quickness & accuracy

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[Pdella]

Hey everybody. I watched this video today:

http://media.skoopy.com/vids/vid_00456.wmv

and it got me thinking about how real attacks often come in flurries, very quickly closing distance between the two parties and even when the attacker's technique is sloppy at best, it can be so quick and aggressive that it may be difficult to pull off a technique. I think the best preparation one can have is to have realistic-type training in the dojo, where (at least every now and then) uke goes a little nuts and attacks in flurries like that with full energy and aggression. I could see myself, however, missing an attackers arm and ending up getting socked in the pressure of the situation.

Any tips other than train, train, and train some more?

In thinking about it more, perhaps mental training is the most important preparation for this attack--or any other. If you stay calm and focused and ignore the hits you do receive, you should be able to complete a technique or two.

peace
Peter

[senshincenter]

We do something you might find relevant:

http://www.senshincenter.com/pages/vids/metsukeangleofdeflection.html

still, the answer remains, "train, train, train."

Hang in there,
dmv

[Roy]

Peter,
That altercation could easily be controlled with Aikido. And you should not believe otherwise, not for a second. There were dozens of opportunities for the blond guy to control the situation, if only he had skill, just have faith in your training of Aikido. Heavens knows I have doubts about Aikidokas taken down bigger guys, or multiple attackers, but that guy would have been a walk in the park, for he was handling himself quite haphazardly. Like David said, "train, train, train."

[Sanshouaikikai]

It's funny you have doubts about aikidokas taking out bigger guys and multiple opponents when that's what aikido was made for. However, I think I know what you meant. ; )

[Amir Krause]

That altercation was a show of fury with no skill. Both sides missed so many obvious points to finish, it is amazing. Making a list would be too long, but the number of possibilities for anyone trained, in any M.A., was astounding.

If it does show anything, it is the importance of practicing the mind. Some people, when under attack, lose their functionality, and then the fight degenerates to this level.

Amir

[Amir Krause]

We do something you might find relevant:

http://www.senshincenter.com/pages/vids/metsukeangleofdeflection.html

still, the answer remains, "train, train, train."

Hang in there,
dmv

If I may ask a question:
I watched the practice, and loved the flow of the attacks, but the defender movement seemed disappointing to me. Looking at the video the defender rarely moves out of the line of attack, and almost never moves forward. I don't see any Irimi or Tenkan, not to speak of other tai-Sabaki.

I only glanced over the explanation, perhaps this type of movement backwards is an intentional limitation on the practice, if so, please explain the reasons for it.

Thanks for your clarifications.
Amir

[Lyle Bogin]

10 lbs of extra muscle could have helped.

[senshincenter]

If I may ask a question:
I watched the practice, and loved the flow of the attacks, but the defender movement seemed disappointing to me. Looking at the video the defender rarely moves out of the line of attack, and almost never moves forward. I don't see any Irimi or Tenkan, not to speak of other tai-Sabaki.

I only glanced over the explanation, perhaps this type of movement backwards is an intentional limitation on the practice, if so, please explain the reasons for it.

Thanks for your clarifications.
Amir

Hi Amir,

This is also in the explanation... You are right, it is one of the limitations we set up for the drills - limiting the amount of movement one can do as "defender." The point of limiting the movement - either not moving and/or only opening certain angles to which one can move, etc. - is to increase the stress and tension of the ballistic attack. The point of increasing the stress and tension of the ballistic attack is to further cultivate one's mental and technical composure, particularly regarding metsuke and Angle of Deflection (i.e. blocking, parrying, checking, etc.) - which, as you say earlier, can often break down under such pressure.

The drills are trying to cultivate greater skills under a higher scenario of duress. You can have folks punching faster, harder, etc., to do this, but once you've figured out how to move reasonably well not everyone in the dojo is going to stress your metsuke and/or your Angle of Deflection, etc. So we opt to make it harder on the "defender" by restricting him/her from relying on their body movement to relieve pressure. Under this perspective, for example, the drills are attempting to duplicate those times when your opponent is so skilled it feels like you have no Angle of Deviation because he/she is so well versed in closing off such things. However, the drills are very much aimed at telling us something about the state and/or quality of our body/mind.

Later drills, when greater and more subtle Angles of Deviations are permitted, seek to capitalize upon the higher cultivated skills of metsuke and Angle of Deviation, etc. In these drills, the restrictions limiting the attacker to only ballistic strikes are also lifted.

If you got a chance, I would recommend reading the explanation, it goes into some detail on how to perform these drills, what is being done in these drills, etc.


Hope that makes sense, if not, please feel free to ask more questions/make more comments.

thanks,
dmv

[Ron Tisdale]

10 lbs of extra muscle could have helped.

Interesting...at a certain level, 10 lbs of extra strength seems to hurt my technique.

Yoshinkan stresses forward movement, forward focus. But for the purpose of these drills, I think the backward movement at angles without crossing the feet works well. It allows you to not get set on your heels, to not get 'mobbed', to keep moving and sucsessfully entering on uke when under a lot of pressure. Looks like a good drill to me. I need to do more work like that.

Best,
Ron

[senshincenter]

I think one way of seeing what these drills do is to just stand there and let someone go "ballistic" on you. Have a friend stick some gloves on and tell him/her to just go for it - making sure they are striking from within hand-weapon range. Then note of how we tend to duck with our head down, close our eyes, look away, just stick our hands up with no rhyme or reason, etc. The guy in the video is doing this all over the place. It's the pressure of the barrage that does this - in combination with our lack of skill in facing such things. To respond in an educated way to such tension, one, in my opinion, has to be "pressure tested." In pressure testing ourselves, we should realize that there are folks out there (e.g. boxers, wing chun practitioners, karateka, kick boxers, etc.) that possess many skills to make it seems as if we are standing still. If we are skilled under such pressures, when we do add our movement to the fray, we can actually use their tendency to cut off angles against them (via irimi and tenkan) - as an example of what one might do.

The drills are also a great way of understanding te-sabaki at a whole other level. That's always a plus as well.

[Ron Tisdale]

Nice stuff David. Working waza against people who cut off angles is one of the tougher aspects of training. We've spoken in other threads about boxers, karateka, etc...one thing they do well is cut off angles of entry.

Best,
Ron

[Adam Alexander]

Regarding the film:

I think Aikido technique would come through in the shoes of either of those guys.

I don't know if the issue of training against "those types" of attacks is the issue here--I don't know either way. I view the main problem in that altercation to be a total lack of balance of both participants which result in both having a lack of mobility and a lack of power behind the attacks.

To me, we do train against those attacks--hay-makers=side strikes. Further, I see a category within Aikido for all the attacks that were launched in that situation.

Just my thoughts.

By the way, very nice film. One of the first ones that I've seen that look somewhat like serious fights I've seen.

[senshincenter]

I view the main problem in that altercation to be a total lack of balance of both participants which result in both having a lack of mobility and a lack of power behind the attacks.


I would agree, only I think one has to keep penetrating these issues in his/her training, such that one asks, "What makes me lose my balance?" "What makes me have a lack of mobility?" "What makes me have a lack of power?" Etc. When you ask these kinds of questions, and when you bring these types of reflections into your practice, you very quickly realize that the mind plays as big a role as the body in what you can and cannot do under duress.

The following video in particular demonstrates what I am talking about in regards to things like metsuke and Angle of Deflection, as they are related to the mind (and the connection the mind has to the body).

http://www.senshincenter.com/pages/vids/earlylearningstage.html

The two deshi in the video seem to be affected in a very similar way. Yet, the woman has never trained in any art before Aikido, and she has only trained for about six months. The man in the video has rank in Karate and came from a type of Karate that practices full-contact kumite. Still, you can see them both over-reacting in their Angle of Deflection, being fettered by fakes and feints, falling victim to timing changes, closing their eyes, turning their heads, etc. This all pertains to the level of training their mind has received up to this point. In a real fight, with either weapons or with someone capable of generating real ballistic power (unlike the “victor” in the amateur video) these failings of the mind are the “events” at which one would lose his/her balance, mobility, and the capacity for powerful counter-attacks.

