I train a system designed to isolate and improve "aiki" as a specific quality, which I learned from Dan Harden. But given where I am, and what it is, I am having problems finding people to train it with, and I could really use some dedicated training partner of some sort.
Depending on Dan's reputation or not, maybe you have heard of him. But I can try to explain what it is I train for those who might be interested. The "aiki" here is derived from Daito Ryu, but the system is not Daito Ryu, nor is it Aikido, and the qualities that it works on building are very difficult to train even with specific methods, let alone to try and learn them by doing techniques.
So, in that sense, there are absolutely no techniques nor forms/kata to learn, because the things it works on are very rudimentary, below the level of technique, building an "aiki body" that can make those techniques easier to do. It is more similar almost to a kind of yoga that builds a type of soft, spiraling power, and has many similarities to systems like taichi, despite being entirely unrelated to it.
This type of "aiki body", built on understanding how to utilize spiral intent, both makes it harder for people to feel power that you are applying to them, so that in the limit they are unable to resist it, and also makes it harder for people to feel how to apply power to you, so that you can more easily neutralize any throws or things people do to you without the use of any techniques. You essentially turn your body into a gyroscopic blender that chews up any force people put into it.
It is a very practical and no-nonsense method, but at the same time it is very difficult to do, and requires dedicated and daily body conditioning work, moreso than anything else, outside of any paired training, to make any real progress with, so buyer beware. But paired training is still really needed to test the results of the solitary work in reality, and make sure it is training in the right things and progressing.
For me, I use it as a way of improving my judo right now (which I also do), but I can't find any judo people interested in working this material, despite it being highly relevant and interesting for improving that. And to reiterate the point, this stuff is hard to train, even when going retardedly slow, in isolation, without someone trying to wrestle and submit you, so add on the fact that the only real opportunities I have to train it right now is in randori where the opponent doesn't even know I'm trying to train it and obviously doesn't care anyway, so it doesn't work out so well.
Never the less, this could also be of great interest to any Aikido or Daito Ryu practitioners, because it works on the core technical skill of these arts, "aiki", without the distraction of having to learn any techniques first or Japanese mythology/cultural overlays.
I have trained with Dan a few years now, so I feel I am adequately able to explain it to others at this point, but due to the difficulty of finding people to train with in a slow and focused manner, I still have difficulty in bridging it into my judo and using it in application, so I would really like to find someone nearby interested in learning and working the material with me. And Dan, also, is nagging me that I need to find people to train with more by this point.
I can point to Dan's site for people who might want some more vague info on what it is, though not much more is described there really: http://www.bodyworkseminars.org/
If someone is interested in training this, you can also contact/email me at lsalzman@gmail.com
That email address is already spammed to hell and back, so make sure to put aiki in the subject-line if you email me to get through the spam filter.
