'Bumping into people' days.

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[CarlRylander]

Do you get days when, if you go out shopping and it is crowded, you just can't help bumping into people, and restraining a curse?

And, other days, when you slide around them?

Does Aikido training help in this?

;) ;)

[niall]

That's an interesting question, Carl. I live in Japan so if I go through a crowded station like Ikebukuro or Shinjuku I get to do it naturally!

Recently I saw a new Japanese movie called Flying Rabbits - about an airline's basketball team (fiction). One of the members had trained in aikido since she was a child. Her father was an aikido teacher and he left her alone at a crowded festival so she could learn to walk through it without bumping into anyone. Gradually she learned how to do it.

I have never played American football but I suppose it could be something like a runner hitting a seam?

[CarlRylander]

It said it John Stevens biography, that Uesiba could thread his way through ease, through any crowd.

I bet he got his 'bumping into people' moments! But, only a few, in his younger days. He was very good!

[Gorgeous George]

Indeed. I was walking home the other night when a woman tried to grab my balls - i did irimi-tenkan to avoid it (she was a bit rough-looking).

[lbb]

Does Aikido training help in this?

;) ;)

Awareness and being where you are probably helps more...putting down the cellphone, turning off the ipod, etc.

[mathewjgano]

There is definately an art to moving against a heavy stream of foot traffic...or to passing a group of slower people, as I've discovered in the few races I've run.

[DonMagee]

I know this sounds silly, but people move out of my way.

I walk and there is always a gap right where I want to go, it's like the crowd opens for me. Many times I'll be walking and hit a crowd and realize all my friends are left behind and I was the only one to walk right through. The crowd just parts.

I make jokes with my wife who has the opposite problem, it's like she doesn't exist when she is walking. For example, at the mall if she does not move out of the way people will walk straight into her. She is the frequent victim of shoulder bumbs, being cut off, and people just plain refusing to budge out of her way. I've seen people stop in front of her and she has had to ask them to make some space for her 3 or 4 times. It's really funny.

Of course maybe it's cause I just have a BO problem and no one has told me :D

[lbb]

I make jokes with my wife who has the opposite problem, it's like she doesn't exist when she is walking. For example, at the mall if she does not move out of the way people will walk straight into her. She is the frequent victim of shoulder bumbs, being cut off, and people just plain refusing to budge out of her way. I've seen people stop in front of her and she has had to ask them to make some space for her 3 or 4 times. It's really funny.

Probably not quite so funny if you're her. I wonder if being male vs. being female has anything to do with it.

[DH]

Interesting story from Takuma Hisa (who trained with Ueshiba and with Takeda) talking about Takeda having him walk specifically through crowded city streets while working on a model to do with his hips and shoulders.
Dan
.

[Janet Rosen]

Probably not quite so funny if you're her. I wonder if being male vs. being female has anything to do with it.

Nope. I never have had problems moving through crowds, before or since training in aikido and despite acheiving my full 5 foot 2 at a young age. I used to call it being a New Yorker, but plenty of my NY friends couldn't ever keep up w/ me in a crowd. I guess I'd call it intent.

[Walter Martindale]

It has been quite a while but I have successfully navigated Shinjuku Eki during rush hour without collisions. Then walking around in the "crowded" streets of Christchurch (the entire population of Chch probably walks through Shinjuku in an hour) I keep having to dodge..
W

[Pauliina Lievonen]

I've played some with different kinds of intent while walking in or through a crowd - my favourite if I'm not in a hurry is to fit myself into the crowd and just weave slowly from one free space to the next.

Getting through a crowd in a hurry is tricky because it's easy to start projecting the wrong kind of intent (oh no, I'm late, please let me through, please). The one that works is something like "THAT is the direction I'm walking", not aggressive, just very clear and sure.

Aggressive works too, in a way, but then sometimes you get someone who calls you on it and won't give way...

Oh, and Finnish and Dutch crowds are different (if you can manage to find a crowd in Finland...) in Finland it's hard work to get bumped into. In Holland in some situations you have to literally push people aside before they move. :D

kvaak
Pauliina

[Janet Rosen]

I've played some with different kinds of intent while walking in or through a crowd - my favourite if I'm not in a hurry is to fit myself into the crowd and just weave slowly from one free space to the next.

Pauliina that is closest to what I do. I keep a firm sense (intent) of my end destination and just keep locating actual or incipient openings to slide into.