It is like this. You have these beautiful Aikido tactics, but in order to get in a place where they would be applicable, in the way they were designed to be applicable, you need a whole other set of skills that are very hard to attain through Kihon Waza training alone. However, it is not that I am suggesting that we should seek to train against “types” of attackers. Rather, we should be interested in the cultivation of a mind that in its maturity is capable of addressing more situations than just that which is mimicked in Kihon Waza (when it is being understood as a combative dynamic). Here, in these beginner drills, composure, balance, grace, awareness, etc., - these are the things that are being pressured. To pressure these things, we have taken on the ballistic architecture of certain arts. It is the pressure that is important, not the architectures of whatever arts we are using. I think this point is made in the first video where the “defender” is limited in both Angle of Deflection and Angle of Deviation – where he/she must simply learn to look at the strikes that are hitting them.

Once we understand the value of pressure, on what it tells us about our mind, and thus what it reveals in regards to what is mechanically available to us and what is not, we start to see that we have options other than the usual “just irimi.” This is important, because it will allow us to actually perform irimi in a way that is consistent with the art’s strategic considerations. That means we can irimi without muscle and along the path of least resistance, etc. That means we will not just move forward and jam our opponent up, hoping we are stronger than them or that they do not know how to utilize our yang energies against us, etc. After all, the goal is to bring as much as possible, nay, to bring all of what we see in Kihon Waza into spontaneous conditions of any kind. The goal is not to just take bits and pieces of Aikido (e.g. irimi, arm bar, etc.) and “work” them as best we can. Though that is what we often do, it is not what we should strive for. In looking toward what we should be striving for, I feel, we have to learn to depart from Kihon Waza training. Of course, we must do this in a way and at a time that is appropriate.

Thanks for the replies,

dmv

[xuzen]

The following video in particular demonstrates what I am talking about in regards to things like metsuke and Angle of Deflection, as they are related to the mind (and the connection the mind has to the body). http://www.senshincenter.com/pages/vids/earlylearningstage.html

Hi David,

I have just watched your video; and I like your drill. Some question… is the shite allowed to execute a technique in response to your feint and attacks? Or rather in this drill, are they only allowed to block and evade? It is just that I see many opportunity to apply technique as the uke comes in to attack.

Just curious… why does the shite keep moving back? This could just be my training, but I am drilled to irimi, irimi or more irimi into uke's zone; sort of tying up uke's ability to strike. If uke is coming fast and furious at me, then it is tenkan tenkan and more tenkan. We do not move backwards, as it allows more continuous attacks to follow.

Nonetheless, it is a good method of training. Gambatte!

Boon.

[Amir Krause]

David

Thanks for your reply, very interesting.

How would you compare the exercise you show in the video with Randori, multiple attackers exercises, or armed attacker free exercises (Tanto/wakizashi//Boken attacking i non-cooperative manner) ?
I think these exercises can have the pressure element (if one wishes to) yet remove the limitation on Tai-Sabaki. Since one wishes to respond with Tai-Sabaki to pressure, the limitation on it is problematic from the point of view of instilling bad habits. Any other alternatives you would suggest?

Amir

[Charlie]

It seems that people tend to miss the point that David is addressing within the parameters of these videos. That is:
...It is like this. You have these beautiful Aikido tactics, but in order to get in a place where they would be applicable, in the way they were designed to be applicable, you need a whole other set of skills that are very hard to attain through Kihon Waza training alone. However, it is not that I am suggesting that we should seek to train against "types" of attackers. Rather, we should be interested in the cultivation of a mind that in its maturity is capable of addressing more situations than just that which is mimicked in Kihon Waza (when it is being understood as a combative dynamic)...

To ask the question what would you do in this or that situation is to miss the point.

Restrictions are put in place to force the person to "deal" with the "attacker". As they progress then the restrictions are removed.

To allow shite/nage to end with a technique would just be a continuation of training for specific scenerios and would not neccessarily bring one to a level of being able to apply spontaneous Aiki in a realistic manner.

(or have I missed your point David?)

[Ron Tisdale]

I agree Charles. I know us yoshin orgres (or is that orcs?) like to move forward, but against someone cutting off angles, larger, stronger, with good striking skills, it's not always possible. Learning to deal with that is an important addition to the arsenal.

I've been thinking a bit how unarmed aikido is at something of a disadvantage...without some type of weapon/skill for enforcing ma ai, aikido becomes very difficult in certain situations. I think the discussions around generating power from the use of kokyu ryoku can help here. That power might function as one of the methods of enforcing ma ai. Weapons are an obvious one as well. Striking ability might be another. Mental composure and the ability to work going backwards at angles to the attack is another. But without those, enforcing ma ai where movement alone is insufficient is an interesting problem.

Best,
Ron

[Lyle Bogin]

"Interesting...at a certain level, 10 lbs of extra strength seems to hurt my technique."

But did it decrease your chances of dominating in a brawl?

[Ron Tisdale]

"Interesting...at a certain level, 10 lbs of extra strength seems to hurt my technique."

But did it decrease your chances of dominating in a brawl?

That would depend on who I am brawling with. :) In other words, against a single, weaker, less skilled opponant, 10 lbs of extra strength would be a plus.

Against multiple, stronger, more skilled opponants, bent on serious injury or death, as opposed to general rough housing, I would rather sacrifice 10 lbs of strength for X amount of skill and technique. I've tended not to get into "brawls" since about 22 years of age (I'm 44 now). While I do not view myself as intimidating, some others obviously consider me intimidating enough to think twice about "brawling" with me. In a serious attack, strength is always a consideration, but my own brawn is not my top consideration. If it was, I'd be lifting weights on some more than occational basis. Not training aikido.

Also, since I do train in aikido, I tend not to focus on 'dominating' so much as 'surviving'...I don't want to struggle to win. I want to step outside of winning and losing if possible. If that means getting roughed up a bit to survive...I hope my ego can stand that. On the other hand, I try not to let myself be weak, either. :)

Best,
Ron (best of all possible worlds is, obviously, best... :))

[NixNa]

I dunno if anyone noticed, the black guy looked like he knew abit of throwing n grappling, but still its pure brawling. Its a shame how people make use of the martial arts for such crap.

[Ron Tisdale]

It was interesting how it seemed he was going for an armbar at one point...like he had seen it in the UFC or something. It's also interesting that he seemed to have no clue how to really make use of it, or apply it, or finish with it. Arm chair jujutsu expert.

Best,
Ron

[NixNa]

Right, he did tis sloppy armbar which he cldnt do anything with it. Also, he threw the white guy on the ground at least twice, perhaps hes juz being lucky or the other guy already had weak knees.. heh

[senshincenter]

(This is long, but I wanted to address what others were asking and also to better formulate my own position for my own sake. Long as it is, I would greatly appreciate it if some would read it since I would dearly love to hear comments after these attempts to answer some of the issues raised above.)

First:

Charles, you have said exactly what I was trying to say, only perfectly. Thank you.

Second:

Amir, Boon, and others kind enough to participate in this thread,

As way of analogy, it is kind of like doing Chi Sao (sticking hands) while blindfolded or with your eyes shut. Taking the sense of sight away “pressures” other aspects of the overall skill set that are developed through Chi Sao into greater and greater levels of maturity. The point of such training is not to say, “I usually fight with my eyes open” or “This is how you would fight at night or when you get sand kicked in your eyes.” The point is to hone certain aspects of a certain skill set by taking away those options that are related but that we are most likely to become over-dependent upon via habit and/or ignorance.

