I wanted to mention something like this as a stage trick. I was not sure if it is done globally. An aikidoka friend of mine has formed an O with his thumb and index finger and asked me to pull it apart. He did not seem to be pressing them together hard at all, yet I could not even though I an fairly strong. He explained he was visualizing his fingers turning into an iron ring. I still don’t understand how this can work. My best guess is 1) with lots of visualization practice he convinced himself 100% 2) due to his confident body language I doubted myself and my strength was sapped.
Alternate theory—a lot of the time, when people try to be strong, they want to feel their strength, so they set their muscles in opposition to each other so as to have something to feel and actually make themselves weaker.
I wanted to mention something like this as a stage trick. I was not sure if it is done globally. An aikidoka friend of mine has formed an O with his thumb and index finger and asked me to pull it apart. He did not seem to be pressing them together hard at all, yet I could not even though I an fairly strong. He explained he was visualizing his fingers turning into an iron ring. I still don’t understand how this can work. My best guess is 1) with lots of visualization practice he convinced himself 100% 2) due to his confident body language I doubted myself and my strength was sapped.
EDIT: wait, I found it online! http://bodymindandmodem.com/CoolKi/Finger.html
More tricks: http://bodymindandmodem.com/CoolKi/CoolKi.html
Thanks for the idea, this is what I meant by cool stage tricks.
EDIT2: possible explanation: http://aikidoforbeginners.blogspot.com/2007/06/unbendable-arm.html
Alternate theory—a lot of the time, when people try to be strong, they want to feel their strength, so they set their muscles in opposition to each other so as to have something to feel and actually make themselves weaker.