A Word From O’Sensei

“In our techniques we enter completely into, blend totally with, and control firmly an attack. Strength resides where one’s ki is concentrated and stable; confusion and maliciousness arise when ki stagnates.”
Morihei Ueshiba O’Sensei

(植芝 盛平 , December 14, 1883 – April 26, 1969)

Standing Three Circle Qigong | Eli Montaigue

To me, standing Qigong is possibly the most important thing to start your journey in the internal martial arts.  And yet it the part most people spend the least time training in, because it’s too hard, and boring.  Whether you’re more interested in the healing or the martial side of the arts, standing Qigong is the place to start.

Everything else in your training, Tai Chi form, push hands, fighting form etc. will all be only external movements in the beginning.
You can not get internal Qi activation in these things until you have taking them to a high level, which takes many years for most.
Through that time, you’re working on perfecting the physical movements, gaining fitness flexibility and strength etc.

THE BEGINNING

Your Qigong however will start working on your Qi right from the start, as it’s just a stance, as long as you have someone put you in it right, then you’ll get Qi activation from it. Where is in forms etc it takes years to get right, and only then will you start to get some Qi flow.  Qi will also flow better the less active your mind is, so if you’re stressed out and thinking about loads of things, you won’t get the Qi flowing.
So again, with forms, if you’ve not perfected the movements, then you’ll be thinking about how to do them.  But with Qigong all you have to do is stand there, and so is much easier to get into a no mind state.
Your mind uses more Qi than just about anything else, so to switch it off means that all that Qi can be used to circulate through the body, cleansing and healing.

HOW IT WORKS (view picture below)

Standing Qigong works by having the knees bent, to create heat under the Dan Tien. This stimulates the Qi to rise up from the Dan Tien and flow through the body. The structure then held by the body and arms helps to open up the meridian Channels through out the body.  Qi is always flowing through your body, by doing Qigong we’re only opening up the channels and enhancing that flow.

The three main things standing Qigong will do for you, is to build, balance and unblock your Qi.  Most people will have some form of Yin or Yang imbalance. The Qigong stance is a physically perfect balance of left and right, and Yin and Yang.  So by holding it, your Qi will follow what you’re doing, and so it will re-balance to a normal level.  You may notice while standing, one hand might drop lower than the other, this is a left and right imbalance, so correct the physical, and your Qigong will follow.

Creating a higher than normal Qi flow, through bringing up Qi from your Dan Tien, and also from the earth, will one, fill your body with more Qi, so you will feel full of energy. And two, by doing this you will unblock your meridians.
Think of a blocked up hose, if it’s full of gunk, and you just let a bit of water trickle through it, the gunk will never clear.  But blast a high current of water through and all the gunk will be cleared.
So when you put a high current of Qi through your body, the same thing happens, you clear out the channels.  So in everyday life, you will have a smooth and clear flow of Qi through out your body.

This is why you shake when doing Qigong as a beginner – it is the Qi trying to break through the blocked areas.

HOW LONG AND WHEN TO PERFORM QIGONG

You should do your Qigong for at least 20 minutes morning and night for the first 5 years of your training.  When I got serious about my training at age 14, I would with out fail stand for at least 20 to 30 minutes morning and night till I was about 19.  From then I felt very balanced and strong, and my other training had come to a level where I was able to build Qi from it – But I still did my Qigong quite regularly.

Now, age 25, my form has become very internal, small frame, and I can get out of my form what I use to only get from my Qigong, and even more so, as moving Qigong such as the Tai Chi form is a higher level of Qigong.
But I still do my standing, as I feel it is such a great strength and Qi building method.

If you’re serious about your Internal energy development for what ever reason, get into standing three circle Qigong!

 WRITTEN BY: ELI MONTAIGUE.  (HEAD OF WTBA)

{visit the WTBA website by clicking pic below}

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Four Principles of Aikido

Keep One Point
Relax Completely
Keep Weight Underside
Extend Ki

These principles are very important in Aikido training. Since not all styles of Aikido being taught today emphasize these principles, I feel very fortunate to have had teachers that taught and believed in the coordination of the mind, body and spirit.  As time goes by, I realize more and more the importance of not only training the body to perform techniques but training the mind and spirit as well. The mind is a very powerful tool that we can continue to develop as long as we live. While the body ages with time, the mind, with proper training, can remain fresh and alert even to an advanced age.

