Tandokudosa 9 & 10

10 Comments

Craig Moore · November 30, 2019 at 10:37 am

Thanks Allen. These are going to be tough for a long time. My mind boggles with what complexity 11 & 12 are going to have if they incorporate a lot of what is in 1-10 together.

Enjoyed but got confused with the fire and water info. Hidari as fire and migi as water makes sense but then when you spoke of Zen vs Mikkyo it seemed to swap with fire on the right and water on the left.

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Allen Dean Beebe · December 1, 2019 at 12:32 am
Hi Craig,
I suppose it is all in how one looks at it. It wouldn’t surprise me if most individuals look at TDD 1 – 8 and think, “What’s the bid deal? I learned that stuff in my first couple of Aikido classes!” Some might like at TDD 9 & 10 and think, “Looks like somebody just made up more of the same just to be different.” Unless one understands what one is trying to develop and works hard at developing it, testing it, refining it, improving it, etc. it will all just seem like “more of the same.” On the other hand, without having felt felt someone significantly accomplished in this “stuff,” and attributing that experience to the practice of the “stuff” (rather than some easier explanation) I couldn’t blame anyone for questioning the worthiness of investing significant time and effort towards such “stuff.”
That having been said, “Yes!,” TDD 11 and 12 are challenging to do such that one is producing and expressing Aiki in one’s body/mind with every movement (or non-movement) within TDD 11 & 12. Once achieved to the extent that one can produce and express Aiki in the movements, it becomes very obvious how all of the TDD directly relate to any application of technique. It could be said that if one cannot do the TDD while producing and expressing Aiki, one cannot cannot perform a technique that has Aiki.
It isn’t that the TDD are singularly unique. It is pretty obvious that they are not. What is unique is being able to produce and express Aiki. It is important to keep the intended purpose of the exercises formost in one’s mind. Otherwise one is just doing yet another “form” without substance.
As far as the Left Right leg thing, I wouldn’t worry about it. It was just one explanation and has really no direct relationship to my explanation of the hands other than the idea of Fire/Water, and someone somewhere along the line decided it should be one way, and (as mentioned) someone along the line decided it should be the other way. For all practical purposes remember both legs have the potential to be Yin or Yang, but in order for them to be Yin/Yang they must together have a Yin/Yang relationship. Further complicating matters, it is important to remember that regardless of whether a leg is Yin, or Yang, it should always maintain the potential of switching. Rememeber in the Yin/Yang symbol Yin has Yang in it, and Yang has Yin in it.
It is nice to know the hermetics relating to the various traditional explanations relating to Aiki and Internal Power, because one can better understand traditional records related to the topics. But, knowing and/or espousing such terminology is no indicator that one can produce or manifest Aiki and/or internal power. This, I think, is obvious. So, one can decide to consentrate on one, or the other, or both.
I spent decades concentrating on both, still maintain an interest, but am presently primarily interested in results.
Thanks for the comment and for reading!
Allen
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fred veer · November 30, 2019 at 4:50 pm

Hi Allen, there is a lot of wisdom in the asking what to undo.

Practical question, when you cross the back foot in front of the front foot, do you shift you body axis to the front foot and later shift this to the other foot ?

Fred

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Allen Dean Beebe · December 1, 2019 at 12:48 am
Hi Fred,
Yes there is a lot of wisdom in asking what to undo. And even when I find the answer, quite often my body likes to “do” something anyway, or tell me that I’m asking the impossible.
Answer: You keep your body axis in place as long as possible. This demands that the movement comes from the heads of both femurs via the action, or non-action, of all associated tissues. The funky “hanmi” posture already pre maximizes the rotation of the heads of the femurs (in order to both strengthen and increase their range of motion) TDD 9 & 10 turbo charge this by asking for even more. Only when there is no more slack does the central axis turn. Of course one can ask one’s self, what turns the central axis? The answer of course is tissue. Bone’s don’t move on their own. All movement is an interplay between tissue movement, gravity, and normal force. Of course the tissue only moves in response to neural activity. So one must engender the desired neural activity in order to engender the desired tissue movement (and non-movement), in order to engender the desired interplay between gravity and normal force.
What engenders the disired neural activity? What engenders the disire?
See you soon,
Allen
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Steve · December 6, 2019 at 11:18 am
Hi Allen, your comment:
What engenders the disired neural activity? What engenders the disire?
Is this a reference to the three internal harmonies?
Thanks, Steve.
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Allen Dean Beebe · December 6, 2019 at 2:32 pm
Hi Steve, No, it was a reference to Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna. Specially, I was bringing up cause and effect infinite regress. Even more importantly, I like to encourage the labor and agency of thinking rather than a Pavlovian regurgitation of undigested formulaic response. In other words, ask your own questions, discover your own answers.
Yep, I generally have a lot of thoughts spinning in my head! Not that that is necessarily conducive to effective communication. 🤪
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adarsh · December 1, 2019 at 12:34 pm

Hi Allen,

Thanks for the video.
What is the role of intent here? Is it about maintaining the central axis while moving or is it about your legs from the femur? please clarify.

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Allen Dean Beebe · December 6, 2019 at 2:40 pm
Sorry for a delayed response Adarsh. The answer is, “Yes!” Choose an area of focus and work on it until you get results or learn something, etc. This will often lead to another area of focus, etc. I recommend concentrating on a chosen area for an extended period rather than “hopping” around from one area to another while making progress in none.
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danielkati · December 29, 2019 at 12:15 am

Hi Allen!

