Focus in the martial Arts

Everyone agrees that "Focus" is very important in martial Arts training. But what is "Focus"? Most source say something like "You must learn to focus all your attention on your opponent to the exclusion of all distractions" This makes a lot of sense in a sporting ring, where you face a single opponent, one on one, in a controlled environment. But I do not think is is good advice in a more "real world" situation, where the environment is anything but controlled and while many of the "distractions" can be safely ignored, others cannot. You should not allow the dog barking, the child running around, or the flash from the camera to distract you, but the man with the pipe in his hand approaching from your left flack should not be ignored. All the incoming sensory information must be processed so the decision can be made as to what to can be safely disregarded and what needs immediate attention.

Aikido rondori practice is good for this. I remember a class once where the instructor occasionally told one of the observers to join the rondori already in progress, This was a real challenge, I thought I was dealing with four attackers and suddenly without warning a fifth attacker came out of nowhere. If I had been less focused on the attackers I knew about I might not have been taken by surprise by the changed situation.

I regularly practice "push hands". I believe it to be a very effective, safe, form of simulated combat training. The group I practice with is very informal and low key. We generally keep up a constant light banter for the entire practice session. I'm sure a "serious martial artist" would be appalled that we are making wise cracks when we should be focused on our practice, but I disagree. I consider the wise cracking to be part of my training. If the banter distracts me from the practice, my partner/opponent will push me, giving me feed back. My goal is to be able to maintain good root, structure, awareness, flow, etc. while at the same time keeping up the banter. This trains me to deal with distractions without being distracted by them.

Just as in meditation you do not block all thoughts from the mind, but rather let them flow without allowing yourself to be distracted by them, I am training not to block all "distractions" from my mind during practice, but to process them with out being distracted by them.

The four jings and Aikido

For many years I have been trying to figure out how the four principals Jings of Taiji, Peng, Lu, Ji and An. I first learned the terms Peng, Lu, Ji & An when I started practicing push hands. At that time I was told that I had very strong Peng. As far as I could tell at the time Peng was the same as unbendable arm. I think I now have a better understanding.

Peng

Peng is commonly translated as "ward off", it is associated with the pre-heaven trigram "Chien" translated as "Heaven" and the post-heaven trigram "Kan" or "Water". I have started to to think of it as "Rise Up".

Peng is the first part of the opening if every taiji form I am aware of. The arms rise while the hips sink and the spine lengthens. It is exemplified by yang energy rising from Earth to Heaven.

The Peng response to incoming energy is to bounce it off like a rubber ball.

It is NOT weight upper side, because the rising energy presses the lower body down.

I believe peng is the same as what voice trainer Arthur Lessac (http://www.lessacinstitute.com/) calls 'Buoyancy" in his 1978 book "Body Wisdom". He describes it as the feeling you get if you stand in a doorway and press the back of both wrists against the door frame, then relax and step out of the door frame and feel your arms rise of their own accord. He also describes many exercises to get this feeling in a tub of water.

It is used to hold an attack at bay. It is associated with the wei chi, the chi that protects the body from the external environment. Many sources say all other jings arise from Peng.

We use it in aikido for Immoveable Body. It is sometime used at the beginning of a technique to encourage the attacker to over commit, it can also be used to uproot an attacker, as when you come in under the arm and lift it in Ikkyo, or is some variants of ryote-mochi kokyu-nage irimi ude-oroshi, where nage gets under uke and lifts.

Lu

Lu is commonly translated as "roll back", it is associated with the pre-heaven trigram "Kun" translated as "Earth" and the post-heaven trigram "Li" or "Fire". I have started thinking of it as "Draw in".

Lu is the third part of the taiji opening. The arms and hips both sink. It is exemplified by yin energy being drawn into the center. It is cultivated by Koichi Tohei's (http://www.koichitohei.com/) Contraction Meditation, in which everything is drawn into the one point. In push hands it incorporates a twist of the hips to allow the press (it is generally employed to counter Ji) to pass by harmlessly, sometimes it can be used to unbalance your partner forward.

I remember reading a science fiction story many years ago in which a hard boiled detective kept running into aliens disguised as humans, each time he shot one it responded by thanking him for the gift of metal (he ended up killing them with a water pistol loaded with the booze from his desk as I recall, but that is not relevant to this discussion). This strikes me as the ultimate in Lu.

Lu is very common in aikido. You see it when moving back in fune-kogi (the rowing exercise), and in takubi-kosa (the wrist crossing exercise). It shows up in most tenkan or ura techniques and techniques where you draw the attacker into your center to establish control.

Ji

Ji is commonly translated as "press", and is associated with the pre-heaven trigram "Kan" translated as "Water" and post-heaven "Dui" or "Lake". It is the opposite of Lu. I have started thinking of it as "reach out".

