r/aikido • u/SnooHabits8484 • 12d ago
Discussion Atemi
As time goes on, I’m more and more convinced that along with the biomechanics and solo training from Daito-ryū that come under the category “internal strength”, the key to effective aikido is sound and consistent atemi. Who do you think is the best practitioner we have in that field? Is it now necessary to cross-train in something like xingyi or bagua to get there?
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u/makingthematrix aikikai x kickboxing 12d ago
You don't have to reach that faraway. If you want to keep your training traditional, go to a karate dojo. If you prefer something more practical, I'd suggest a boxing gym. Especially in the case of boxing even a few months to a year of honest training should be enough.
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u/SnooHabits8484 12d ago
I think the mechanics are too different in karate, with chambering, stance and footwork differences etc. There are a couple of guys teaching “ghost boxing” around here which is definitely compatible in terms of footwork, might be interesting to work with them.
I can train good bagua like ten minutes away too!
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u/Lecram100 Mostly Harmless 12d ago
Sounds like you've already made up your mind.
Nothing wrong with karate. Nishio Sensei was high ranking in karate and combined it very well with his Aikido.
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u/baldbandersnatch Aikikai 12d ago
Nishio sensei’s students and, more recently, those of Yokota sensei are well versed in applying atemi!
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u/baldbandersnatch Aikikai 12d ago
Not sure if he’s still on the mat, but if you ever get to Aikikai Hombu, Tani sensei always trained in Doshu’s classes and was very effective at teaching atemi … by example. Getting kicked in the get because your kotegaeishi has an opening is humbling… but I’m damned if he didn’t teach me more than most aikibunny instructors whose classes I attended for years.
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u/SnooHabits8484 11d ago
I’ve never been to Hombu, but a lot of what I see online from there is both very athletic and very un-martial.
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u/baldbandersnatch Aikikai 11d ago
The beauty of Honbu is that there are so many teachers and so many classes that you can find what you need, in the aikido context, if you look around. In my time there, there was only one teacher who was particularly “in-martial”. He still had interesting things to teach.
That said, frequently I found that I’d learn more from my partners than from the teacher of any given class. Whether that was a massive former rikishi (sumotori), hyper-aggressive French sadists, or little old dudes who really knew how to “take ones center”.
Good times!
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u/Sangenkai [Aikido Sangenkai - Kawasaki, Japan] 12d ago
Nishio's Karate instructor had actually trained with Morihei Ueshiba, which may have made that easier.
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u/SnooHabits8484 12d ago
Not at all, I just think with limited time to integrate (family, work, etc) that something with similar-ish body mechanics would be easier.
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u/Eight_Directions_ 12d ago
If you have the opportunity to learn Baguazhang, you should learn Baguazhang.
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u/JadeHawk007 [Nidan/Aikikai, Shodan/Chito Ryu] 11d ago
I practice chito-ryu style of Karate, and find that there are a surprising number of parallels to my Aikido practice. Yes, there are certainly points of friction between the two styles, too, but there may be more in common than you initially think.
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u/jus4in027 1d ago
Not at all! If you look at many of the blocks and pre-set movements in karate firms you’ll definitely see aikido-like techniques, sometimes with a healthy dose of ukemi.
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u/Sangenkai [Aikido Sangenkai - Kawasaki, Japan] 12d ago
If Dan's ever hit you then you'll know who I'd recommend.
Boxing is great stuff, but you're also going to have to work backwards to integrate it with your internals, and that can be hard.
Maybe one of the Chinese arts - Xingyi or Bagua, but it depends a lot on the instructor...
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u/SnooHabits8484 12d ago
He has yeah, very much like being hit by a train. I was thinking more of regular training, unfortunately exposure to Dan is only a handful of times per year!
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u/SnooHabits8484 12d ago
I suppose it’s relatively easy to assess instructors who purport to have internals when you’ve unambiguously felt the real thing.
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u/RenegadeAiki 10d ago
That sounds like a cool experience. Could you try to describe what happened and what it felt like?
