it is only seen if a long term view is taken. We again find ourselves in a state of flux. Some folks have moved, others are changing status. In addition to my comments above in "Training Notes" about Senseis Singer and Auster I find that my time is being demanded in other venues as well, spreading the Ki Society message around the country and into Canada. While this is good for the Society as a whole, it takes me away from my familiar haunt on Friday night - I will be gone three Fridays in a row in November while I am taking training in Hawaii, teaching in Canada and visiting my relatives in Northern California. Another change is that our teaching staff is aging. I don't know whether you notice it or not, I sure didn't see it until someone pointed it out to me, but along with more experienced instructors you are also getting older instructors. Time marches on! I need and, in fact have the responsibility to bring along a new generation of teachers for our Dojo and the Ki Society at large. That is the only way that the Society will grow over the years. Some of the growth can be handled within our own Dojos by making liberal use of substitute teachers when the primary teacher is gone away or by scheduling persons to handle a class as a practice teacher occasionally. I hope you students will not feel that you are being "short changed" because your regular instructor is not teaching. It is good to get other views of how a technique is to be performed and this is one way to get that view without having to leave the Dojo and take training elsewhere. We have some excellent students who are head and shoulders over what I was when I first started teaching and are capable of delivering a quality product for your training. You should help these fellow students who are gladly giving of their time to learn more themselves and help you learn at the same time. Tohei Sensei has directed that Taigi become a major activity in our training. As a result you will be seeing more training in Ki Aikido from a Taigi perspective. I think you will find that it is a superior way of training in Aikido technique. It does require you to remember a few more things when performing a technique since taigi generally have at least six techniques, usually performed on both sides. Once you get over the fear of remembering the proper order of things it becomes a very easy learning experience. You must let yourself go to perform effectively ; this is one of the most difficult of lessons to learn in performing Aikido. This training will help you reach past that training block. I will schedule two Taigi Weekends this training year. I hope you will all participate. I am also asking instructors to increase training time in randori. This is an area where we can all stand improvement. In some respects this compliments Taigi in that Taigi is a randori with, usually one uke, during which the techniques are known where as regular randori is without form or known substance. At the beginning level we may restrict the attack or defense to be used but as experience is gained, more and more of the randori events will be free form. In some respects Taigi is like an oration where the subject matter is well known and the whole process is memorized while randori is like holding a conversation with someone during which the subject matter jumps from subject to subject and you are obligated to keep the conversation going smoothly without a noticeable break in the flow. The Aikido moves are your vocabulary and the uke throws out the subject matter to be discussed. It can become a very glorious experience is you give it a chance. This will be one of the major topics at this month's instructor seminar. . I hope you will accept these changes I have outlined and enter into them without reservation. I think you will find that your Ki Aikido improves as a result and that is the bottom line, isn't it? If this doesn't work out, let me know and I will review the situation and make changes as appropriate. Our goal is to give you the kind of training you deserve and expect to make you a fine member of the Aikido community who will feel comfortable where ever you train In the future. . NOTES FROM THE INTERNET Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 14:37:23 EDT From: "Mike [insert quote here] Bartman" Subject: Re: Effectiveness of Aikido? Ivan says: >At 09:32 AM 9/22/97 -0600, MATTHEW C AVERY-SPRIGGS wrote: >>So to realise that jumping off a cliff is an effective way to end my life I should do it as well? Ivan wrote: No, it gives a bad name to BASE jumping.If you wanna off yourself, use a gun in the privacy of your own house. ...No! Don't do that, 'cause you'll give a bad name to guns and the NRA. Lemme see what's the best way to do that. ...I dunno, call Dr. Kevorkian? Mike wrote: How about you just fly to D.C., climb the White House fence and charge the building yelling "Bastard!!!" as loud as you can? The government security folks will kill you and there's no way this will give any worse name to the White House or the guy who lives in it and runs the government than they already have...you're gone, nobody and nothing gets their reputation hurt...no muss, no fuss, and best of all you get to turn into a group of 50 heavily armed fanatical terrorists before the 