Ellis Amdur wrote:
Regarding Standing Practice [snip]
Interesting article. Sounds like the author underwent a lot of psychological pressure, in addition to actual training. I would like the skills, but not the nerve problems he reported.
I think a certain amount of "standing practice" is now established as integral to a lot of higher-level Aikido. Not many people seemed aware of this in the West, from my experience. Standing practice, when done correctly, will give you actual "ki" over time, although just developing ki and not knowing how to use it in your movements is an oft-encountered problem. I occasionally meet people that I know do standing practice the moment I touch them, and they are "heavy", but they have no idea how to move so it doesn't do a lot of good except for the 'health' aspects and some of the strength. For strength and health, doing standing exercises and some movement exercises using the kokyu power is probably sufficient, but martial practice involves a lot more.
O-Sensei's jo-trick indicates that he did standing exercises; comments in Shioda's book "Aikido Shugyo" tend to corroborate that idea. Shioda's use of kokyu in some of his demonstrations indicates the kind of power you get from standing, not the power from repetitive exercise. Shioda apparently did some sort of down-power exercise from what I see of his usage of it, but I can't get a handle on what that exercise was. It may have simply been suburi, but it might have been something more direct. After watching Shioda on video, I'm still up in the air about whether he got outside help on ki/kokyu training tips. But the sleuthing is fun. Any tips or comments are appreciated.