subject: How To Achieve Mystical Aikido Ki Power! [print this page] Mystical Aikido Ki Power, eh? Aikido is not about power, it is about...uh, isn't ki sort of a power or force? And if you try to separate ki from aikido you are left with what? Tricks? Unexplainable techniques?
So I was working out in the dojo one summer night. It was late, regular classes had ended and the other students had gone home, and there was only a half a dozen of us die hard Aikidokas left doing rolls and break falls and sweeping our arms--and each other--in beautiful arcs and circles.
One of the instructors came out of the front office and stepped onto the mat. Seeing us working so industriously, he sauntered over to us with a smile.
"Who wants to see some levitation?"
We all grinned, we thought him just pulling our legs; we were too serious to believe in such fol de rol; we didn't know he was about to demonstrate to us some real Aikido Ki Power.
He had one of us go to the side of the mat and retrieve a folding chair, then he chose one of us, the largest, to have a seat. Two of us inserted a single finger under the sitter's armpits, and two of us inserted a single digit each under his knee joints.
"Okay," said Aikido instructor, "Now lift him."
Well, we all tried our best, but it was not going to occur. There was no possible way we could lift the sitter, and everybody knew it. The fellow sitting in the chair just laughed at us.
Four puny digits trying to lift a couple of hundred pounds? No way this was going to happen!
The Black Belt merely said, "Okay, now take the hands you used to try and lift him, and place them on his head. Dont press down, just let your hands lay with no effort."
We dutifully stacked our single and unsuccessful hands upon his cranium.
"Now shush."
We all went silent, and the Black Belt watched the clock on the wall. After a minute he commanded, "Lift!"
We each placed a finger under a knee or armpit, and we...THREW HIM INTO THE AIR!
He squawked and windmilled his limbs desperately! He went well over our heads, maybe eight feet in the air, and we had to catch him when he fell.
Since then I have come across a lot of other ways to prove aikido ki power, but that first one really blew me away.