That said, I would still like to address some of the issues raised above. I think I can tie them in a bit in an attempt to keep discussion going and to better explain the drills in question so that folks might be able to try them out themselves.




So let us say irimi is your thing – is your tactical solution to addressing things like a barrage of ballistic attacks. The question remains, “How do you irimi?” It is not enough to say, “You just do it.” How do you irimi? This question has to be understood as both a theoretical one and as a practical one. That means we have to ask, “What does it mean to irimi?” “What allows for irimi?” etc., AND we have to ask, “What prevents me from doing what I mean by ‘irimi’?”

I want to problematize the notion that “we can just move forward (any ol’ way) against someone throwing a barrage of ballistic attacks.” Why should that notion be problematized? Two reasons: A) Irimi as it is demonstrated in Kihon Waza is not the same thing as “just move forward.” Irimi requires the presence of certain things that make it a tactical element capable of remaining viable as an aspect of non-resistance and thus as something you can use against bigger adversaries, etc. – things central to Aikido praxis. For example, irimi, being mostly a yang move, requires the presence of an energy that is mostly yin in our adversary. To be able to capitalize upon this yin energy, we need to be capable of “sensing” this energy. So already, we are talking about a matching of yang to yin energy (theory) and we are talking about a capacity to both sense and correspond these energies (practice). B) If we cannot grasp at the level of theory and at the level of practice what is going in (A) we are either going to jam our opponent, losing the maai (i.e. the harmonious correspondence of yin and yang energies) that is relative to all of Aikido waza, and/or we are going to require that we be heavier, stronger, and more powerful than our opponent (such that our energy level is always yang in relation to whatever energy level our adversary is able to demonstrate). This means, in short, we will not be doing Aikido. However, it means more as well…

Aside from not being too successful against heavier, stronger, more powerful opponents, it also means that we will probably not be as successful against a weapon-wielding adversary and/or against multiple attackers. This is because moving forward in a way contrary to Aikido irimi changes time and space (i.e. the maai). It does this in such a manner that we become vulnerable to weapons (i.e. objects capable of piercing – of penetrating yang forces regardless of the factors involved), and/or of being tied up – being held, grabbed, and/or forced into an in-fighting or a ground-fighting situation. You can see all of these openings taking place in the video offered in the first post. The blonde gentlemen is smaller than his adversary, so his attempts to move forward do not work; he gets grabbed, dragged to the ground, and is vulnerable from someone else coming in from the crowd.

On top of that, and here is the clincher, you better hope your adversary is not the least bit skilled in capitalizing upon misplaced or forced yang energies – see video below of what that might look like:

http://www.fightvids.net/content/martial/asiantech1.html


So you see, you want to irimi. You do not just want to move forward – whether that is to the inside or the outside of the opponent’s outer rim and/or his attack. You want to match Yang energy to Yin energy, harmoniously. This is what you see, or should see in Kihon Waza. However, everything is so perfectly matched by design in most Kihon Waza that we are very likely to develop little in terms of skill - since everything is already in a full state of development by design. Thus, at times, you have to use that design not only to repeat such routines, the way a dancer might go over some choreographed steps repeatedly, you will also have to use that design to inspire adopting its elements at a personal level – the way a dancer maintains his/her own sense of feeling and expression of mood in a piece of choreography or the way he/she may give experience to the rhythm of a piece of arranged music, etc. When you are trying to do the latter, attachment to the form, or the form itself (as it is subjectively experienced) can actually be your biggest hindrance – that thing which you must overcome. This is the “Ha” of Shu-Ha-Ri.

When this is your objective, you soon realize that there is a lot to irimi that the forms just assume to be present and that you have to go after by different means if you truly want them to be yours at a personal level. This is how I understood the first post actually – as asking, “How do you get these things?!” As an example, let us ask, “What are two of these things?” They are: an awareness that remains oriented upward and outward (as opposed to one that is oriented downward and inward – which the uncultivated practitioner adopts under pressure, and which you can see the blonde guy in the first video adopting); and an Angle of Deflection (one that first capitalizes upon the aforementioned awareness and that can then go on to create a redundant defense that can attach itself to your irimi).

You want to “know” what is coming, and you want to “know” what you can do (i.e. you want to be sensitive to yin energies, you want to be sensitive to when and where you can place yang energies). You also want to move/deviate one way with your body while using your hands to keep your adversaries weapons moving the other way and/or to prevent them from tracking you. You want a redundancy between your Angle of Deflection and your Angle of Deviation (this is seen in the forms in all of the te-sabaki from all of the “grab escapes” of Kihon Waza). The forms just assume these things by design, but that design, through our fear, our pride, and our ignorance, can often prevent us from assuming these skills for ourselves.

For example, the forms allow us to repeat such a sought after awareness over and over. However, since part of the form is not getting hit (a fact made worse by the tendency for uke to miss nage at all costs and/or by the tendency for nage to react more to the choreography than to uke’s actual movements) there is a very good chance that our so-called awareness has more to do with this element of the form (i.e. not getting hit, not being pressured) than with any real cultivation of proper martial awareness. Sure, under prime conditions (e.g. one mid-level punch that goes flying by you as long as you step to the side slightly and move forward slightly), we can stand there with our nostrils flared, our mouths closed, our eyes slightly squinted, and our gaze penetrating the environment to the great beyond. However, one little pop (which we never really experience in the forms), and our mind goes in and down – awareness becomes egocentric. Hence, the drill in the first video, where the “defender” spends time conditioning themselves to maintain awareness while actually being struck – again offered here:

http://www.senshincenter.com/pages/vids/metsuke.html

In this video, you can see, after the first fade out/in (after the start of the video), my deshi allows his awareness to go egocentric – he thus turns his back and cannot sense what I am doing. I show him that he has done this by capitalizing upon the opening. Etc. What one is trying to develop here is a capacity to prevent his/her awareness from going egocentric – which the forms just assume will be yours. Strikes are used here not as a way of “toughening up the body,” but rather they are being utilized because the fear of being struck and the pain from being struck have a strong tendency to drive our awareness inward and downward. We do not want our awareness to go egocentric – our forms assume we will not do this in combat. However, we cannot and should not assume it for ourselves. Therefore, you make up this drill and you measure yourself by how much awareness you can maintain throughout the barrage. You give the students a very simply physical attribute to focus in upon – their gaze. Why? Because of the intimate ties that the gaze has with awareness. To understand more of what is involved, you simply have to try the drill. It is very easy to practice and it is very easy to see how our awareness can be affected egocentrically by being struck and by the fear of being struck. This would seem important – I feel – since being struck is such a likely part of combat but plays almost zero part in actual Kihon Waza training.

Nevertheless, you have to realize you are not just learning to be hit. Rather, you are measuring, cultivating, and properly orienting your awareness. You are just using being hit to do that. Therefore, you want to move beyond being struck and come to address some other element of irimi ashi. However, when you do this, you do not want to ignore these awareness factors. Thus, you say, “Let’s work on Angle of Deflection. If you are aware, if you are able to sense what is happening, you should be able to deflect nearly anything and everything, especially at this pace. If you are not aware, you are going to get struck and you are going to reveal that you were not all that aware in the first drill and that you were just practicing getting hit (which was not the point).” This last point is important because if you get hit repeatedly in the second drill you are going to go back to the first drill and try and do it differently – making more sure you are not just getting hit and that you are actually working to prevent your awareness from going egocentric.

