The Fourth Teacher from the youtube vid

We can`t have mind control, you`re still responding

 

LOL, you're on fire Normski!

 

I would suggest you guys try putting aluminum foil inside your hats!!!

 

Can`t, i`ve put it in my pants

 

Have you seen any of Sensei's early books Ben? Hmmmm.....

Sorry - I just have no idea where you are coming from here. Are you suggesting that the movement would work as is with a decently intented, tori/tori relationship punch? If so - which movement?

On a related note, I pray that if I am involved in a fight that I am the aggressor in, that my *victim* just kinda steps to the side a bit and keeps his hands down... And yes, the word victim is accurate here. If you can solve for that situation, then you are missing the *eyes* as well.

Like? Can you think of anything that can't be resisted? (this is a trick question, by the way)...

Says you. I would recommend training the way they trained when they were at your position in the journey of Budo. The path brought them to where they are so their results are proven.

It is like handing a 3rd grader a book on Calculus. Getting the book 9 years quicker doesn't make understand Calculus any easier, and if you spend your time trying to understand and do things that you *don't* understand - then you won't put in the time learning the math skills needed to do Calculus in the first place. Says me.

May your choices be good ones...

 

Must be invisible proof since no one is able to see it!

 

There are plenty of photos from the early days showing "awkward deep stances". Like this magazine cover I've attached.

I keep getting told "makes your movements smaller" by some of my seniors but I'm still trying to get the large movements right. No sense rushing! It took Hatsumi sensei and the Japanese shihan decades to get to where they are now. Last time I was at the Honbu, Hatsumi sensei kept saying (my paraphrasing) "stop trying to move like me! Practice the correct movements first".

 

Regarding mind control…


Why be surprised? It exists everywhere and since we were children. From our parents telling us not to make our face ugly or it “may stay like that” To “Be good for goodness sake” Santa tactics, to the advertisement we see around us every second of every day.

Auto suggestion, dominance training, and pain compliance training exist in most martial arts! Here are some examples: Auto suggestion can be seen in the clip we are speaking about with Pokorny, but even easier to see with Arnaud (the first teacher) Watch his clip and you will see his uke WAY over reacting! Making noises like he is getting his butt kicked and is in pain (it adds to the effect of course further auto suggesting the rest of the participants how dangerous and cool the technique and teacher is) It is because the uke is flailing about so, that Arnaud can manipulate his balance like he does, and IT DOES WORK! And, Arnaud is VERY good at it! But it works like it does based on the energy the uke is providing, and the problem is that people think it is Arnaud that is causing the uke to fly around like that. He is not, it is the UKE causing himself to fly like that!

Now why would someone do such a thing? Mind control. Being part of a group, you believe my B.S. I will believe yours… If this person enjoys being a part of his organization, and one would imagine he does, then why go against the grain? It is way cooler to be a “good uke” and get to fall for the famous people in your organization than to be a “jerk” and cause problems etc…

Another reason is pain compliance. The uke to be a good uke in ANY martial art doing a pre-set training exercise needs to react “as if” he were really hit in order for the drill to proceed correctly, but some people, as in this case, OVER react! The pain compliance is a technique used by teachers to gain a compliant uke. It goes like this…

Uke steps up and is relaxed, he grabs as he is told to, and tori strikes toward him awaiting the flailing response he is accustomed to. When he doesn’t get it, he REALLY hits the uke (hurting him/causing fear) and explains something like, “well, I could just REALLY hit you I guess if you don’t want to react to the strike, the choice is yours..” (I actually was told that myself by a teacher btw…) Then the uke is told to sit down because he still doesn’t understand how to be a good uke, and he might “hurt himself”. So now what do we have a dis-spirited uke who feels like a goof for being called out, figures he doesn’t know as much as thee top guys, so he must be wrong and they must be right, vows silently to be a “better uke” next time and thus he gets indoctrinated into the “fellowship of flying ukes.” (I should note that I am not saying that an uke should not understand how to properly react in a kata, but ANYTHING can be over done..)

The third time Arnaud does his technique we see that his timing was off and so he pauses and covers this gap with verbiage, in this case he tries to make it seem like he is pointing out an aspect of the technique, in this case saying “now here your holding him okay?” and he looks into ukes eyes and then to his arm LEADING UKES MIND to the arm as the point of intention and then once re-set, he finishes the technique, but again at the end, he doesn’t really have the uke’s balance and the uke would not really fall, BUT Arnaud say’s “YOU GO DOWN”! Telling the audience what happens but in reality TELLING THE UKE TO GO DOWN! The uke doesn’t get it at first, but Arnaud waits and then it clicks in the uke’s mind, oh yeah, and he goes down (being a good uke) and Arnaud looks great and everyone is happy. MIND CONTROL!

