Think Yourself Strong

[rex]

Just been play fighting and had my arm pinned by two hands against a wall. If I used my normal muscular strength and struggled to push off from the wall I couldn't escape. However if I relaxed and just had the intention of touching the opposite wall escape was easy. I reckon it's down to some sort of subtle communication between to people locked in a physical tussel. If there's tension and suddenly someone relaxes then the other person relaxes as well and this gives the opportunity to escape. Funny thing was even when I told my opponent that I was going to 'think myself strong' and stayed relaxed all the time it still worked. Plenty of room for experiment here. Anyone done something similar?

[Lozen]

Yup. Making eye contact helps too.

[MASTERforge]

Interesting topic.

 

Worth looking into more. If anyone has similar experiences please share, or give us links or directions so we can learn more about the topic.

 

Makes me wonder what the actual mechanics are behind it and the psychology involved and other factors.

[thelerner]

I used to play around with things like that all the time in Ki-Aikido.

 

Here's one: Someone standing by your side grabs your arm with there two hands and yanks hard. Its very hard to keep from moving and being pulled. Then you imagine the grabber is falling off a cliff and you must pull him in to save him. Without much practice, you tend to have perfect balance and are able to save him almost every time. And its just a change of thought.

 

Michael

[freeform]

If anyone has similar experiences please share.

 

There's a little trick where you get two helpers to lift you up from either side - then get them to lift when all your attention is above you and repeat when your attention is bellow you.

 

Many times your helpers will find it impossible to lift you when your attention is down, and very easy when up.

 

Another one is where you put your attention in your head and get someone to push you over and then repeat with the attention on the belly.

[Wayfarer64]

One of the very first meaningful experiences I had when I started Hung Gar was learning to get "rooted" to the earth and maintain a sort of bond with the ground by pressing down with my muscular strength to some degree. But also sort of mentaly directing my energy (as mass) downward...

 

A large friend of mine said he bet he could budge me - in fact lift me... I got into my horse stance and he tried to lift me up by my elbows, my under-arms and my waist, pound for pound he should have been able to lift my weight pretty easily, yet he couldn't do it.

 

This was an early flash of what could be developed through directing my energy through the entire mass of my body. Once I learned to direct it into a punch I got pretty excited about internal energy and I always thought of it as an E= MC2 sort of deal. But of course, my punches never approached the speed of light!

 

The relaxing bit has some use maybe, looking tired helps the ploy work. I am always amazed when it works! Who gives up io the middle of a fight? I don't think I would ever try it in a true life/death situation, I just can't believe it works under that kind of hyper-real adrenaline-stoked moment.

 

Pure ruthless agility is the best bet for me... If confronted with real life evil SOBs that would use any weakness as an excuse to get you in their power, there can be no relaxation. Such a vacuum will just get filled with their attacking with more gusto. A real display of power and violence works against such miscreants, for they are usually cowards at the core.

 

My inner fortitude comes from adherance to doing what I know to be right. The inner power gained in surity of purpose is emmense. It offers an inner tranquility. The relaxation of absorbing oncomming force is part of the same thing. I guess thats what Tai chi is all about, and why I want to start learning more about it.

 

As was mentioned elsewhere seeking power over others is at heart an act of a cowardice. Why would anyone need to control someone else unless they were scared of them? So maybe relaxing your opponent by relaxing yourself could work on the less beligerant foe, if they were not viscious by nature. It could serve to defuse the situation out of violence - maybe...

My Kung Fu master suggested to us that if confronted with senseless violence, don't fight, just get away from it. But I'll bet that's advise he did not follow himself.

[thaddeus]

Makes me wonder what the actual mechanics are behind it and the psychology involved and other factors.

If someone has your arm pinned against the wall and you tighten up your body, that person is effectively 'controlling your center'. From your hand that is pinned throughout your whole body you are tight, like a rigor mortis corpse. You're just one big piece of wood. If you relax your whole body, then he his just pressing your forearm or wrist against the wall. The rest of your body is not held down. Very subtly you are changing the angles of force to reduce his leverage and he can't hold on. It's a combination of subtle rotations that redirect his power and a dropping of your center underneath his. Koichi Tohei from Ki-Aikido has 4 interrconnected principles to explain some of this..which is the relaxation is weight underside (sung or soong). Tohei doesn't get into the rotation or silk reeling part of movement explicitly, but when you relax, your body naturally rotates which redirects your opponent. Doing this intentionally and with control is one of the gems of training internal arts.