However, because the training still revolves around maintaining proper awareness, such that we can now deflect (and later irimi with – see below in drill three), we have to realize that folks are going to find ways of responding habitually to the pressures contained in the drill. That is to say, folks are going to find ways of not cultivating awareness AND not having that fact exposed to them – due to fear, pride, or ignorance. What does that mean? You are going to see many folks trying to use their body movement more to not be hit, rather than using their awareness of what is happening to deflect. So what do you do? You restrict movement and ask folks to stand as still as possible, to attempt to remain as engaged to the Line of Attack as they were in the first drill when they had to work on maintaining awareness while being struck.

What are you looking for in drill two then? You are looking for not being hit, for deflecting what is thrown at you, and for sensing what is coming in before it is even actually thrown. However, as the last drill was not about being hit, this drill is not about blocking. Moreover, you do not want to deviate all over the place and/or prevent the attacker from throwing strikes at you because this would prevent you from cultivating the awareness you are seeking – as it would alleviate the pressure to have your awareness go egocentric. Moreover, while deviating all over the place may prevent you from being struck – though one should not imagine that you will not be struck at all – such deviation will do nothing for actually using irimi ashi in combat. Why? Because while irimi ashi capitalizes upon the presence of a yin energy in the opponent, it always penetrates fully to the source of his action. Thus, irimi is like an arrow that pierces another arrow the full length of its shaft by following the grain in the wood. It does not seek to go around the arrow. There is nothing “cowardly” in irimi ashi. Therefore, in order to perform it in combat you will have to learn how to stay close, how to stay near the heart of the matter, you cannot be dancing all over the place trying not to get hit. Here is drill two – offered here again:

http://www.senshincenter.com/pages/vids/angleofdeflection.html

So, you got awareness going, you have pressured it first with being struck and then second with the task of preventing you from being struck, and now you want to put it into something that more closely resembles what you find in Aikido Kihon Waza. Why? Because, as I said, you are trying to learn Aikido – trying to bring what you see in the forms into real life. You are not out to, for example, practice kickboxing and/or to learn how to fight against a kick-boxer. However, you do not want to forget about the awareness factors you are using to bring the assumptions of the forms to your own personal art. So you say, “You got to do irimi. However, you have to get all the way to the back – not just up the arm a little or to the front shoulder because that crap does not work in real life and is not consistent with Aikido. Moreover, you again cannot dance all over the place, you must pressure your awareness of the situation by staying as engaged to the Line of Attack as much as possible.”

This last point is important to drill two as the last point of drill two was to drill one. Meaning, in drill two you were told that if you were aware, you could deflect everything – even sensing it before it was thrown. If you could not, it said something about how much awareness you actually had in drill one. It says you are probably just being hit in drill one – which was not the point of that drill. In drill three, you are told, “If you are truly aware of what is happening, if you are truly sensitive to what is occurring, you will not only not be struck, but you will be able to sense when you can irimi in this exact way (i.e. all the way to the back with both hands on both hips of the attacker) and from this exact place (e.g. from on the Line of Attack). If you cannot, then most likely you were just blocking into drill two and not practicing the proper awareness.” Thus, if you cannot perform irimi ashi under these conditions, you will go back to drill two and try not just to cover up but to become more attune to what is occurring, even sensing it before it happens.

What are you looking for in drill three then? You are looking for an arriving at the back of the attacker in natural and smooth way – as if it almost happens by itself. You are looking for how you get there just in Kihon Waza, only now you are doing it under the most extreme of conditions (e.g. against a barrage of ballistic strikes, from on the line of attack).

http://www.senshincenter.com/pages/vids/shikaku.html

Anyways, I would love others to try these drills out and to let me know what they discover for themselves. It would be great if they could film it as well. Of course, everyone is welcome to join us in these drills as guests of our dojo here in Santa Barbara.

Thanks,
david

[senshincenter]

Hi All,

I was granted permission to share this private message I received yesterday - we both thought it relevant to the thread so we are posting it here as well.
dmv

David, we did try drill one a few times, but I wasn't sure how to progress from there. This post made the point of the drills much more clear, thank you!

The experience was rather difficult for me, leading the class, because I was constantly surprised with the different ways people found of dealing with the pressure and I wasn't sure how to lead the whole practice in a good direction. Generally people did say they liked the drill, but the feel of the whole group was rather ...stressed afterwards and I also found it difficult to deal with that.
The most noticeable change right after was that people were attacking less timidly.

Are these drills something you do very regularly? I felt we should have been doing the drill more often, and with less time between, to have real progress.

Pauliina

Hello Pauliina,

Thank you for writing me - I appreciate it very much. This is exactly the kind of feedback I was interested in receiving. So, I am VERY grateful. :)

I think I can understand you perfectly when you mention how surprising it is to see how folks try and deal with the pressure - it truly is amazing to see how differently we all try and cope with it. Yet, and I think you would agree, some major patterns emerge nevertheless. This, I feel, occurs because we are all human and all subject to our own humanity - our human qualities (e.g. states of virtue, emotional content, personal histories, our psychology, etc.) That is a huge part of the drill - what it reveals about our mind and thus about our state of awareness and thus our capacity at embodying Aikido's principles and bringing such principles into a martial setting physically.

I have always felt that drills like this take training to a completely deeper level - because they more directly touch upon the deeper aspects of our inner self. As a result, we can often feel pretty "weird" after such training - "odd" in a way. So, as a teacher, I just try and be aware of that and make sure that folks have some sort of positive context from which they can interpret what it is they may be feeling. Thus, such drills, in my opinion, have to be part of larger training perspective that not only works to bring more depth to one's training but that can also actually work to support such efforts.

Again, I am so grateful for your email. If you'd like, please feel free to ask any questions that you might have concerning the drill and/or that might arise next time you try it. I would be happy to share what we are experiencing with you as well. Moreover, if you can film one of your sessions, and pass that along to me with some questions, I would be most willing to assist you as specifically as possible given this medium of communication. I am at your service.

Also - I would very much like to share this message with the thread since I think it is highly relevant. However, if you wanted to keep this more private, I would be most appreciative if you would allow me to quote you anonymously or to paraphrase you (please, you decide which one you would prefer) as a lean-in to my reply here. I will wait for a reply from you before I attempt anything in regards to the thread.

Again - thanks so much for writing,
david

[j0nharris]

Regarding the film:


OT, I know, but I am continually amazed when these videos make their way around the web, that absolutely no one there seems to be thinking about stepping in and stopping something that shouldn't be going on in the first place!
Would any of them feel the slightest twinge of guilt if one participant ends up dead from injuries sustained in a fight that could have been stopped?
Is it just me?

[James Davis]

OT, I know, but I am continually amazed when these videos make their way around the web, that absolutely no one there seems to be thinking about stepping in and stopping something that shouldn't be going on in the first place!
Would any of them feel the slightest twinge of guilt if one participant ends up dead from injuries sustained in a fight that could have been stopped?
Is it just me?

No, it's not just you. Seeing about twenty witnesses doing nothing to stop that altercation made me sick. :disgust:

[Adam Alexander]

OT, I know, but I am continually amazed when these videos make their way around the web, that absolutely no one there seems to be thinking about stepping in and stopping something that shouldn't be going on in the first place!
Would any of them feel the slightest twinge of guilt if one participant ends up dead from injuries sustained in a fight that could have been stopped?
Is it just me?

If I walked up to a scene and that was happening, if one person was trying to escape, I might intervene. However, if I found out that the person trying to escape was taking the retribution for an offense he/she committed, I'd return to minding my own business.

Further, in that video, I didn't get the sense that the one going down was trying to escape...except to get out from in front of a strike--mutual combatants in my eyes. They're old enough to make that decision, I'll get a bag of pop-corn and enjoy the view.

I think to intervene between two people doing what they want in a non-threatening to others sort of way is a natural right...I've got a tendency to mind my own business in that situation.


Regarding the drills,

I'm not pro or con on those--I don't know either way. However, it sounds to me like comparing apples to oranges when comparing that stuff to "kihon waza."