6 o'clock news= airs! >>Much of the same can be said for O'Sensei. He was farther along the path than the rest of us but he was not advising people to reinvent the wheel but instead take up the path somewhere along the way that he had already tread. And that is exactly what his students did. Those Shihan are now advising the rest of us to continue from there. >I don't think so. It isn't reinventing anything. The fact is that you need to go through certain experiences before you can internalize the principles you find within them. Someone just telling you about them, or reading about them in books don't do it. Yeah, very true, but you don't have to repeat *everything* exactly...just the important parts. All of the wrong turnings, dead ends and time wasters can get skipped so that you get to the same point while you still have a bit of life left to explore the next bit. How do you know which parts of the path are worthwhile and which are dead ends? You listen to what the guy who traveled all of them tells you about the relative merits of each...otherwise, what was the point of his scouting ahead? >Good thing is that we have a Convention where we can check those statements. I'll go ahead and enter for a lil' grappling session and you'll just do an Aikido technique on me and throw me - nothing brutal, I mind you, but in "the loving spirit of Aikido" where you protect your opponent from damages and so forth. We'll see how far you get. We'll bet money on it too! I'm willing to bet $100, on me obviously :-)) ...even though I know very little of grappling. Are you a game? Heck, this sounds like fun! I know very little Aikido, having just started a few months ago, but I spent nearly 15 years wrestling with my brother (last fight was when I was 18, he was 16...my dad was the one who informed us it was the last fight...too much rearranged furniture, damaged lamps, broken accessories, etc. now that we were nearly full grown (my brother was about 180 at the time, I was a bit over 200lbs, both of us were several inches past 6')). I'm no trained wrestler or anything, but grabbing hold and landing on, then making pretzels sounds a *lot* easier than getting koshinage right! :^) =B7 Mike "is this going to be part of the "freestyle" event?" Bartman- COMMENT: One sure does get a diversity of views on the net. Subject: On Kokyu Quickie little sort of epiphany I had over the weekend at Richard Moon's retreat. When we use the term "kokyu" in aikido, we very often use it in terms like kokyu-nage and kokyu-dosa. In such phrases, we often use the term "kokyu" to mean "breath" or "connection" -- in a way, we can think of "kokyu nage" as meaning "throwing with the breath" or "throwing with connection." Sometimes, I've seen (and, in all honesty, have actually done myself) people breathing out "naturally" as they perform a technique. To me right now (this week, at least), this doesn't seem all that natural any more. So, when I do jiyuwaza (free-style techniques), I try to let my techniques occur as naturally as my natural breathing. When I practice jiyuwaza, almost all of my throws end up being "kokyu nage"; I hardly ever do ikkyo, shihonage, kotegaeshi, or any of the other "named" techniques unless they suddenly appear in front of me. Rather, I let the throws occur as they happen rather than looking to force or apply a technique. I think it's like what happens when we actually start thinking about our own breathing. As soon as we start thinking about our breath, the breathing action becomes unnatural; our own realization that we're breathing makes breathing, an otherwise natural phenomena in our bodies, to become artificial. In the same way more often than not, if I _try_ to work a technique into my jiyuwaza rather than letting it occur naturally, it becomes rather unnatural. This isn't to say that I -can't- use techniques in my jiyuwaza; it just sometimes feels as unnatural as consciously breathing all day long. Just another way I've thought about "kokyu" in my aikido training, that's= all. Jun PS: I hope that made some sense... Actually, that's a lot, Jun. George Simcox TRAVELS: Bob Pavasi and I went to the Camp in Ottawa in September. It was a glorious time. Sensei Bussell was gracious and the planning went very well. As always, our Canadian friends were perfect hosts. Bob and I were staying in different homes so I can't comment on his experience but mine was wonderful. There were two training venues so some of the classes were a choice of one instructor or another while other classes were held jointly, on the main mat area. It was good to see the differing styles together in the same seminar. I picked-up on a few new ideas and I am sure the other sensei did as well. There was a strong bond between all of us in this common effort. Sensei Bussell and I share a common view of Ki Training and its application in daily life so we taught one class jointly and helped each other on the mat when one or the other was the sensei of record. Bob came home thoroughly pooped. I will be traveling to Michigan in October to present Jim Karaffa with his Sho Dan Certificate and then go on to Canada where I will be providing some training at the request of Sensei Mike Hogan, a familiar figure in our VKS Summer Camps(he sells the jo and bokken).