T

[Wayfarer64]

Thanks Thaddeaus et al,

 

Your explanations helped this subject along on a meaningful level. It also satrengthens my resolve to find a teacher who has a more holistic approach to the martial arts. Understanding the machanics of movement is a huge help in the whys and wherefores of training.

 

Subjective experience is applied most usefully within an objective understanding of its larger context and potential impact.

Edited October 24, 2006 by Wayfarer64

[freeform]

Just to give a more energy-based example... most of us have read Plato's blog on opening the front channel - he said in the end that having a thoroughly opened front gives you some 'powers' over others...

 

Well everyone has an open front channel (to some extent) and the front channel is easily manipulated... try this : think of it as unzipping - your opponent is in front of you - direct your full awareness to bellow his bottom lip, then progressively move your attention down to his perineum - imagine you're unzipping his jacket... you can do it quite fast as long as your full attention is on the task... after this push the opponent over and notice his balance... repeat the zipping, but instead, with a smile, zip him up to the bottom lip, now push him over - notice the difference.

 

You can get more advanced too... for example - after you unzip remember something that really scares you to death - something horrible... quickly imagine this feeling moving into the other person then zip him back up...

 

ofcourse you can do the same with the most amazing feelings of love, confidence, acceptance (try it with your kids!)

 

If you open your front channel to the extent that Plato is aiming for, then all this happens with just a simple intention - you dont have to zip or unzip... your front channel just takes on the vibration of the other person's front channel and then leads it to whatever your intention is...

[rex]

Thanks for the explanations and useful suggestions everyone.

 

Michael's mentioning of how 'just a thought' can make all the difference is really intriguing (btw a belated happy birthday ). It also reminded me of an exercise we once did in a Spirit Combat class (cross between Aikido and Ju Jitsu). We had a guy on either side of us grab our wrists with both hands and we were to try and escape. Of course we couldn't extract ourselves with finesse, if at all. Then the sensei got us to imagine a wave of energy coming up from the ground which passed up through our body into our arms as we circled them in a relaxed way. To my astonishment the guys fell over. Now just before the same blokes were in control - one of them was always competitive and uncooperative in partner exercises. As Wayfarer says it'll be another matter doing these types of things in a real confrontation.

 

I think the principle of staying mentally relaxed and having 'just a thought' is still an invaluable skill in situational awareness and avoidance. This might be something for a follow up thread but I'll blab on anyway. From the mercifully few iffy situations I've found myself in a change in mental stance clearly had an effect on my energetic presence and how it was perceived by others. Once I had to walk by this guy who had been leaning against this wall and staring at me from quite some distance. Now I walk by people who look at me everyday but the alarm bells don't ring. This guy thought he'd have some fun with a bit of intimidation. I continued on with a clear intention of a line of attack if anything kicked off. When I got to about three feet away and our energy connected his energy just wilted and dissipated. That was the end of that and there was no eye contact. In that brief moment of heightened awareness during a potential situation I sensed that my emotional energy in a three foot radius was strong and clear. There are other examples involving dogs, people looking for an argument and accidentally wandering into a gang's space on a train but the underlying principle is clear, a relaxed state of mind hooked up to a clear image can be used positively in situational awareness (I think El Tortugo once mentioned using bear imagry to put off potential miscreants). Chi kung practice may enhance one's ability to pull it off and I think it can let some sort of inner instinct to kick in when a situation develops.

 

Yes this is all highly subjective and there are all sorts of ifs and buts. There has been some research into how thoughts and intentions can be registered consciously and unconsciously by other people. Vasliev's Experiments in Mental Suggestion gives much food for thought in how mental projection can be used. I once met a sinister guy who said that he used to project commands into people via their solar plexus like 'scratch your face' to see if they did. He didn't claim 100% success but he said he used this as one of his means to sound people out. He did say that people invariably used to instinctively cover their solar plexus area after he sent them a command.

 

This could all make a nice area of study from avoidance strategies to actual physical confronation using sound bio-mechanical principles (thanks Thaddeus) combined with energized intention/imagery.

Edited October 24, 2006 by rex