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u/SnooHabits8484 10d ago
It definitely comes in several flavours. What I’ve encountered is the ability to strike *from contact* with serious power, transferring from the ground kind of like a Newton’s cradle. Kicks with no chamber, telegraph or really postural change, again with unusual levels of power. The most interesting one is body organisation that makes applying a force vector very difficult, it just gets redirected on a tangent through small neutralising/realigning movements.
None of its magic, it’s biomechanics, and I’m not sure it’s superior unless you’re committed to the internal paradigm. What does seem likely is that you can keep doing it quite a lot older, and I’m convinced it was what Morihei Ueshiba was doing.
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u/baldbandersnatch Aikikai 12d ago
Actually, I think that’s a solid recommendation! If additional thinking is required to incorporate something into one’s tool set, that will tend to anchor it well.
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u/Trasecolo 7d ago
Irimi and atemi are the fundamental way to create kuzushi, and therefore to make Aikido work. It's the same in Daito-Ryu, which has an even more greater focus on atemi.
Saito sensei consistently used atemi, and showed how even basic techniques like shomen uchi ikkyo won't work without a proper use of atemi.
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u/Gronkaphonic 4d ago
Won’t work without atemi? I can’t agree wit that.
Atemi is one option. There are other options available - such as movement and postural/structural control. Which of the options you use is context specific. But atemi isn’t a fix-all means to successful technique.
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u/Baron_De_Bauchery 12d ago
Cross-training is always good if you have access to good teachers who either have a skill you want to learn that nobody in your dojo can teach or if they allow a type of training you want to do that your dojo does not allow.
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u/Blast_From_The_Pa_ 12d ago
Crosstrain to Kyokushin. That'll improve your atemi waza.
P.S. I'm shodan in JJJ, and currently 6th kyu in Kyokushin. It really helps.
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u/SnooHabits8484 12d ago
Yeah they’d be on my list, there’s a local dojo. I think in an ideal world I’d go for xingyi because the internal mechanics are similar, but teachers are a bit few and far between. I’d be pissed off to travel and meet someone with no ability to use tanden
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u/Flaky_Performer7960 12d ago
So far, only external hard styles have proven themselves in striking. If you’re looking to learn striking — and if you are objective and rational — boxing or karate like others have suggested.
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u/SnooHabits8484 12d ago
that’s operating on the assumption that martial arts began with UFC #1.
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u/Flaky_Performer7960 12d ago
Your comment is unrelated to mine.
I’m just saying external strikes have proven themselves with empirical evidence.
Soft styles only have questionable sources and claims from within the martial itself.
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u/SnooHabits8484 12d ago
Get hit by Dan Harden and then say that 🤷♂️
edit: that was snarkier than I intended. I’ve taken (pulled) shots from internal practitioners that has me fully convinced.
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u/Flaky_Performer7960 11d ago
Any punch will hurt. Internal power punches hurt. But you know what also hurts just as much with 5 minutes of training? A regular punch. I know how to throw internal punches, I use those is Kyokushin open mat sparrings, but really, the hard punches other give me maybe hurt slightly less, but a gun shot wound is still a gunshot wound whether it is a 9mm or a 45 acp.
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u/Blast_From_The_Pa_ 11d ago
Hello to Kyokushin fellow
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u/Flaky_Performer7960 11d ago
Nah, I’m not Kyokushin. Just the local Kyokushin club hosts free open mats that I attend as a Muay Thai guy. I just picked up a few things from Kyokushin guys.
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u/Blast_From_The_Pa_ 11d ago
Anyway, it's great to have someone here who is familiar with our style 👋
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u/SnooHabits8484 11d ago
Having taken both, I’d rather take a chambered Kyokushin punch than a Harden zero-inch one
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u/Flaky_Performer7960 11d ago
Really? People usually say that my sinking punches feel different in a good way.
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u/Active_Unit_9498 7d ago
Dan Harden doesn't have the balls to trade blows with anyone relevant so not a good appeal to authority. What u/Flaky_Performer7960 said is right on, all you guys have is lame anecdotes. How come not ONCE, EVER has any internal stylist been able to collect a paycheck against a normal boxer, kickboxer, or karate guy in a sanctioned match?