The thoughts that come to mind are: Basic techniques are meant to teach certain things. Advanced techniques are meant to teach other things. Is a first kyu or sho-dan Aikidoka ready for such advanced things as what's in your drill? Is it possible or probable that by taking away from kata time to train in these drills you're reinforcing instinctual responses rather than developing Aikido responses?

I don't know any of the answers, but I just wanted to drop the reasons that I wouldn't use that style of training.

For me (from the perspective that sh'te is expected to respond with a technique--I didn't read your responses...I just dont' have the attention span:)), as soon as uke advanced and I didn't have a technique to deal with it, I'd go back to kata.

Again, not saying there's anything wrong with it. I'm just responding because you, apparently, were responding to something I said.

[Pauliina Lievonen]

Is it possible or probable that by taking away from kata time to train in these drills you're reinforcing instinctual responses rather than developing Aikido responses?


Well, I'm not David but... I guess just doing the drill mindlessly would lead to reinforcing instinctual (maybe I'd prefer to say habitual) responses, but then the whole point was to not do them mindlessly.

kvaak
Pauliina

[senshincenter]

This is exactly what I would have answered Pauliina - the whole point of the drill is drop what is habitual (i.e. that which is done regardless of the context).

[Pauliina Lievonen]

I think I can understand you perfectly when you mention how surprising it is to see how folks try and deal with the pressure - it truly is amazing to see how differently we all try and cope with it. Yet, and I think you would agree, some major patterns emerge nevertheless.

A few common once that I noticed, for example, were laughing and treating the drill as a game, wincing, ducking, turning away, taking very wide and big steps back away from the attack...


As a result, we can often feel pretty "weird" after such training - "odd" in a way. So, as a teacher, I just try and be aware of that and make sure that folks have some sort of positive context from which they can interpret what it is they may be feeling. Thus, such drills, in my opinion, have to be part of larger training perspective that not only works to bring more depth to one's training but that can also actually work to support such efforts.

This why I'm not sure I want to repeat the experiment in a class that I lead, I don't think I can offer that support. I might prefer to ask a few people and just train by ourselves at free practice time.

It's actually equally hard to be at both sides in this drill. It's hard as the attacker to see your partner getting stressed. We're such nice people all in the dojo...

I asked my husband to try this today, at home, actually. Now he wasn't willing to really hit me, but OTOH he has the advantage of not being shy to touch me anywhere. Tickling can be very startling. :eek: I could keep my gaze level but it felt "hard", it felt like I created a lot of mental space between us that I didn't like, especially with someone I love. The experience I had in the dojo was similar, and I wonder if it's possible to not have that mental pushing away (I dunno if that describes it well) but to be more open towards the attack, in a way. I didn't find it hard to keep calm and facing the attack (up to a certain level of intensity), but the difference between open and closed calm, so to say.

I've been having a summer holiday from aikido, this conversation is giving me an itch though. :p

kvaak
Pauliina

[senshincenter]

Quote: “A few common once that I noticed, for example, were laughing and treating the drill as a game, wincing, ducking, turning away, taking very wide and big steps back away from the attack.”


This is very common. In my experience, it is done for many reasons but it always carries with it the same meaning: an attempt to disengage from the drill in effort to reduce the drills efficacy at revealing the small self and/or experiencing the small self in an open and communal setting. For example in regards to laughing (listing some possibilities among many), some people laugh to hide, or disguise, or to cover-up, and/or to “reduce” the disparity between their perceived self-image in regards to their martial skill and their actual skill level as it is revealed to them in being unable to stop someone from hitting them in as advantageous and as pristine a setting as the dojo. (Often these folks tend to talk about how the drill is unfair and/or how they would in reality do something different – e.g. hit someone getting that close; enter; grapple; etc.) In this sense, laughing can be a habitual reaction to pride. Other people laugh because the violence (not matter how controlled) touches parts of them that they are not ready to confront or to reconcile and/or to expose so openly and/or obviously. Hence, you can also get the attacker laughing for a similar reason. (Of course, crying, and many other emotions, can also happen on both sides for this reason as well.) In this sense, laughing can be a habitual reaction to fear. Others start laughing because they have no idea what is going on, no idea why it is going on, and/or what they are supposed to do while it is going on. It is like they are flooded by a wave of absurdity and/or meaninglessness while they have burdened themselves with finding sense and meaning – yet they themselves are at the center of that absurdity and/or meaninglessness. In this sense, laughing can be a habitual reaction to ignorance.

What is really interesting to note, aside from what is obviously being revealed at a personal level, is how so little of this stuff, or how none of this stuff, comes up in standard Kihon Waza training. Many of us are quite comfortable in Kihon Waza training – we do without these demons day after day. There is little pressure to disengage from the training in an effort to reduce the effects of self-revelation. This is one reason why you can get folks that have no problem participating in even very intense Kihon Waza training only to act completely otherwise within this type of training environment. For the rest of us, folks that did have a lot of similar pressures within Kihon Waza training, even if initially we may have experienced some moments of anxiety, confusion, and uncertainty, whatever it was, it was nowhere near this other level of self-revelation/exposure.


Quote: “This why I'm not sure I want to repeat the experiment in a class that I lead, I don't think I can offer that support. I might prefer to ask a few people and just train by ourselves at free practice time.”


I do no think that any one person can support such self-examination. This is my opinion. Really, it is a group effort – one that demonstrates the reason why all viable systems of self-reflection always made good use of a community (i.e. like-minded individuals coming together for reasons of support and guidance). This does not mean that we do not benefit from a mentor, but it does mean that a mentor cannot be expected to support everything and every one in total. It might be a good idea to simply start out with a smaller group – one from which you can learn the various ins and outs of such training – things you can use to then go on to address the needs of larger groups of people. Not a bad idea at all.


Quote: “I asked my husband to try this today, at home, actually. Now he wasn't willing to really hit me, but OTOH he has the advantage of not being shy to touch me anywhere. Tickling can be very startling. I could keep my gaze level but it felt "hard", it felt like I created a lot of mental space between us that I didn't like, especially with someone I love. The experience I had in the dojo was similar, and I wonder if it's possible to not have that mental pushing away (I dunno if that describes it well) but to be more open towards the attack, in a way. I didn't find it hard to keep calm and facing the attack (up to a certain level of intensity), but the difference between open and closed calm, so to say.”


This too is a very common reaction to the drills. I would tend to understand this “mental pushing away” in a manner similar to what was mentioned above – even if we want to define it as a difference between open and closed calm. In my experience, it represents a kind of resistance to the present in which we are finding ourselves (for whatever reason). In addition, like what was mentioned above, it also says something about how we can train in Kihon Waza just fine without experiencing this resistance (which is really the source of all resistance – in my opinion). It might be saying that we are non-resistant only under controlled and/or what some have called “fair weather” conditions. However, under more pressing matters, our habitual reaction to resist, to not accept, to not blend, to not harmonize with, to not “welcome the attack and the attacker” (as Osensei said), comes to the forefront. We are really talking about an amazing relationship between the mind and the body – one we must uncover and reconcile before we go on to practice Aiki martially (i.e. in real life). The really interesting part is this: When you can still practice non-resistance against an attacker (e.g. not mentally pushing away your training partner in this type of drill), the level of intimacy is even greater than if you were practicing non-resistance under fair weather conditions in Kihon Waza with a “partner”. For this reason, in actuality, should you come to reconcile this the source of all resistance, you would actually generate greater, closer, more intimate relationships with those others in your dojo. At least this has been my experience.

Anyways, because of your level of insight, your willingness to expose yourself to such pressures in your own training, and your candid honesty, your integrity of character, etc. – you sound amazing to me and you have come to inspire me a great deal more in my own pursuits. For this, and for sharing in this discussion, I am very grateful.