But I am not just saying this to make it seem like Arnaud is no good and using “mind control” to cover his mistakes and ensure a good performance he is of course! BUT There is more, it is a VALID technique! (His teacher taught him well…)

Using your eyes, the position of your body, space, intonation, intention, all sorts of things can be used to help “guide” someone’s mind to the place where you want them to go. Of course you cannot hypnotize a person who doesn’t want to be, same here. These people must be in the frame of mind to be “encouraged” in certain directions and all arts do it in their own way…

So using “mind leading” to cover your mistakes and get a desired outcome during teaching, or using it in real life self defense works to the degree the person is ready to be lead. A valid technique, best backed up with actual REAL ability in Taijutsu…

 

Rick,

You are getting dragged back in to the evil of forums

On a more serious note the 'mind control' that Rick is talking about is a very important subject and may warrant it's own thread. There was a huge discussion about this on e-budo about four years ago (http://www.e-budo.com/forum/showthread.php?t=12760) sparked by a Systema video clip.

The discussion revolved around certain martial arts(or teachers of those arts) training their students to such a state hyper-suggestibility that subtle physical cues and 'mental' misdirection would cause them to throw themselves. In several arts this is tauted as high-level sensitivity training--which it is--and there may be some value to this on a limited basis. But the overall concern is that people will react to non-contact manipulation and subtle bio-mechanics because they are taught and conditioned to do so.

I've seen this in several arts and in several teachers and when things like those that have been discussed here come up--no active resistance or realistic attacks--some people don't understand it because they feel it is alive and their uke, in some cases, does resist--albeit it is 'passive' resistance without balistic/dynamic movement or strength-based resistance...

 

Koyoku Wrote

Or draw his light saber and simply cut him down.

Sorry, nothing against Koyoku but I when I read this I either thought it was describing a jedi mind trick, or an Ashida Kim/Harunaku Hoshino article where although they are doing a fairly bad technique the writing tries to sound as though it is actuially something really secret and special.

I wonder if Pokorny was really thinking what has been described here.

Gary Arthur

 

Originally Posted by bencole

Or maybe these deep stances are just not taught anymore. I read something that Hatsumi said, just the other day.

"Only teach your students 50% of what you know"

Gary Arthur

 

Gary, come on now, being a magician you should understand that people generally behave predictably, more so under stress, and as such you can use this to misdirect and "create" certain situations.

Markk Bush

 

??? You can't see that they are where they are?

The question of "are they where you want to be" is a different question altogether....

 

One of the better example of "mind control" occurred several years when there was an organization called yellow bamboo which among things such as meditation taught the use of forcefull shouts to knock attackers to the ground. They had multiple video clips showing people running full speed at the yellow bamboo practioners who upon being forcefully yelled at, fell to the ground and sometimes acted like they were knocked unconscious. They actually did this to each other in training and really believed in it.

Finally two bjj practioners flew to one their training area to put it to a test. So several of their senior practioners agreed to let the bjj guys start approx25 yards away and charge them and they would try to knock them down with their yells (which they thought was something like ki projection). The results were funny and as expected and caught on tape. The bjj guys werent stopped and they took the yellow bamboo guys to the ground.

I at least give the yellow bamboo guys credit for willing to put their stuff to the test unlike other styles that find excuses not to. The sad commentary is that the practioners had deluded themselves and their students by their training. However I dont think is really as rare as we think. For example some pressure point focused schools have pretty much the same mindset and results when tested.

While I dont think the bujinkan is as bad as yellow bamboo in my opinion a lot of what passes for effective technique and fighting in the bujinkan is similiar to yellow bamboo. Practioners go on and on about how painfull the moves were and how the senior practioners seem to magically manipulate their space etc. etc. The senior practioners go on and on about how if you really understood the technique you would agree. However you never see senior practioners allow themselves and their techniques to be pressure tested.

Hatsumi himself does demonstrations in which a lot of this yellow bamboo mentality rules the day with his ukes flying off of him at the mere slightest touch.. The demonstrations quite frankly to those outside look ridiculous. The insiders say its all subtle timing yet time and time again refuse to allow it to be pressure tested in ways that are both safe and legal. As such mind control is very much present in the bujinkan in my opinion and this is not a good thing.

 

Got to agree with Connovar here on this point. Its like many yeares ago when a very highly ranked Aikido guy tried to throw me and couldn't. I just was not into the mind set of being knocked down by this guy. His students however thought he was doing magic.

Now i'm not saying that Hatsumi sensei cannot put you down, but that maybe sometime he really does not have to try. His attackers know they will loose so they go down anyway.

