The Spiral Form in Aikido

ASOCIACION AIKIDO KEITENKAI

THE SPIRAL FORM IN AIKIDO Aikido keiten Ryu. AUTHOR

ANTONIO PADILLA

The spiral form Is located in the context of the most common shapes in nature, both as object and as physical phenomena associated with optimization processes in natural form and identifies and describes their frequent presence in the techniques of Aikido. Thus demonstrating the close relationship of Aikido with nature and linked to optimal processes on their techniques.

October 2012 - Lima – Peru

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1.

INTRODUCTION. FORMS IN NATURE.

In nature many geometric shapes are identified and found that some of them are repeated more often than others, the reason for this is not known, but through research in different fields of human endeavor are finding some answers. It is mentioned (1, 2) that the forms which are more common in nature are the sphere, the hexagon, spiral, helix, the angle, the wave, the parable, fractals, the catenary. To understand them, they are modeled idealizing them mathematically:

SPHERE

HELIX

CONE

WAVE

These forms have some quality that makes them occur in nature, associated with specific functions in the physical or biological processes

(3)

, so for example, the sphere is the form

which protects because it has minimal surface for a given volume, the spiral presents maximum length in minimum space for this reason it is said that the spiral packages.

The presence of the spiral form in the objects that constitute nature, physical phenomena, and even non-physical processes, for instance financial, is abundant, which indicates that this form is important.

In the case of Aikido, is important because it is in the path of many techniques during its execution, so that we approach it in this paper.

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2. THE SPIRAL FORM IN MATHEMATICS (4) Spiral: There are several types of spirals, but, their common feature is that is formed by a point revolving around a reference point and going away from it, in a plane:

Spiral of Archimedes

Logarithmic Spiral or Growth Spiral

Fermat Spiral

It is also appropriate to mention that the helices are spirals in space:

Cylindrical Helix

3. SPIRAL FORM IN NATURE The spirals are present in the kingdoms of nature; we will carry out the presentation of some examples that demonstrate their presence:

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3.1 The Spiral Form in Vegetables It is present in its inner structure in plants in more than 85% of them in the distribution of the leaves on the stem, as seen in the treaties of phyllotaxis, that are distributed so that they all they are located spiral forming a helix, in positions following a distribution according to numbers series of Fibonacci(5), which occurs admirably very frequently in nature, this distribution allows the leaves receive sunlight optimally without interference as possible:

SPIRAL ALOE

There are many other examples of the spiral in nature:

VINE TENDRIL SUNFLOWER FLOWER presents spiral in both directions

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3.2 The spiral form in animals

In the animal kingdom, we find this form for example on snails, on the horns of sheep in humans; in the cochlea of the ear, in the human heart muscle fibers are observed conical spirals: The Nautilus Pompilius, has its shell in form of logarithmic spiral, allowing it to grow without changing its shape. Was studied by the biologist and mathematician D'Arcy Thompson, in his classic work On Growth and Form, 1917. I got the image on http://www.laputanlogic.com/articles/2005 / 04/index.html, in this image we can see the cutting of the shell of a nautilus, in which the cameras are seen forming a logarithmic spiral:

The spiral shape can also be observed in some animals:

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In the human being is, for example in the pinna or when it is formed a fist:

It is also in the DNA structure related to life, because that's where the information is stored that governs the development of an egg to an adult organism3.3 The spiral in physical phenomena 3.3.1 In the high-energy phenomena, played on the European Research Centre (CERN): It is observed that after the clashes between charged particles spiral movements are performed in the presence of electromagnetic fields in the bubble chamber, which permits to visualize these phenomena:

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3.3.2. In phenomena such as eddies in rivers, into the sea. In tornadoes: Satellite image showing a depression centered in the Denmark Strait between Iceland and Greenland. The winds, attracted by the low pressure area in the center, under the effect of the Coriolis force, rotating counter-clockwise, which give the appearance of snail from space (in the southern hemisphere would rotate clockwise of clockwise. taken by NASA in 2003, the source is located in http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=68992:

3.3.3. In the movement of the earth around the sun and the center of the Milky Way galaxy in which our solar system is part:

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3.3.4. On motion of spiral galaxies around its axis: The spiral is also found in large structures in the universe, and we find the spiral galaxy M74, 30 to 40 light years from Earth, this image I have obtained from http://www.ing.iac.es/PR/science/m74_high.html, its size is similar to our Milky Way galaxy about 100, 000 light years across:

4. EL MOVIMIENTO ROTACIONAL EN EL AIKIDO the rotational or spin movement is key feature on aikido techniques; in the physical basis of this movement, exists parameters that determines it; thus by example:

v

m = mass of the body which revolves V = tangential velocity w = angular rotation velocity r = radius of rotation

w

r

m v =rxw

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It can be inferred that if we want to give more speed to the body to which we apply a technique, we have two alternatives, one is increase the turning radio or we could increase

the angular velocity of the rotating body. In this opportunity we will not extend the treatment of these technical aspects.

5. LAS FORMA ESPIRAL EN EL AIKIDO The spiral form in aikido is used to dissipate the energy of the attack, for example to an attack with yodan shomen uchi (hit with the edge of the open hand (Shuto) to the head, responds with age uke with taisabaki, describing a helical spiral, whereby energy is dissipated and controlled

the

attack

of

the

attacker.

I show the trajectory of this technique performed in an image captured by a digital capture program presented in internet in the direction http://www.adaptiveperception.com/ , and the application of which we have agreed on youtube, red is the path the wrist of iriminage shomenuchi executor:

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TSUKI KOTE GAESHI I show the trajectory of this technique executed with an j, with images captured by the mentioned digital application :

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Finally, in the photographic sequenceof the iriminage ura technique used as a defense against katate dori, executed by Michio Kanai sensei and sempai Henry Landa, you can see the spiral path of the technique:

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6. CONCLUSIONES: 

Aikido techniques are closely related to the laws that govern nature, as demonstrated in regard to the spiral form, so join it through its principles, is part of it and ensure its successful execution.



The spiral shape is linked natural optimization processes, as in the case of sunflower seeds in which the double spiral arrangement allows better utilization of the circular space available, both in the ability to contain large lengths of material in small spaces, as in the case of DNA whose length in a human cell is 2 meters, its length is hundreds of thousands of times greater than the cross, in aikido, can dissipate the kinetic energy of an attack in the spiral path of defensive technique.

7. BIBLIOGRAPHY (1) Y Después fue… ¡La Forma! Author: Obra Social Fundación “La Caixa”, 2007 (2) La Rebelión de las Formas.

Metatemas 84. Author: Wagensberg, Jorge. Tusquets

Editoress, 2004. The autor holds a PhD in Physics.

(3) On Growth and Form”. Cambridge 2003. Author: Thompson D’arcy.

(4) http://simetria.dim.uchile.cl/general/contenidos.html Project referred to the spiral symmetry.

(5) Serie de Fibonacchi: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 11, 19, 30, 49 … he next term is formed by adding the previous two. When dividing each two terms of this series it tends to take the value 1.618 ... which is the value of the golden ratio.

(6) Aikido

and

the

Universal

Spirals,”

by

Marco

Rubatto

http://blog.aikidojournal.com/2011/04/09/aikido-and-the-universal-spirals-by-marcorubatto/ (7) The Art of Aikido Kisshomaru Ueshiba

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8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My deepest thanks to those who shared their knowledge of Aikido with me, which allowed me to see from the perspective of this wonderful art that seeks to integrate man to nature.

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