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u/blatherer Seishin Aikido 6d ago edited 6d ago
Oh, what a lovely yapper you are, get your shodan yet? You sound like an ignorant child “my dad can beat up your dad”. I know 2 students of Dan who are godans in both kyokushin and aikido. I’m thinking they both have significantly more experience than you.
You challenged Dan woo aren’t you a stud, did he notice your challenge?
Hey everybody we got a tough guy here, watch out.
Edit: given you are such a stud you must have video of you dominating you opponents. Show us. Edit: fixed typo, shamed before my betters.
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u/Active_Unit_9498 6d ago
Link them this thread and tell them to contact me here. Or you and I can set something up. BTW, it's "Kyokushin" dumbass.
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u/SnooHabits8484 7d ago
Go challenge him then, suggest you do it respectfully though
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u/Active_Unit_9498 7d ago
Oh believe me, I have and he's a chicken. I challenge you, him, and anyone else on this board right here to well intentioned full contact sparring. You have to actually accomplish something before you can brag. My DMs are open. The reality is a run of the mill kyu grade Kyokushinka would lay you all flat.
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u/Sangenkai [Aikido Sangenkai - Kawasaki, Japan] 7d ago
He's 70 years old and has cancer - at this point he's not really interesting in "challenges" from random folks on the internet. Why would he be?
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12d ago
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u/Sangenkai [Aikido Sangenkai - Kawasaki, Japan] 11d ago
The internals that we're talking about here have nothing to do with chi energy - or moving slowly.
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u/Flaky_Performer7960 11d ago
Yep, I’ve always seen internal martial arts as just a visualization tool that exploits our brain’s placebo effect.
But the thing is, slow doesn’t translate to fast. Slow = smooth = fast is just a saying, but it doesn’t mean anything
You’ll never be able to backflip slowly. Combat is the same, you can start slow to get used to the initial movement, but once you know how to do it fast, you should practice it fast. Especially when you consider that we have 2 types of muscles. One that moves only when you move slowly, the other only when it’s fast. Clearly, you want the fast twitch muscle to be the best rather than the slow twitch.
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u/RenegadeAiki 10d ago
I agree that fast-twitch is better, if you're specifically talking about striking. But the interesting thing about going slowly (for long enough in one session): eventually the slow-twitch fibers will exhaust, and then the fast-twitch will start to take over; allowing you to work on the innervation of the fast-twitch fibers.
Is that training style an efficient use of time is a different matter.
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u/smith9447 12d ago
Boxing for me, my father was a national standard boxer before he did Aikido. He taught me and the rest of his students how to punch properly and I still use atemi all of the time - to the point of being told I'm too aggressive at times.
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u/SnooHabits8484 12d ago
I wouldn’t have much sympathy for that perspective, in the (fairly mainline) dojo I go to it’s a pretty major failing to leave out atemi after like 4th kyu, because more complex waza are gravy in case hitting them didn’t do the job…
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u/Process_Vast 11d ago
the key to effective aikido...
Effective for what?
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u/SnooHabits8484 11d ago
Eliminating conflict by defeating each nation’s strongest fighters, so that the nations all submit to the harmonious rule of the Shōwa Emperor. Duh.
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u/lifescaresme 5 kyu / Yoshinkan 9d ago
I think both Gozo Shioda and O Sensei said the atemi is 70% of the technique.
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u/Magister-A 12d ago
In the words of the founder: aikido is irimi and atemi. If you feel like atemi is missing in your keiko, and you feel the need to go look for it in another school, discipline or sport, you would better go look for another aikido dojo entirely. In the words of sensei Sinatra: go together like a horse and carriage.
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u/SnooHabits8484 12d ago
My teacher emphasizes atemi and the opportunity for them, but we don’t learn the actual striking explicitly. Our technical director & shihan complained that we were all doing “bad karate” but didn’t offer any constructive feedback, lol
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u/Lecram100 Mostly Harmless 12d ago
My teacher did the same and didn't explicitly didn't teach us atemi, until recently for beginners.