This is similar in some respects to those people who get hypnotised at cult like religions. their faith is so much in that religion that they will do anything, and in this respect is a little like the placebo effect, i.e you believe something is going to happen so it does.

Gary Arthur

 

A brief diversion from reality I assure you.

BTW I remember that thread! Wow that was a while ago!

 

Not to go off subject too much, but what about ufc fighting or boxing where you see the fighters "lure" their opponents into a punch which leaves the commentators saying,"What was that guy thinking?" isn't there some degree of "mind control" in fighting at all? and not just by psyching their opponents out into anger or fear. Like even before or after the fight is over? (this is not directed at garth alone, but everyone in general.)

 

Yana Tombo posted

I guess it depends on your definition of mind control, or depth of what we consider to be mind control. Let me explain

If for example I attack as in Keto from Gyokko Ryu, believing my opponent will attempt to do keri gaeshi to my front leg which lures him into my front punch, then is this mind control or just a trick?

Its a little like me faking a kick to your groin, knowing that most men will bend forward to protect their groin, so that I can grab their hair and pull them down. This is not mind control, its just using standard knowledge of human psychology.

Its a little like me saying "Don't think of a pink elephant". For you not to think of a pink elephant, you have to think of a pink elephant. But its a long way from mind control.

Now at a deeper level we might think of TV advertising where we see a picture of food, and immediately we are hungry. Or that we see an advert for that food which is buy one get one free, so not only do we feel hungry, but its also a bargain too. This is a much deeper mind control from what has previously been discussed as it plays to the subconscious mind.

So in a fight I make him do something he does not want to do, i.e. he initiates the action, rather than he reacts to something I am doing, as in Keto.

So in this case its a bit like being in Kosei no Kamae where I show a weakness at my left ribs to get him to attack there. In other words like the food on TV, the opportunity is too good to miss, and when he does, I close the trap.

In magic we have a concept called magicians choice. Lets say "I say I have two card here, a red on and a black one". I then ask you to chooose one. Now I want you to pick the red one. So if you say black I say "OK I discard the black one leaving you the red one". If you choose the red one I say "Take the red card" as you have done what i wanted you to do.

Now at the end of the trick, the spectator may think I had used some kind of mind control, but no, it was a trick from which you actually were always going to pick the card I wanted you to pick.

Now the same can be said of Taijutsu. Lets say with Keto my opponent does not fall for the fake kick, well thats fine because if he drops back it allows me to move in with a left punch instead, or if he moves to the right I hit him with ura shuto.

To someone looking on it looks like I was controlling what my opponent was doing and exerting some kind of mind control, when in truth I had no real idea what he was going to do, I was just trying out strategies until one worked and responding to my opponents moves.

Again returning to magic, when i do a card trick I might start out with showing one, but in the middle of that trick something may go wrong. Maybe I get a sleight wrong and expose a card, or one of the audience members turns over the card that I do not want them to, or I drop the cards. Do I stop and start again?. No. Lets say that I am trying to make a card appear in another pack. I get the spectator to choose the card, not show it to me and place it back in the pack. Now normally i might control that card in the pack, but I accidentely loose the card i am trying to control. Instead of panicking or havng to start the trick again I simply say to the spectator "What was your card" to which they tell me. So i'm now doing a different trick with a different outcome. The audience never know, as i was not telling them what i was going to do in the first place. So I find that card in the pack, and conceal it from the audience, and I say "Hmm strange, are you sure you have picked that card, because its not in the pack" I then show them the pack and sure enough it has gone. I then tell them that they could not have picked that card, to which some will actualy admit they might have got it wrong. (Now this bit, inducing doubt, might be a bit of mind control) I then say "You could not have picked the 5 of hearts (or whatever it was) as it was in my coat all along. I then go into my coat and pull that card from my inside pocket.

The audience is a astonished and I get comments like "Oh you must be a mind reader" or "Psychic" when the truth was that it was a big C&%$ up from start to finish. But you see i know the outs. i.e. how to make a bad situation a good one. And I was always going to succeed because i study my art. But it is not mind control. It only appears to be from the onlookers point of view.

Taijutsu is not so much about mind control, although I am not saying that it is not part of the art, it is more about knowing what to do if. In other words knowing the outs so that whatever the attacker does, the defender always has an answer. Much like playing a chess master. He is already two or three steps ahead of you, because he studies the game.

In truth the only mind control going on is in the minds of those people who believe another can control someones mind.

Gary Arthur

 

UFC is just 21st Century equivalent of the highly camp 80's WWF.

I'm wondering when they are gonna fess up to that fact and start having Hulk Hogan participate

 

Except it's not a worked entertainment show, and is a legitimate competitive sport.

This, to me as a fan of professional wrestling AND mixed martial arts, is a pretty ignorant statement.