Thank You very much for sharing Tandoku Dosa 9 and 10!
I especially find encouraging that you are also sharing your struggles. Very few teachers do that. I think it’s very educative.

I have a question on hanmi. It maybe better to say that hanmi itself is a big question for me 🙂 The concept of hanmi in aikido confuses me. Almost every instructor says it’s important. I don’t see that too often in Ueshiba’s aikido though.
I also don’t understand how something allegedly so fundamental could be shown in so many different ways. The two main approaches are front foot facing forward (and hips slightly or completely turned) and front foot facing outward (with hips facing forward). In both approaches the back foot is right behind the front foot – an approach strange to basically all non-aikido martial arts I’ve ever got in contact with. Can the second one even called hanmi (half body)? Even you use the term in quotation mark.
Based on your video, you use your “hanmi” to train your body to generate aiki, but you don’t use it in application.
I would really apprecieate your thoughts on the matter.

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Allen Dean Beebe · January 6, 2020 at 12:40 am
Hi Daniel,
Thank you for your encouragement and questions. I think my struggles are what make me a good teacher. I’m more of a hard worker than a natural athelete. And I like to make things as “stupid proof” as possible because that is what I need to improve. Not giving away any clues to one’s weakness is smart in combat. But I’m not doing combat. Apearing to be more than human is great for buisness. But I’m not doing business. I’m just learning and training Aiki. And I have found that THAT requires a great deal of humility. If one cannot be completely honest with one’s self and with one’s training partners one isn’t going to progress very far.
Hanmi: Most of the pre-war guys were taught the foot turned out Hanmi. It is also interesting that Tomiki, Shirata, and Shioda all created solobody movement exercises. They were taught certain things for a reason, and to a greater or lesser degree, those “certain things” didn’t get passed on broadly. Ueshiba also demonstrated hanmi (with weapons) in the more foot straight forward fashion. However, when one looks at Ueshiba, Tomiki, Shirata, and Shioda go “off script,” what they did tended to morph, and loosen up.
I think that the body is most important, most particularly what is going on inside of the body. If one is truly using Aiki, one works from the mind through the body outward. What one sees outwardly physically manifested is a result of, not the cause of, Aiki. And, the further one progresses, the less one’s outward physical manifestation needs be visible to be effecacious. In other words, the better one gets the more difficult it is to see and understand what is actually being done. Again, the best look fake, and the fake look fake. But the fakes fail under duress where the best actually shine. Now teaching is a different thing altogether. Everyone learns from the outside in and then back out again. Consequently, one necessarily starts one’s students from the outside. Often times this involves making big outward movements just to get ANY of the internal movement one desires from one’s students to begin to start. Once started, that movement can be identified. Once identified the neuro network required to create the same movement on the inside without the large out movment can begin to be worked upon. Once this begins to take place there is kind of a chain effect. The as the neurology develops, so too will the anatomy effected. As these develop the connected anatomy is effected. As this occurs one can begin to locate these connections and further develop neurological control and anatomical development. All of this takes time.
Obviously, one could learn and perform the big outward movements without ever discovering or developing the inner movements, connections, etc. In fact, one could learn in this manner and couple what one learned with the “mystical” words of one’s teacher and conflate the two. One wouldn’t have Aiki, but one might have a bunch of techniques coupled with some “mystical” inner teachings and, who knows, one might even create a successful organization that propogates itself and is meaningful to its members . . . and THAT could be called Aiki, or the Way of Aiki, or Aiki Jujutsu or whatever . . . afteral that is what the teacher’s teacher’s teacher called it, so it must be so.
As an analogy, pretend that you have a hose. You have a hold of one end of the hose. A teacher could come along and say, “Hey, if you start your movement from the other end of the hose, it the movement of the whole hose will be stronger!” Of course you don’t have a hold on that end of the hose, so this advise sounds ridiculous. Still, you can take the end of the hose you have a hold of and move it around. That works. Then another teacher comes along. You grab the end of his hose. It seems flacid and weak. Then all of a sudden his hose flips and so do you. You exclaim, “How in the world did you do that?!?!” The teacher could just filp you again and again, but he doesn’t. He says, “Move the end of the hose you have a hold of in a great big circle”. And, “No, no!” I mean a really big circle so much that you can feel your entire hose stretch. Then make the big circle fast.” You do and say, “Wow! Did you see that? I turned my hose in a really big circle, and could feel it all the way to the end! It felt really powerful!!” And then the teacher says, “Good. Now you have to learn to turn your hose from other end of the circle. Once you can do that, you have to keep practicing turning until when you turn that end of the hose, the other end moves. Once you can do that you have to learn how turn the far end of the hose quickly and powerfully so that the other end of the hose doesn’t just rotate but it turns in a circle. When you can turn that end of the hose so quickly and powerfully that the end of the hose makes as big of a circle as when you did when we first started, then you will MAY be able to do what I did. But of course you will be a different person and your hose will be a different hose. Oh, and here is a hint. You won’t feel powerful, but you will have become very powerful. Good luck. You’ll probably just quit like everybody else. But if you do succeed, only teach one or two other people . . . on second thought, teach as many as you want. Nobody will probably learn anyway!”
All the best,
Allen
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