Three Things for Beginners

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[akiy]

If you could teach, let's say, three things (concepts, techniques, principles, whatever) during a two month beginner's class, what would you teach?

-- Jun

[Chuck Clark]

Good question!

I'll have a go at it.

1. Basic ukemi

2. Posture/Movement/How to attack

3. Balance breaking/Ikkyo(variations)


Three basic modules for instruction purposes with direct omote irimi and tenkan towards the end of the two months.

Lots of creative stuff will happen, I'll bet.

[AikiTom]

You nailed it Sensei.

I'd posit that accomplishing:

Ukemi
Posture
Balance-breaking

(even without the rest mentioned) would serve anyone well.

Technique without these seems to me to be a leading cause of the "muscle-ing" and straining that well-meaning nages experience early on (and for some us during each class from time to time :) )

[Nick]

I'd say:

Relax.
Don't tighten up.
Stay Loose.

-Nick

[Guest5678]

Hmmmmm, lets see, what to teach in a 2 month period and be efffective:
I got it!

1. How to buy a gun
2. How to load a gun
3. How to fire a gun

Yea, that should cover it! :rolleyes:

he-he-he Just Kidding! :D No flames please!

Dan P.

[Yo-Jimbo]

These apply to both using guns and other martial arts:

1. Make sure that ones not down range, mistakes mean death, never rely on luck to keep one from harm. (get off line) Take care of #2 for others.
2. Never aim at something that one doesn't intend to shoot, one is always loaded, one has the ability to kill. (be careful and respectful) Take care of #1 for others.
3. Learning never stops or it never occured. (two months better become a lifetime of training)

For some it is easy to forget that guns are NOT toys. Sometimes I forget that our bodies are NOT toys. Aikido is fun and extremely valuable, but I don't think it can ever be a quick fix. I love aikido and I love you all and always will. (note: not a flame)

[Nick]

definitely not a quick fix- after two months of training I could roll and do something that kinda looked like an ikkyo.

Truly, it takes a lifetime to master Aikido, as with anything- usually the only 'quick fixes' are a cheat to others and ourselves.

-Nick

[dbgard]

Then I'd teach...

Sharing,
Respect,
Gratitude.

(Not necessarily in that order, but kind of in a continuous circle after which the waza would ideally follow suit.)

Drew "a man with a plan" Gardner

Tallahassee Aikikai dojos, ASU affiliated.

[aiki_what]

I can't beleive nobody mentioned the basic three:

1) irimi
2) tenkan
3) basic ukemi

everything about aikido flows from the first two. Position then technique. IMHO.

[Chuck Clark]

aiki_what wrote:
I can't beleive nobody mentioned the basic three:

1) irimi
2) tenkan
3) basic ukemi



Welcome to the group.

"I can't believe" you missed reading about these three basics in posts above.

I agree with you.

Regards,

[Chocolateuke]

I am a begginger but i would teach

1 how to talk to people very vaulble and it is one of the things i am good at.

2 how to fall and roll. you gotta know this even if you leave then you can imppress all the girls after you do a line of aikido rolls off your skateboard unscathed.

3. how to eat chocolate and conserver your energy. in my dojo we conserve energy for eating chocolate. so you can run all the way to teh nearest store. ( and be alive to help people.)

[DJM]

Okay, I'm fairly new to Aikido, but I'll have a stab..
1 - Evasion, then even if you fluff the rest at least you haven't got a knife wedged between your ribs... (Note the Tomiki influence there ;))
2 - Ukemi, definately important but from the sensitivity side of things - and learning to trust yourself
3 - Lots of very hard warmups, so you can run like the clappers! :D

Okay, 3 is only semi-serious, but it's still a valid technique - since you'll be more relaxed in any situation you feel you can exit quickly from, thus less likely to get into anything 'confrontational' - something a lot of people forget to talk about when they're discussing Aikido..

My 2p worth ;)
Peace,
David

[Nick]

I really don't think Aikido can summed up in three things... that'd be like summing up baseball in three things... it could be done, but there's always more to add.

If it were as easy as learnin three things, I doubt I would be involved in it.

-Nick

[akiy]

Nick wrote:
I really don't think Aikido can summed up in three things... that'd be like summing up baseball in three things... it could be done, but there's always more to add.

If it were as easy as learnin three things, I doubt I would be involved in it.
I wasn't trying to get people to "sum up aikido in three things." I asked, "If you could teach, let's say, three things (concepts, techniques, principles, whatever) during a two month beginner's class, what would you teach?"

-- Jun

[Nick]

Awwww man... I completely missed the point again. Perhaps that's one reason I'm mudansha :).

-Nick

[Pete]

And another could be that you have only been doing this seven months to Jun's XX number of years!!

Don't be so hard on yourself Nick! You have an enquiring mind and an obvious thirst for knowledge so stop putting yourself down!! After all, you are going to meet more than enough people in the world who will do it for you at the drop of a hat!!

That is one thing I have learned!! But am still guilty of making fun of myself so that others around me are more comfortable with my great lump of a body!! (see there I go again!!)

Pete

[aiki_what]

Welcome to the group.

"I can't believe" you missed reading about these three basics in posts above.

I agree with you.

Regards,

I didn't miss them...Nobody mentioned them explicitly. In most instances they seem to be thought of as part of a technique/application. Irimi and tenkan stand alone on their own merit and as such should be studied accordingly.

[Nick]

Pete wrote:

Don't be so hard on yourself Nick! You have an enquiring mind and an obvious thirst for knowledge so stop putting yourself down!! After all, you are going to meet more than enough people in the world who will do it for you at the drop of a hat!!

Pete


Gomen nasai, Pete. I've always been hard on myself. Perhaps that's another reason I'm mudansha ;).

But thank you for the encouraging words...

-Nick

[akiy]

It's interesting that so many of us tend to be "hard on ourselves." I certainly fall into that category.

I have a friend whom I've helped out a lot in weapons practice leading up to her shodan test. One thing I told her was to stop saying, "I suck at this weapons stuff." I felt that harboring those kinds of negative thoughts about herself could only be stumbling blocks and a crutch on which to lean upon.

Frankly, it still pains me when I hear from her that her weapons sucks. I feel like I spent a fair amount of time helping out and to hear those words come out just makes me think that I did no good. I, of course, know it's not the case, but it's sad to hear it nonetheless...

-- Jun

[Nick]

But then, if we start praising ourselves too much, it has more of a negative effect on our waza, IMO, than being down on ourselves.

So we should strive to not bring ourselves down, but still remain humble.

-Nick

[akiy]

I do not think humility means that one should automatically put down one's own ability. That's more like an inferiority complex to me.

I think that many people give short shrift to one's abilities and doing so does no good. Inasmuch as accepting what one can't do is an important step in one's training, I also very much believe that accepting what one can do is, perhaps, even more important.

-- Jun

[Nick]

Ack! I hate when I can't argue my way out of something :).

Good points, Jun-san and good advice. Arigato Gozaimasu.

-Nick