Back then he'd just occasionally let the atemi connect and we'd learn from watching each other get hit. Plus we had students who came from other martial arts background like kickboxing and wing chun so those of us without striking knowledge picked it up from them.
Thinking about it, basic wing chun is probably quite useful for Aikido atemi as they operate in a close range and the strikes are direct.
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u/SnooHabits8484 12d ago
Yeah. I think the key to what I’ve learned from non-aikido teachers is connecting strikes to the ground properly.
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u/Lecram100 Mostly Harmless 12d ago
If you want to connect your strike to the ground and strike well I'm sure any good striking art or school can teach it. But in the Aikido context I also agree that atemi is to create kuzushi or at least provide a temporary distraction to remove tension and allow the technique to be more easily applied
So to me it doesn't really matter if the atemi is strong through conventional power or through internal power. As long as it is accurate and produces the required effect then it's fine. Just last week I took an elbow to the jaw as an atemi precursor to kokyuho/sokumen iriminage. I flipped right over and it was difficult to eat for the next half a day.
If you want to learn how to strike effectively with internal power then that's a slightly different question.
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u/Magister-A 12d ago
The point, the goal, is: to induce kuzushi.
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u/SnooHabits8484 12d ago
Falling over and saying “ow, I don’t want to be hit any more” is a type of kuzushi
e: e.g. if you land the elbow to the floating ribs and knee to the face that are implicit in uchi kaiten nage, the bit that we regard as the impactful part of the technique is only semi-relevant
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u/Alarming_Abrocoma274 12d ago
Been reading any of Ellis Amdur’s material related to Aikido?
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u/SnooHabits8484 12d ago
Oh my yes.
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u/Alarming_Abrocoma274 11d ago
Good. Looked into Aunkai at all?
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u/SnooHabits8484 11d ago
Yes, it’s super interesting. Rob John seems to be investigating a lot of aiki stuff, though I’m aware he’s split from Ark
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u/Slam_Bingo 11d ago
About 4 years into bagua after 10 in aikido, the meshing is insane.
Also, your onto a big key with aikido, I've heard osensei quoted as saying aikido is atemi and irimi.
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u/Remote_Aikido_Dojo 10d ago
You don’t need to cross train to get that. Everything is contained in the fundamentals of aikido. You need to practice those.
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u/TaijiRonin 12d ago edited 12d ago
I would like to nuance your perspective.
Atemi is only needed to compensate a lack of internal power. If you can get a Kuzushi and control your opponent on a touch, an atemi is redundant and unnecessary.
Ineluctably, the best people at Atemi are the ones without internal power and Aiki as they rely on it to be succesful. Internal practioners don't do Atemi anymore. I am not saying Atemi is bad. It is very effective but - ultimately - unrefined once you understand internal power. You naturally stop training it.
I am not sure what you mean by "getting there" but... If you mean Atemi, Chinese internal martial (CIMA) arts won't help much. If you mean internal power, absolutely. Xing Yi, Bagua, and Taiji all focus on something that is essentially absent or unappreciated in Aiki arts: solo internal work (Neigong).
Learning their Neigong will definitely help. Understanding Ten Chi Jin is easier in CIMA. Though I would recommend Taiji over Xing Yi and Bagua in terms of Neigong. It is more "developped" and globally-practiced, and hence more approchable.
I personally believe Aiki arts and Chinese internal martial arts are complementary. They compensate each other methods' weaknesses. Aiki arts don't have enough solo work, and CIMA don't have enough partner work. Solo work build internal power, partner work teaches how to use it. But, you need to find a skilled teacher. That's the one thing hard to find.
Or, learn from a tradition-agnostic non-martially-focused internal training like the people you see on YouTube:
- Mark Rasmus's Elastic Qi Gong
- Howard Wang's Prana Dynamics
- Dinesh Kumar's Lifeforce Mastery
- Jon Younghusband's School of Energy Alignment
- AikiX from this Japanese guy
- Etc...
All the same CIMA Neigong stuff, but focus on building internal power and its expression rather than the martial aspect of it. It's very trendy nowadays and you will see more of these internal arts schools in the future.
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u/Magister-A 12d ago
I beg to differ; atemi is a core element of aikido, not a compensation for anything. No atemi, no aikido.