¤

“How do I train my mind?”

The answer is always the same. You simply take control of your thought. When the mind begins to wander and flip-flop from one thought to another, take command of it and bring it back to the task at-hand (or whatever it is you are trying to accomplish).

The key here is practice.

The more you do this, the more effective you’ll become.  This forces us to live in the present moment and increases our awareness. When one lives in the past or the future it considerably weakens the power of the present moment. Understand that how we do things in the present affects the outcome of the future.

Awareness is the number one rule in all self-defense situations and it is also the number one rule in living a strong and successful life. Numbers 1 and 4 are rules of the mind. Numbers 2 and 3 are rules of the body. The four basic principles to unify the Mind, Body and Spirit are the path to a true understanding of Self and your relationship to the world as a whole (AND you as a part in it!). When you have found your center, it’s then that you are starting to see the true spirit of Aikido.

Robert Lara Sensei

Four Winds Aikido

CombativeCorner Profile

Our Karate Kid

When I first started taking Sanshinkai Karate I didn’t know anything about the various styles of Karate outside of Isshinryu which I had taken for a short period of time right after high school. I was just looking for a place to continue my martial arts training after taking a break during college.

Sanshinkai stands for “Three Power Society”, the three powers being: Mind, Body and Spirit.  It’s a combination of Isshinryu (our mother style) as well as techniques from Tae Kwon Do, Judo, and Jiu-jitsu. With the rise of Krav Maga and similar self defense systems I think Sanshinkai faces a lot of the same misconceptions that other traditional based styles do. That is that either the techniques we use are “out-dated” or that they only work in competition.

While it is true that a lot of the techniques we use in Sanshinkai are the same as the ones that have been used in martial arts for centuries, as instructors we are constantly looking for, experimenting with, and adopting current self defense techniques. With this, we hope to prepared our students to defend themselves in any situation. We don’t take anything away from the set Sanshinkai curriculum, we instead find a way for the new techniques to compliment the old, and vice versa.  In Sanshinkai our motto is “If it works, use it.”

Brandon T. Vaughn

His Combative Profile

A Day’s Lesson [9/14/2010] : Coach Joyce

A Jedi’s skill flows…

“When I envision a proper martial artist, behold! I see a Jedi warrior, someone who not only has discipline enough to stay the course of rigorous physical training but also [and not emphasized enough] the understanding that “The Force” (Chi, Qi, Ki) flows; as Master Yoda said, ‘Its energy surrounds us, and binds us.’  We should take a serious look into what energy we are fueling ourselves with these days.

In a very serious way, we ARE what we eat, and this should seriously concern us.  After recently becoming vegetarian (90-95% at least) you should see the looks I get when I tell people my new, (healthy) lifestyle.  You would think that I had said or done something horrible.  They turn away and say something like, ‘I don’t know how you do it’ or ‘I could never do that.’  They (the ‘Norms’) go around eating what they want, playing the slave to their taste buds, to those pleasure centers in their brain, and worse off… they are reenforced by a society that tells them that they are F.I.N.E.,… as if eating in this ‘normal way’ IS fine.

Many Americans (that I’ve witnessed) take pride in being different.  Just the other night at the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs), Lady Gaga walked out on stage in a dress made entirely of animal flesh.  Whether she was trying to make a statement or not, she did make headlines.  In many teenager’s minds ‘different’ is ‘creative.’  It IS if you’re already famous enough that people go along with it.  Many health conscious people can show you another way to be ‘different’… examples: turn your back on fast food establishments, nicotine, alcohol, meat… or maybe the entire lot!

Yoda also said that ‘We must unlearn what we have learned,’ and I think this is an important step for the true martial artist, someone who sees beyond what he can do (i.e. how much he/she can bench press) but moreso, what he/she is made of.  We all know (at least we should know) that energy, not protein and animal fat, powers our physical body and helps us to grow.  My message is to seek a Jedi’s nutition by exercising control (meats, refined sugars, saturated fats & portion size).  Going green should not just be a recycling movement… it should be a shift in our thinking.  Yoda is green for a reason (and he lived to be 900 years old).”

Coach Michael Joyce

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