Your leg!
Not your finger! :)
Great post though! Loved it.
BTW, Smoak and Olivo vs a RHP tonight. My goodness!
Arrrrrrgggggghhhh.! Now my Qi is out of balance!
Doc, I know a little about Chi/Qi ("Little" being the operative word) and I''ve always tried to think of it as a quiet thing. You have to be quiet too, to hear/harness it. Don't know whether that is aiki or not, but being quiet yourself is the hard part.
I think Saunders gets there when he thinks simply and meets the ball.
But thinking simply is often the hardest thing to do in sport, isn't it.
Tiger Woods, and Jack Nicklaus before him, routed the world in the Majors because they let everybody else get loud and they found quiet. I think Tiger's Major problem (as opposed to "major" problem) is that he's lost that in his rotation of swing coaches/caddies etc. and (mostly) the loss of a bullet-proof invincibility (which I think occured when he got caught with his pants down. He was no longer Teflon). The real cause of his loss of dominance was a fall from Grace, not a swing collapse.
Meet the ball, Michael. Don't fight it, don't pull it, don't beat it, just meet it.
Make your bat Brendan Ryan's glove. There's the key for Saunders. In the end, the rubber band may have just served to keep him "centered"" and the pieces of his swing in harmony and going toward the ball.
Jack Nicklaus once said he had never missed a five-foot putt. Well, of course he had, but telling himself that was just a way to find the quiet when he had the next five-footer.
Remember our discussion about Romero's forward motion? Is he just moving his center to the ball? Is it, "Quiet, quiet, quiet, meet the ball....and then let those glorious wrists do the voodoo they do."
I was an angry golfer most of my competitive life. Anger drains energy as it explodes out: Took me forever to find that gem. I've taken a lifetime to learn to be a quiet golfer. I don't play a lot any more and haven't competed in quite a while. But learning quiet has made me ten times the ball striker I ever was before.
I know this Qi/Chi deal is right. Traditional Chinese medicine sees it a a real life force to be kept harmoniously flowing. OK, I'll buy that. Or maybe it is just quieting all the voices in your head. I'll buy that too.
I've delivered a couple of eulogies where I was a wreck up until a few minutes before game time. Then something quiet found me, or maybe my Chi found it's center. But I didn't seek it out, it just arrived. I was smart enough to greet it and welcome it, like B. Ryan does the ball with his glove.
Greet the ball, Mike Saunders.
Sometimes it isn't much more complicated than that.
But I've lost the quiet right now. The voices are still screaming about Smoak and Olivo.
I'm done for for the evening.
Way off track,
moe
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Mo'Dawg axs, does Ki mean belt buckle in aikido? No way to tell whether he was pulling Dr. D's leg, but hey, it's an easy URL ...
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Ki in Japan, Qi or Chi in China, is an Asian (not aiki) concept that presumes your life force emanates from your body like electrical fields (in fact) do from your brain. I'm highly dubious about the metaphysics, at least in the form usually stated, but 1 billion good, decent people (and their doctors) may be on to some thing.
Usually "Ki" is taken to be seated in the hara, the center of gravity, a couple of inches below your belly button -- where the knot on your black belt is tied. Or a couple of inches above the belt buckle, in Saunders' case.
Ai-ki-do: Ai = harmony, Do = way. The way of harmonizing your ki with your attacker's. Odd to think of blending your intentionality with a mugger's? That's what Michael Saunders is trying to do as a 94 MPH fastball attacks him, in front of 30,000 people.
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Metaphysics aside, Westerners would be a lot better off if they incorporated the idea of Ki into their vocabulary. There are many aiki sensei with zero interest in metaphysics, and they speak of an imaginary "ray of intentionality"with profit. There is no question that this is a core concept in sports. A beginning tennis player needs to think in terms of his weight moving forward as he strikes the ball. Then he learns to get his weight moving in the direction of the shot ... then to visualize the shot ... then to synch the CG with the visualization, which organizes his four limbs...
