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It seems that I'm drifting towards the internal kung fu styles, from my previously Japanese-centric outlook on martial arts. There's a little academy that has short 1-hour sessions per week just a 5-minute train ride away from my suburb here, and my girlfriend ends up taking Qi Gong there while I do Chen-style Tai Chi.

Why am I drifting that way?

Actually, it's because I hate sweating. Believe it or not. xp

What are your thoughts on Tai Chi? ninja

Yes, I too have been experaincing the chi side of Kung-Fu. My class studies Chi a lot after our work out. It's very interesting. I really like it.

I'm not susceptible to bullshido, I say. There are plenty of weirder, unexplainable s**t that have happened to my family/relatives and friends that are just too crazy to even imagine happening in this world.

In any case, I take what people say with a grain of salt unless I know the person well enough to know they're not bullshitting, or when I actually see it with my own eyes. ninja

More power to you. At least tell us why? ninja

That's very true. In the dojo, it almost seems like something magical that others can but I can't do. All they can say is "use your ki" but it's like "...." Why can they do it and I can't?

Sometimes it's really physics. I know in my school, there is one simple ki exercises of trying to move someone. I find if I put my hand a certain way, then it works, not because of ki, but because of physics and how it weakens a person's grip if you position your arm in a certain way. So that was it, problem solved.

That was, until I noticed that only novices relied on that. The black belts did nto position their bodies at all but simply did it, without using muscles either. (You can feel if they are using muscles because the arm/hand you are holding will tense up.) So how? Most people can only explain it as using ki instead of muscles.

So far, what I have analysed ki to be, is a combination of relaxing your body and controlling of breathing. But so far, I haven't quite figured out what's the rest of the equation yet...

So true. It's why the kyu system was created in Aikido as students often got discouraged. Heh I've been around long enough to know that it takes alot of practice, then one day, suddenly it will happen like a lightbulb being turned on. I've had that happened once or twice to a particular technique.

Hey, as sensei says, training is its own reward. Just like everything, if you have a passion for it, it will come eventually.



No disagreement there. In fact, sensei tells us that these are exaggerations and we practice in exaggerations when prepping for demos. But also, I think the reason why the black belts cannot explain it clearly is because of two things. One, they've done it for so long now, they've forgotten what it's like to be a beginner so it's harder to explain. Two, because for each person it's different. Though the theory is the same, there are too many variables between each person to be able to explain the technique and teach it to 100% effectiveness. You can't say move 45 degrees here, because each person's body, balance, flexibility, muscle mass, etc are too different. Too many variables.



Hahaha yeah, very aikido, I've been brainwashed blaugh But I agree, there must be something more than that. One day I'll figure it out. Actually, as a comp sci student, one day I may go back to school and as a masters research, put body movement trackers on martial artists while they spar then translate to animation for analysis purpose. Would make an interesting thesis.

hahah I never thought of it that way actually but my instructor is about my size, except he's male. He keeps showing me this video of a japanese female doing aikido though as if trying to encourage me saying that I can beat up all the guys in the dojo. blaugh

But to get back to being serious, yes, sensei interestingly also teach in consideration of different sizes, often speaking. "If you are up against a person much taller" or "if your opponent is much shorter" and actually make the other person squat down or try to stand taller as demostration for approximate distances. I find that to be quite helpful especially since we have quite varying sizes in the dojo.



Aye, something more. Actually, I'm a pagan and I actually stumbled on a Wiccan book that spoke of a comparision between Wicca and Aikido. Now I may be a pagan but I'm also a practical person and have always kept my spirituality separate from my training, perhaps too much even, for fear of falling into the hippie-bullshido trend. So I rely mostly on explanations from physics (fulcrum, momentum, force) Still I found the similiarities in both theoretically quite similiar.

Ah, the debate over the effectiveness of Aikido again. I suppose it is my duty to defend my art.

May I ask who were you sparring with in Aikido? What kyu or dan were they? I have to say, that with Aikido, you have to be a black belt in order to be able to use the techniques well, and probably around 2nd dan to be able to use it effectively in a spar. That's the nature of the martial arts, it takes that much longer to truly master. A fresh black belt in Aikido will have little chance against someone of another martial arts of the same level.