Poll: How different are the roles of nage and uke to you?

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[AikiWeb System]

AikiWeb Poll for the week of May 14, 2006:

How different are the roles of nage and uke to you?

I don't do aikido
Entirely different
Very different
Somewhat different
Not very different
Not at all different


Here are the current results (http://www.aikiweb.com/polls/results.html?poll_id=324).

[Richard Langridge]

I think that whilst the roles of nage and uke are different, their goals might be the same (ie understanding the technique).

[Mark Uttech]

Both roles are the practice, like the practice of walking. There is also emptiness becoming form and returning to emptiness. The survival of anything is ukemi.

[Lucy Smith]

Somewhat different

It's all about blending and going with the movement, isn't it? But each in a different way.
As nage, you blend with the energy of the attacker. As uke, you blend following the direction of the movement in order not to be hurt, which takes learning too.

[siwilson]

Sh'te (Nage for the Aikikai people) is doing the technique, having received Uke's attack.

Uke has to give a strong committed attack, no poncing around waving an effemminate hand at Sh'te, a COMMITTED ATTACK!

Sh'te must receive that attack and APPLY the technique, not simply moving through the motions. Nikajo should pin Uke to the tatami. Sankajo should have Uke on their toes.

Uke should receive the technique, but give some resistance to ensure that Sh'te is not simply moving throush the motions.

Very diiferent roles, but with Sh'te making sure the technique is "ON" and Uke making sure that Sh'te doesn't simply walk through the technique.

Of course, for beginners it is totally co-operative.

[billybob]

Si Wilson: Of course, for beginners it is totally co-operative.

Oh dear. You should try our beginners :)

Cooperation is truly a foreign concept! I find many of them truly unpredictable, and more dangerous than experienced practitioners. I have heard that OSensei preached helping beginners - now I know why - it's tough, and it's scary!

david

[siwilson]

Si Wilson:

Oh dear. You should try our beginners :)

Cooperation is truly a foreign concept! I find many of them truly unpredictable, and more dangerous than experienced practitioners. I have heard that OSensei preached helping beginners - now I know why - it's tough, and it's scary!

david

Ah ha! I should be more clear when I post! ;)

Beginners are told not to resist and shown how not to get hurt. Though at times I do think that beginners should only practice with other beginners, because the danger is that an experienced Aikidoka doing a technique on a beginner, the beginner can get hurt. Not by the Sh'te wacking the technique on them, but by the beginner tensing up and the experienced Aikidoka having the technique tight!

This happened to me recently. I was training with a young guy and he tensed up as I moved as in the first move of Shumatsu Dosa Ichi. It tore all the ligaments in his left forearm. I was so ashamed that I had hurt him, but really he had hurt himself, by tensing up on the first move. By the way, he was not a beginner, but a young brown belt. :o

[billybob]

Si,

I accept your advice: 'teach beginners not to tense'. I'm a hypocrite though, I tense around old injuries - working on it.

It's good that you own your bad feelings about the student getting hurt. I was uke for koshi nage training - which I thought the class I was in was not ready for. Sure enough the body builder student threw me through his right knee. Had I been in top form I could have changed my center and not hurt him. He trained a while longer but has not been back. Damn.

The student you describe should heal though.

dave

[siwilson]

Yes, he will be back soon, but it will set him back, but actually it may help him learn an important lesson - not to fight technique. It sounds so bad to me to say that, but it is true. That is why I don't agree with beginners (or young people) resisting. It takes time and maturity to learn how and when to offer resistance.

I am really looking forward to seeing him on the mat again, so that I can get over my guilt, as it is a very powerful and distracting feeling.