I seriously doubt that any elite athlete moves without Ki organization, at least subconsciously. When Junior says "let the ball get deeper and then get on top of it" he's speaking of his bat as though it's him personally - as though he and the bat are one. The visualization idea is universal.
Mike Marshall's driveline mechanics are an obvious use of the idea. After you get to thinking of MOVING your weight in the right direction, you then must attend to the idea of ACCELERATING your weight with the correct degree of aggressiveness. Ask scratch-golfer Mo'Dawg how much it matters, whether he accelerates his club with the right smoothness and launch.
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Japanese sword makers, at least many of them, at least historically, enter a deep state of prayer and meditation, dressed in white linen, purifying themselves spiritually, etc etc, as they prepare to work the steel. Whether the metaphysics have any basis in reality or not, after the prayer and meditation, they are then "in tune" with the metal and have their best chance to perceive very subtle things gone wrong. Atheistic aikido teachers use "Ki" as a teaching concept, believing it to be a way to sharpen perception and to move naturally, as a 2-year-old moves.
It's also one of the best ways to make sure that you're emotionally involved in and passionate about your work, while remaining calm and emotionally still. Like we sez, 1 billion people are likely to be on to something. What it is, is another question.
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Michael Saunders is probably the clearest example of before-and-after Ki syndrome that I've seen. As Bad Saunders swings, he has the Ki (1) falling out over the plate, then (2) getting yanked around the corner to 1B, then(3) finally launched up into the 3rd deck. Good Saunders has his Ki gently accelerating toward the pitcher. The organization of his limbs follows without ANY further effort at all.
Without any question, Saunders could use fewer rubber bands and more attention to his Ki (however he wants to think about Ki). Some thought such as "There's a ray of light beaming from my stomach... capture the pitch inside the beam ... which is going to shine benevolently on the first deck in center field" would very, very likely remove his need to practice with rubber bands. "Finish your swing in center field" would also work.
Whatever the case, the last 10-12 games he's been doing it. And slugging .700.
My $0.02,
Aiki-Doc
Comments
Had me goin' man...
Tiger Woods, and Jack Nicklaus before him, routed the world in the Majors because they let everybody else get loud and they found quiet. I think Tiger's Major problem (as opposed to "major" problem) is that he's lost that in his rotation of swing coaches/caddies etc. and (mostly) the loss of a bullet-proof invincibility (which I think occured when he got caught with his pants down. He was no longer Teflon). The real cause of his loss of dominance was a fall from Grace, not a swing collapse.
Am sure of that. He views himself differently and the audience differently. Self-talk ain't going to change that, is it...
Jack Nicklaus once said he had never missed a five-foot putt. Well, of course he had, but telling himself that was just a way to find the quiet when he had the next five-footer.
Love the paradigm, "finding the quiet" ... seems to combine the ideas of Peace / Well-Being along with time slowing down ...
I was an angry golfer most of my competitive life. Anger drains energy as it explodes out: Took me forever to find that gem. I've taken a lifetime to learn to be a quiet golfer. I don't play a lot any more and haven't competed in quite a while. But learning quiet has made me ten times the ball striker I ever was before.
And do you find you're more "in the moment" as you accelerate the club? Able to enjoy the swing as you take it?
I know this Qi/Chi deal is right. Traditional Chinese medicine sees it a a real life force to be kept harmoniously flowing. OK, I'll buy that. Or maybe it is just quieting all the voices in your head. I'll buy that too.
I've delivered a couple of eulogies where I was a wreck up until a few minutes before game time. Then something quiet found me, or maybe my Chi found it's center. But I didn't seek it out, it just arrived. I was smart enough to greet it and welcome it, like B. Ryan does the ball with his glove.
All of which meets the idea of joy in what you're doing, as we know that Ryan takes joy in the approach of a batted ball ... how you get to that place is another question :- )
Enjoyed your post Mo', can tell yer that much.