Yours,
david

[Pauliina Lievonen]

In my experience, it represents a kind of resistance to the present in which we are finding ourselves (for whatever reason).

Yes! That describes my experience felt very accurately.

In addition, like what was mentioned above, it also says something about how we can train in Kihon Waza just fine without experiencing this resistance (which is really the source of all resistance -- in my opinion). It might be saying that we are non-resistant only under controlled and/or what some have called "fair weather" conditions. However, under more pressing matters, our habitual reaction to resist, to not accept, to not blend, to not harmonize with, to not "welcome the attack and the attacker" (as Osensei said), comes to the forefront.

I do believe that if the resistance is there under more pressured conditions, that it's there in controlled conditions as well, only to a degree that is not easy to detect. So once you have identified the resistance, it should be possible to work on it in those conditions as well. Or I'd say it should be worked on!

If I take an example from my line of work, someone who strains their voice when they are singing on a stage will be straining their voice to some extent when they are speaking, and even when they are whispering. Actually in that case I'd start working on the whispering first -- which would be analogous to working on kihon waza? But of course there the difference is that this person already has the experience of using their voice under very pressured conditions.

Come to think of it my experience yesterday was similar to the two-on-one training I've done. It's not very "real" in the set-up, but I've had the same experience of getting stuck, wanting to blame my uke for not playing fair etc. That might be a way to work on this that is more familiar to our group. If we can do it in a way that people don't have too many "technical" "escapes".

For this reason, in actuality, should you come to reconcile this the source of all resistance, you would actually generate greater, closer, more intimate relationships with those others in your dojo. At least this has been my experience.

That's encouraging. :)I can sort of ...smell it around the corner...

What I'm working on, in my personal life right now, is recognizing where and when I make decisions based on fear. Like replying privately rather than on the board for example. :) This discussion came at a good time. A great start for a new training season. :)

Boy it's hard to take compliments...thank you.
kvaak
Pauliina

[Charles Hill]

Hi David,

How do you as a teacher deal with the psychological "stuff" that comes up during a drill?

thanks
Charles

[Ron Tisdale]

David, this has been a very informative thread because of your openess to sharing. Thanks a bunch.

Jean, I know how much we in the yoshinkan and similar schools love kata (I do myself) but this is a case of a distinction between Waza and Kata. Kata will not likely help in the situation posed here. Waza, on the other hand, probably would.

Best,
Ron

[senshincenter]

Hi Charles,

I'd like to answer that question because I would like to reflect upon all that once again for my own training, however it's a pretty big topic and I wouldn't want to run off on some aspect of it if you were more interested in some other part. Do you think you could do me the favor of maybe being more specific and/or elaborate a bit more on the words "deal with"? Please/thanks.

Are you wondering how we support folks through such emotional content, such that they are not open to abuse (from others or from oneself)?

Are you wondering how we assist folks with coming to reconcile such self-revelations so that they can thereby improve in their practice of Aiki?

Are you wondering how teachers can be part of the process without coming to feel "trapped" in the "demons" of someone else?

Etc.?

david

[senshincenter]

Hi Ron,

Of course we are all benefiting from each other here. So I will return the "thank you" as well. :-)

dmv

[senshincenter]

Pauliina,

Yes, I agree. You are right. This is a more accurate description of what is actually occurring. The drills are really just amplifiers, allowing for an amplification of what is already present in and/or going on in Kihon Waza. Amplification or magnification, of course, makes things easier to sense, to become aware of, and thus easier to address. Once we experience these revelations, our insights into the subtleties involved become more keen and we are indeed more able to address them at less-amplified levels (such as in Kihon Waza). These drills reveal only what is already always there – no more, no less. If we see something in the drill, we not only can see it in Kihon Waza, we see it everywhere else in our lives – only we might not always have the eyes to see with (for one reason or another). Your example of the straining singing voice is a perfect analogy.

Thinking out loud: The other side of this, however, is to suggest that most Kihon Waza training might be seen as a de-amplifier of such things. Ouch! That is hard to say, but reason and (at least my own) experience seems to suggest that such a thing is actually quite probable. To be clear, this is not a denunciation and/or even a de-prioritizing of forms training. It is simply identifying what each type of training can and/or cannot do – pointing out what is likely and not likely in each type of training for the sake of finding a way for both types of training to benefit each other more directly.

Again, thanks for sharing,
dmv

[markwalsh]

Watching the violence, as well as the apathy around it, also made me feel sick (but no, I didn't stop watching). I find the fact that as martial artists we can discuss it rationally kinda disturbing actually (I'm not having a go at anyone by this).

Jean bought up an interesting question:

Can two people (or nations) consent to violent confrontation, and does that make it ok, or is it just bad period?

On the notion of allowing someone to exact violent revenge, I disagree, it's still morally unjustifiable and against the rule of law. But yes, I am human and might feel different under the wrong circumstances.

Food for thought anyway...

Mark

[Charlie]

David,

I am not ignoring your request for a dialog, just trying to crystallize my take on it. I feel that you are touching on a very poignant subject that deserves an adequate response.

[senshincenter]

Sure thing Charles, no problem, no worries. When you get a hold on something, just pass it my way and I'll do my best to reflect openly, hoping that can suffice you in your own pursuits and in your own further reflections.

take care,
david

[Charles Hill]

Hi Charles

I think this is me. What I mean by "deal with" is how do you help the student work with the psychological stuff that comes up during drills. Part of my problem here may be due to the fact I haven't figured out how to view your videos. (ok, I am a little computer challenged:))

I am thinking that we are going off topic, but then again maybe not. I think a major problem with the fight in the original video is that both guys are emotionally off balanced which leads them to being physically off balanced. The voice over at the beginning says the fight is over a girl. So I think that martial drills that bring up emotional issues is entirely relevant.

If participants disengage from the drill to avoid having the "small self" revealed, how do you as an instructor, bring them back to the drill? Do you consider that part of your "job" as an aikido teacher?

"The other" Charles
btw, maybe this is all off topic, should it be given its own thread?

[senshincenter]

Whoops - two Charles - my (big) mistake. I imagine Charles B. is addressing my first request - which I'm still very interested in hearing from others on - so I anxiously await your post Charles B.

Charles H. - thanks for getting back to me. Let me think about this a bit and get back to this thread shortly. I think I get what you are asking now. Thanks for elaborating like this.

talk soon,
david

[xuzen]

David,

Coming back to your previous post wrt the drill which your dojo perform. There are interesting and I would not hesitate to recommend them to my sensei or adjutant sensei.

Pls aglow me to add: I have read it somewhere previously, the British Marine or some branch of their arm forces utilizes a similar kind of drill to improve their fighting spirit, or rather train them to avoid flinching when a blow lands on their face. It is where two participants step into a boxing ring, and punch each other silly with proper boxing gloves. However, unlike a typical boxing match, the participants are not allowed to block or evade the punch and they must take the punch as they land. I wonder if you are familiar with such a drill? NB: The participants are of course fully protected with standard amateur boxing protective gears.

The second drill, I come across if from my sensei. He said that the Muay Thai people splashes water into their eyes while keeping them wide open. He said that it helps to reduce their flinching reaction as well.

What are your thoughts on this two drills?

Boon.

[Ron Tisdale]

Hi Boon,

I like my flinch reaction. :) I don't want to do anything to stiffle it unconciously. Rather, I wish to retrain it to an extent. Just my preference....

Best,
Ron (flinching has saved me from a couple of head injuries...)

[Charles Hill]

I like my flinch reaction. :) I don't want to do anything to stiffle it unconciously.

Interestingly, Bruce Lee recommended this training, throwing water into each others eyes. On the other hand, Takuan wrote to Yagyu (or maybe the other way around) that if something comes at your eyes and you blink, this is natural. If it comes again and you don't blink, this indicates a disturbed mind. I'm gonna keep my flinch too.

