Who’s Your Daddy?

Check this guy out.

What’s he doing?

His belly button is in a vertical line with his chest. He is rotating around his center of balance, which is between his feet. His spine is bowed. His elbows are down, keeping an equal and opposite distance from his thorax. His shoulders are seated. The leg opposite the punching arm is driving up, while the other leg is “falling” down. His knees are in-line with his legs and his pelvis doesn’t isn’t greatly thrusted forward.

Wait just a minute . . . follow the force path up from the left leg and out his right arm. It’s an upward spiral! Follow the force path from his left arm down his right leg. It’s a downward spiral! Dual opposing spirals!

Big deal?

Well this guy certainly is a big deal! He is World Heavyweight Champion Boxer Jack Dempsey. Famous not for how big or how fast he was. Famous for hitting like a freight train!

What does that have to do with Aiki? Well, a ton actually. So, did Jack Dempsey have Aiki? He certainly demonstrated an attribute of Aiki, remarkable force generation. Which isn’t terribly surprising considering some of his physical mannerisms.

As for passing knowledge forward, I really like what Dempsey wrote in his book:

Punchers Are Made; Not Born

Louis retired as undefeated heavyweight champion in 1949. And I’ll bet that, as he retired, Joe considered himself a natural-born puncher. I know that’s probably true because I had the same mistaken idea about myself during my career and for a time after I hung up my gloves,

If you’re a punching champion it’s natural for you to get the wrong appreciation of yourself. Hundreds of admirers pat you on the back and tell you what a “natural-born” fighter you are. And when you’re swept along toward seventh heaven by the roar of the crowd in your magnificent moments of triumph, it’s easy to forget the painstaking labor with which you and your instructors and trainers and sparring partners fashioned each step in your stairway to the throne. It’s easy to forget the disappointments and despair that, at times, made the uncompleted stairway seem like “Heartbreak Hill.” Ah yes, when you’re on the throne, it’s easy to regard yourself as one who was born to the royalty of the ring.

In your heyday as champion, you can’t “see the forest for the trees.” As an historian might express it, you’re too close to your career to get the proper perspective of highlights and background. It was only after I had retired and had begun trying to teach others how to fight that I investigated the steps in my stairway-analyzed my own technique. And that was a tough job.

You see: by the time a fellow becomes a successful professional fighter, nearly all his moves are so instinctive, through long practice, that it’s difficult for him to sort out the details of each move. Accordingly, it’s nearly impossible-at first-for him to explain his moves to a beginner. He can say to the beginner, “You throw a straight right like this.” Then he can shoot a straight right at a punching bag. But the beginner will have no more conception of how to punch with the right than he had before. That’s the chief reason why so few good fighters developed into good instructors. They failed to go back and examine each little link in each boxing move. They tried to give their pupils the chains without the links.

When I began breaking down my moves for the purpose of instruction, I found it most helpful to swing my memory clear back to the days when I was a kid at Manassa, a small town in southern Colorado. I was fortunate as a kid. My older brothers, Bernie and Johnny, were professional fighters. They had begun teaching me self-defense by the time I was six years old. In my break-down, I tried to recall exact details of the first fundamentals my brothers taught me. I jotted down every detail of those instructions I could remember, and every detail that dawned on me while I was practicing those early fundamentals.

Dempsey continues to reflect and re-build his training history as a means to map out for others what is useful. Only after he does this does he begin the process of winnowing out the essentials from the non-essentials.

I think the thoroughness of Dempsey’s process, highlights three problems that has plagued the passing on of Aiki. One problem occurs when one with Aiki sincerely tries to give away the goods, but in that effort “give their pupils the chains without the links.” These can be sincere teachers that wish to “save” their students the long hard path they took to get to where they are.  To that end, they try teaching their student from the end rather than the beginning.  It fails.

The other problem occurs when those with Aiki start their students by having them “prepare to make links.”  These teachers start with fundamentals (sometimes essentials and sometimes not). The problem occurs when (for one reason or another) that is as far as the training goes. Again, it fails.

The third problem pointed to elsewhere in Dempsey’s book is when those without demonstrable ability and/or relevant knowledge begin to train others. Of course the likelihood of failure, and the continued propagation of misinformation is high in this case.

While the problems that existed in Dempsey’s time continue to persist today, one thing remains clear. True results are self evident. This is true both in regards to having Aiki attributes, and also for teaching others to produce those same attributes. (As Dempsey points out, just because you “can do,” doesn’t mean you can teach!) If one can demonstrate the attributes of Aiki: Inexplicable stability, force generation and force neutralization, those attributes will be self-evident. If one can teach others to produce those same attributes, that ability will be self evident in those students.

Since the results are self-evident, there is no need for obfuscation, reliance upon philosophy, appeal to authority, popular recognition, or “official” certification, etc. To learn Aiki one must endeavor to try to score the trifecta of finding one that has demonstrated the ability to do, ability to teach, and willingness to teach.  Of course there are requirements  and factors that must also be in place where a potential student is concerned.

Look for results. Look for self evidence of that which one seeks.  Train, think, work, test.  Train some more, think, work, test. Don’t quit.  Don’t die.  Don’t expect perfection and never settle for less than perfection.  You will continue to progress.

Focus on measurable results.  Adulation, admiration, recognition, rank, etc., are subjective, ephemeral, a distraction, not results!  Disparagement, defamation, ill intended criticism, etc. are likewise subjective, ephemeral, a distraction, not results.  Other’s adulation or condemnation are a reflection of other’s cognition and character, not your ability.

For true Aiki, focus on engendering the attributes of true Aiki.  For true friendships, focus on engendering the attributes of true friendship.  True Aiki, like true friendship cannot be seen, felt, heard, smelled, or tasted.  But they are both real, and can be known via associated resultant attributes.

Quotable Quotes

No matter what a man does, whether his deeds serve virtue or vice, nothing lacks importance.  All actions bear a kind of fruit

~ Buddha

 

A good tree does not bear rotten fruit; a rotten tree does not bear good fruit.  Are figs gathered form thorns, or grapes from thistles?  Every tree is known by its fruit. 

~ Jesus

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