Ji is the second part of the taiji opening. The arms and hips both rise. It is exemplified by yang energy radiating out from the center.

Ji is a squeezing, sticking energy the follows the opponents energy.

Arthur Lessac calls it "Potency" or "Muscle Yawn". He teaches unbendable arm as an example of "Potency", but I am beginning to suspect that unbendable arm can be an expression of any of the jings. He also taught something he called a "Muscle Yawn Push up". My mother was a small, not particularly strong, woman, but she could do a seemingly unlimited number of Muscle Yawn Push Ups without tiring.

Ji is cultivated by Koichi Tohei's Expansion Meditation, in which the one point expands to encompass everything.

I think atemi is Ji. The first two moves of both 21 count (or 22 count, depending on how your style counts) jo kata, the tsuki, seem to me to be expressions of Ji. But, I am drawing a blank trying to think of when it is used in technique.

An

An is commonly translated as "push", and is associated with the pre-heaven trigram "Li" translated as "fire" and post-heaven trigram "Zhen"> or "Thunder". It is the opposite of Peng. I have started thinking of it as "Press down".

An is the end of the taiji opening, the arms sink as the hips rise. It is exemplified by yin energy sinking from heaven to earth.

The downward force of An comes from the legs pressing into the earth.

Many people have said that An is the hardest of the jings to understand because you rise up to press down. Some people have said it is like lifting yourself out of a swimming pool, or maybe doing dips or chin ups (But Lessac uses chin ups to teach "Potency", which I think is Ji, so I could be way off).

Putting the pieces together

Looking at a single technique, and how the jings are expresses, lets consider kata-tori ikyo irimi.

First, as the uke reaches in, nage steps back, drawing uke in (Lu) to encourage him to over extend.

Second, nage brushes uke's hand down (An) taking his balance.

Third, nage brings uke's arm up pushing the elbow over uke's head (Peng).

Fourth, nage drops uke's arm in front of him, immobilising uke before taking him to the mat (An again? The side of the body toward uke seems to be doing An, but the other side is not, maybe its doing Peng? Or maybe it's Lieh? I'm nowhere near ready to go there. I'm not going to try to sort out Tsai, Lieh, Jou & Koo until I've got a firm grasp on Peng, Lu, Ji & An).

Is That Aikido?

When I do a technique which does not appear in a tiagi or on a test sometime someone will tell me "That's not aikido". On the other hand I will sometime stop a randori and say “That is not aikido”. What is the criterion to determine whether a technique is, or is not an aikido technique?

The person who challenges my technique usually takes the position that there is an official list of aikido techniques, and any technique that is not on that list is not aikido. My position is that this is a ridiculous claim. Watch any randori and you will rarely see a technique that appears on any list. The attack determines what the technique should be, and since there is an infinite variation of attacks, there will be an infinite variation in techniques. No finite list can ever be exhaustive.

If there is not canonical list, than how can you determine if a technique is aikido or not? Sometime it is clear. Every aikido student knows that aikido does not have any strikes, or does it? I once saw Koichi Kashiwaya Sensei, Chief Instructor of Ki Society USA, drive his fist into an attackers arm pit and claim that it was an aikido technique. Also many techniques involve atemi, which is striking. To farther confuse the issue, a knowledgeable person, watching my technique will see a bit of a Ba-Gua coil or a Tia-Chi role back in many of my aikido techniques. Does the Ba-Gua and Tia-Chi influence make the technique less an aikido technique?

I believe that aikido is distinguished by the principal of non-dissension. When doing aikido you let the attacker do what he wants to do. If you are trying to force him to do something he does not want to do you are not doing aikido. When doing aikido we do not throw the attacker, we let him fall down. When doing aikido we do not block a punch, we get out of the way and let it go by, or we catch it before it reached its power zone and let the force of the punch move the attackers shoulder. When doing aikido we do not try to break an attackers grip, we let him hold on as we move to a more advantageous position.

When Koichi Kashiwaya drove his fist into his attacker's arm pit he did not punch the attacker, he allowed the attacker to run into his fist. His attacker did all the work; he just put his fist where the attacker would run into it.

When we do atemi, the atemi is not intended to hurt the attacker (although it may) it is intended to cause the attacker to shift his balance to set up the technique. To make him do what we want him to do if it does not have this effect we need to change our technique or we will not be doing aikido. If you do an atemi to the face to arrest the forward motion of the attacker’s upper body, but the attacker does not stop, he may get a broken nose, but he will defiantly block your technique making you do a different technique, or stop doing aikido.

I tell all my students “When done right aikido is effortless. If you are working you are not doing aikido.” This sums it up very well. If you are doing aikido, the attacker is doing all the work. If you are working, you are not doing aikido.