Charles

[senshincenter]

Hi Boon,

We do something similar to these drills - you can see it in the first clip on the video page I linked to our web site. However, I think the end is different - and - like Charles pointed out - this goes back to Takuan. For me, the difference between Budo and just fighting is that we are more interested in what our training does for our hear/mind than we are in what it does for capacity to fight. This is not to say that we can excuse the refining of our capacity for martial victory for the sake of a more primary goal. In Budo, for me, our skills at martial victory are directly proportional to the depths at which we are able to cultivate our heart/mind. Therefore, it is not that we can ignore such issues over martial capacity – it is only that we put such a capacity to a difference use and as a result, we can often do the same type of drills but in a completely different manner. I believe this is what is going on with the drills you mention and the similar drill we do at our dojo.

For example, the drills you mention attempt to reduce the flinch behavior (and I am assuming you are talking really about the closing of the eyes and/or the over-powering urge to cower – not just the instinct to move the head back when something dangerous approaches it). However, it does this by seeking to gain a familiarity toward that which is likely to spark such behavior. In this way, such training is out to replace one habit (i.e. flinching) with another habit (i.e. not flinching). While this replacing of one habit for another may serve one well in a particular fighting situation, from the point of view of the heart/mind, from the point of view of Budo, the practitioner still remains in a state of “dis-ease.” The mind is still “plagued” by an incapacity to respond spontaneously. As a result, martially speaking, while a practitioner may likely not flinch, he or she will still be slave to habitual reaction and thus is still very much prone to being trapped by some other likely reaction to what the opponent is doing (e.g. if not flinching, just standing there staring).

On the other hand, Budo may aim to reduce our attachment to the habit of flinching, but it will seek to address this attachment by cultivating a mind capable of practicing non-attachment – even from within the and against the plagues of combat. Budo training does not set out to replace one habit with another habit. Moreover, the idea in Budo is NOT to just not flinch – the idea is to become free of the attachment that supports the habit of flinching. True, a budoka may not flinch in a fight, and thus be more capable (than some that is slave to flinching) of not suffering the possible dangers of flinching in a fight - thus then, perhaps, having it become more possible of gaining victory in a martial engagement. However, in Budo training, the cultivation of a mind capable of practicing non-attachment is really directed toward developing the role such a mind plays in our moral and spiritual self. The main idea supporting or “motivating” such effort is this: A heart/mind subject to the habitual self is ultimately incapable of producing moral/spiritual refinement (at the level of thought, word, and action) at any kind of deep or real level. Here is where Budo departs from such training as you mention, as the utilizing of the small self’s capacity to enslave itself to habitual responses is almost a kind of moral and/or spiritual “suicide” from the point of view of what we are doing.

When we do such drills then, the replacing of the habit of flinching with the habit of not flinching is actually one of the “dangers” I as teacher must look out for. Why? Because, from the point of view of Budo, it is actually one of the more popular ways that a beginner may seek to disengage from the process of self-reflection - along with laughing or the emotionally alienating of ourselves from our attacker (which were previously mentioned). This response is very common to those deshi that have had previous training but not carried it out under the rubric of Budo. In the end, this all really goes back to the double-edge sword that all training is and thus the real need for a good teacher (which is not that of technical archive). A good teacher is one that is able to sense and then address the double-edge nature of our training for everyone that comes to such training. Everything we do in training can actually reinforce everything we may want to purify out of ourselves. A good teacher is able to note this and help us navigate our way through such risk. Thus, in seeking to rid ourselves of habitual reaction, we may very well be dooming ourselves to such reaction; in seeking a greater intimacy in our lives, we may only be cultivating further alienation; in seeking a higher capacity at which we can engage more of ourselves more often, we may only be practicing and thus honing various way in which we disengage ourselves; etc. A good teacher guidees us through the narrows of Budo training.

Anyways, this is my take on these kinds of drills – we do them, but we may be doing them differently and therefore they may amount to being something very different – even if they look exactly the same.

Thanks for sharing,
david

[Larry John]

David Valadez wrote:

Thinking out loud: The other side of this, however, is to suggest that most Kihon Waza training might be seen as a de-amplifier of such things. Ouch! That is hard to say, but reason and (at least my own) experience seems to suggest that such a thing is actually quite probable. To be clear, this is not a denunciation and/or even a de-prioritizing of forms training. It is simply identifying what each type of training can and/or cannot do -- pointing out what is likely and not likely in each type of training for the sake of finding a way for both types of training to benefit each other more directly.

David,

In your opinion, is this a systemic problem inherent in the art, or is it more a result of the way aikido is currently taught?

I believe that George Leonard-sensei's book on mastery referred to the fact that aikido training used to be much rougher than it is today. I know that more experienced heads at our dojo have said "When I was studying at "Dojo X" many years ago, folks would tell you about this opening once, then they'd hit you if you gave them the opportunity again. But we can't teach like that anymore 'cause we might get sued."

Is it also possible that the opening of aikido to those (like me) with no prior martial arts experience has lowered the overall quality of new students with respect to the attributes with which your post is concerned?

[senshincenter]

Hi Larry,

This is just my opinion – but I would like to humbly offer it here…

My training outside of Budo is as a historian. Within the field of history, my area of “specialty” deals with deconstructing the role “truth” plays in determining culture. Toward that end, I often deal with how both knowledge in general and knowledge of the past are constructed by a given present in order to have that present culture function through a self-identity more members want to buy into than do not, etc. As a result, I am very critical of “Golden Pasts,” as I have never ran into one that was not a fiction created for political/economic reasons located in the present. “Golden Pasts” only pretend to be about history while they are 1000% about the here and now. In such cases, history is used only as a ruse to hide the actual workings of the hands that wish to fill themselves with one capital or another. Thus, “Golden Pasts” are too biased to ever remain accurate. In a very real sense, they hide much more than they can reveal. Nevertheless, I do not wish to dismiss the reminiscing of folks as false. I am sure that your teacher did in fact train rougher and that he gain his exact benefits from that training. Nevetheless, I would wish that we could gain some objective distance from what we may individually experience in the past and from the overall cultural context that we end up using and knowing as “the truth” when it comes to both our history and our potential future. I like to think about “our Time’s” problems without thinking about a time when they supposedly did not exist.

Therefore…

If self-realizations become rare and/or if self-delusion is the more likely, I do not see it as something related to a degradation of any kind of art and/or of any kind of teaching methodology – let alone something that can be attributed to a given epoch. In my opinion, self-realization is rare while self-delusion is common because this is the very nature of our humanity. The simple statement is this: Self Awareness and/or the purification of Delusion is never a common thing. There was no time in human history when humans lived with clarity en mass.

It is precisely because this is the human condition that things like Budo exist. Budo, as a technology of the Self, expects us to come in the door polluted and/or deluded, incapable of really real self-awareness, etc. In this sense, Budo is very much like every other spiritual tradition – be that a tradition that bases things on a Fall from Grace, to one that spouts Truths on suffering and the cause of suffering, to one that points to a need for purification, etc. In a way, there are two natures to our being. There is the nature that is of us but not really of us. It is noted in many ways. It is the ego, the small self, the false self, our desire, our ignorance, etc., and it is set against (in a way) the real us – the true self, the great self, our true nature, etc. Budo is that process or that practice or that “bridge” that reconciles these (apparently different) two things. If we can understand this, we can see that we are not talking about the ailments of a given time, we are talking about a universal dilemma for all Mankind and for all Times.