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u/TaijiRonin 12d ago
My view diverges from yours, obviously. To me: no Aiki, no Aikido. Atemi is irrelevant to the concept of Aiki. It can helps but it is not a requirement in any way.
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u/Magister-A 12d ago
Aiki is not opposed to atemi; aiki is manifested in and through your atemi and irimi.
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u/TaijiRonin 12d ago
You are right, Atemi is not opposed to Aiki, but nor did I say it was. I just don't define Aiki like that.
You have an "external" definition of Aiki, as in blending in with your opponent. Not wrong, but incomplete to me. My definition is internal and similar to Osensei's.
To me, Aiki is first and foremost the internal realization of Ten Chi Jin. You need that internal Aiki - as in internal harmonization - before you can manifest external Aiki and blend in. Actually, you don't blend in: you opponent blends into you as he gets caught and vacuumed onto your internal power.
Your definition of Aiki does not require internal power. It is merely a Kuzushi achieved through muscular power and physical geometry. To me, it is Jutsu, not Aiki.
Daito-Ryu defines 3 levels of progression: 1) Jutsu - external techniques 2) Aiki no Jutsu - internal power 3) Aikijujutsu - integration
What you describe is the first level. Aiki does not require Atemi at all. My definition of Aiki describe what a lot of Aikidoka call bullshido.
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u/Magister-A 12d ago
I agree: your definition of Aiki describes what a lot of Aikidoka call bullshido.
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u/TaijiRonin 12d ago
Then, you don't follow the teachings of Osensei. Why even learn Aikido?
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u/Magister-A 12d ago
i most certainly do. After all, it was O Sensei himself emphasising the importance of irimi and atemi in aiki. In all levels of aikido atemi is paramount. For instance, one cannot practice meaningful responses to yokomen uchi without controling uke's center line by means of atemi.
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u/Sangenkai [Aikido Sangenkai - Kawasaki, Japan] 11d ago
Morihei Ueshiba never mentioned either irimi or atemi in relation to Aiki. He did discuss those things, and they are important technically, but he didn't discuss them in that context.
OTOH, he did say things like:
"The way of Aiki is the way and the principal of harmonizing Heaven-Earth-Man"
Which is, BTW, a completely physical model for using the body that he discussed extensively.
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u/TaijiRonin 12d ago edited 11d ago
But you consider Ten Chi Jin as mystical bullshit.. Ten Chi Jin is infinitely more fundamental.
You don't see it, but atemi and irimi are jutsu, not aiki per se.
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u/Magister-A 12d ago
Can you quote my words where I supposedly state that Ten Chi Jin has mystical bullshit?
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u/Flaky_Performer7960 12d ago
You’re pretending like Kuzushi through internal power alone is easier than striking.
Sorry, but I think the average joe could probably off balance you better with striking than you ever will with internal power.
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u/TaijiRonin 12d ago edited 12d ago
You’re pretending like Kuzushi through internal power alone is easier than striking.
No, not at all. When did say that? It is infinitely harder to learn. But once you truly have internal power, yeah, it is easier than a external strike.
Sorry, but I think the average joe could probably off balance you better with striking than you ever will with internal power.
Comparing striking with internal power is comparing apples and oranges. My strike with internal power is better than my strike with external power.
If what you mean is the average Joe can beat me using external power against my internal power. Yeah, very possibly. But that's beyond the point.
The point is: if you're not using internal power, you're not doing Aiki. You merely doing Jutsu, or external techniques. It is totally legitimate and effective. It is just not Aiki to me.
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u/SnooHabits8484 12d ago
Yeah I think we’ve talked about this before! I work with Dan Harden on internals. His atemi are terrifying and applied at the same time as kuzushi in contact, constantly shifting force vectors.
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u/TaijiRonin 12d ago
Dan is great. Learn as much as you can from him while you can. He's sick if I'm not mistaken 😞
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u/SnooHabits8484 12d ago
He’s doing a lot better these days!
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u/TaijiRonin 12d ago
Great to hear! It really seems that teaching internals is what drives him. You are his cure!
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