Therefore, if forms training is problematic for us today it is not necessarily because we do not train rougher (as we did in the past). It is because we as human beings have always been plagued toward self-delusion. If forms training is problematic today, it is because it has always been problematic. The problematic nature of forms is not something that has just now come to exist – it is something that has always existed. It is the old enigma of trying to frame art – of putting a box or a cage around something that is supposed to be alive and then foolishly hoping that you will not kill it in the process. However, it is more than this. It is trying to keep something truly alive in front of person (i.e. ourselves) that is very capable of producing a delusion that will work to see what is dead as that which is alive. Because of this, training rougher may not bring in all the awareness we think it will. As many have noted before in other threads, training rougher, while opening our eyes to things like openings (since we can no longer delude ourselves into believing they do not exist), may have us deluding ourselves into believe that we are still practicing Aiki when we are not. Training rougher may only be exchanging one delusion for another – in fact, it most probably will as this is the human condition.

For example, someone in his or her ukemi pushes us as nage really hard, and we may come to see how weak our base truly is, because now its weakness is being exposed as it is being challenged, and we then go on to work to strengthen our base (e.g. lifting weights, developing internal power, etc.), and now when they push at us we are able to push back at them so that we can “see” that our base is no longer weak. However, is this Aiki, is this clarity, is our base truly “powerful” because we can hold it against one uke that has given us trouble? No, of course not, but we will allow ourselves to think so, or rather, we will allow ourselves to be preoccupied with getting a stronger base, and through our capacity to practice delusion we will be perfectly comfortable with forgetting all of the rest that actually goes into Aiki and/or into remaining powerful under spontaneous martial conditions. In this sense, we remain deluded and are actually no further along in gaining clarity.

Thus, I do not want to say the solution is to train rougher. It can be, it cannot be. Upaya is what is needed. Things are varied and they are varied according to both our capacity for delusion and to the actual delusion we may be practicing. At our dojo we have both extremely gentle classes – where they are more meditative, yogic, breathing oriented – and this goes for every topic (e.g. weapons, spontaneous training environments, ground fighting, body art, knife fighting, etc.). In addition, we have very rough classes –some where full protective gear is required and injuries are not only common they are expected. In both types of classes, delusion will be practiced regularly. In both types of classes, self-realizations will be reconciled regularly. What determines our body-mind’s capacity for purification is, in most cases, determined by two things: Our capacity for self-honesty and our teacher’s capacity to assist us with cultivating more self-honesty (until we are able to do this ourselves). Therefore, if forms are to become unproblematic, if any aspect of our training is to become unproblematic, it is only because of this – self-honesty.

How do you first gain self-honesty? Others suggest, and I would agree, that it is best cultivated in silence and in solitude – in the deep and dark contemplations that open us up before ourselves and before the great Divine from which we are not separate. Once we get a taste for this, a sense of what this is (feels like), we can take this into forms training, both rough and soft, and make it insightful. Once we get a taste or sense for self-honesty, every aspect of our training will be real.

Kindest regards,
david

[Larry John]

David,

Thanks for taking the time to answer me directly.

To make sure I understand the essence of what you've said, I'll try to summarize: Every form of pedagogy has strengths and weaknesses that a (perhaps unconsciously) receptive or reluctant spirit can exploit. Part of the teacher's task is to help students recognize and help leverage or compensate for both the pedagogy and the student, as appropriate. But in the end, it's really the student's task.

Your posts are always so thoughtful (as in "full of thoughts"). Your last paragraph sounds like you'd be at home in a Benedictine monastery.

It's almost time to go to class ...

Very Respectfully,

[senshincenter]

Perfect Larry! That is exactly what I was trying to say - you have summarized it better than I ever could. Thanks for doing that.

What makes forms problematic is not that we train in them slowly or quickly, softly or hard, but that they are part of a larger process (i.e. the transmission of material) that itself is very likely to capitalize upon our nature to self-delude. In other words, forms in their nature create a distance from reality that we may compound with our inherent “drive” to be distant from reality. If we practice rougher or softer, forms do not become any closer to reality since they regardless remain not of reality. If we practice rougher or softer, our tendency toward self-delusion remains equally inherent to our humanity. Where this IS effected, or where this can be effected in terms of our own time is not in the mechanics of these inner structures but rather in the context in which most of us are likely to have them function. That is to say, once everything is stripped down to the inherent nature of forms (to not be of reality) and to where we are dealing with our inherent nature (to self-delude), self-honesty is what is needed. However, we usually have a bunch of stuff on top before we even get to this final bastion. There is a bunch of social and/or cultural forces involved that today goes with forms training, and this context (because it is a context) is indeed a thing particular to our time.

What is this context that helps us to NOT reconcile both forms’ and our own distance from reality? It is a context made up of many things – all things that are prime for us to use as distractions to keep us from gaining clarity and to be satisfied as we are employing these distractions. When you combine this satisfaction with our tendency to self-delude (i.e. we are satisfied being distracted from gaining clarity at the same time that we see ourselves as not being distracted) – ouch! The chances then of employing self-honesty in the way that it was meant to be employed do seem to become statistically smaller. What are these distractions we face today? Here are some possible ones: training that is geared toward the accumulation of forms, variations of forms, and a pedigree of form. This can, in my opinion, mean that things like seminars, tests, camps, rank requirements, federation loyalties, etc., can be part of the problem and not part of the solution. This may also mean that notions that place breadth over depth can also be problematic – which in turn would mean that favoring to have many teachers over one may be problematic, etc. If we do look at our training today, it is true that our time is marked by such notions (i.e. tests, seminars, camps, federation loyalties, rank requirements, breadth over depth, many teachers over one, etc.). Every culture, every time, is spiritually faced with its own distractions – these seem to be ours. Are they more in number or more potent in essence – I honestly cannot say. In addition, I do not really feel that we have to be able to say. Why? Because the solution remains the same – the solution is eternal: self-honesty. The person responsible for this self-honesty remains the same: each one of us.

Oh – if we would all read Benedict’s rules – I think the world of Aikido would change greatly. Thanks for the inspiration, I must go and re-read my copy again.

Many thanks for sharing your mind with me,
david

[Larry John]

My thanks to you, David, for all of the time and effort you obviously put into what you're doing.

The folks at my office have often said that I have a peculiar talent for creating BFO's (Blinding Flashes of the Obvious). Hopefully it's useful to others--it has appeared to have been for me. My poor fevered brain gets too easily cluttered by distractions for me to retain long text passages.

Self delusion is a tough thing to fight. For me, it has often taken the hard light of outwardly imposed reality (a well-placed atemi, a less-than-stellar performance review or a "frank discussion" with a spouse) to get my to recognize that what I thought I knew or was doing well was not so. After fifty years of what some might call "significant emotional events" you'd think I'd recognize my own delusions more readily, but I'm not sure that's actually the case. Hey, at least I have something familiar to look forward to!

Oh, for any who are curious, here's a link to the Rule of Saint Benedict in a single file. It's a tad long, but,as David observes, can be well worth reading and contemplation (http://www.kansasmonks.org/RuleOfStBenedict.html).

Warm Regards,
Larry

[toyamabarnard]

Hello Everyone,

First I apologize for the length needed here. Second, to David, Thank you for these videos, I think they're excellent. I'll tell you a little about me: I am 28 now and a practitioner of Aikido (although I've been away for some time) I WILL NOT claim to be a master or expert (or even of rank) at any style nor will I tell you I'm the greatest fighter in the world. I'm just a man uncontent to wander through life unknowing. I learned about fighting the way most did when I was young, by getting in to fights (though I avoid fighting or even harsh words whenever I can now). This uncivilized smashing and tugging at each other made no sense to me, so I started looking for a better way.

I'm a little guy (6 ft 165 lbs) so standing toe to toe evenly seemed foolish. If we stop and look at other forms of training (i.e. Boxing and Kick Boxing.) we see that sparring sessions happen with frequency (I leave out Karate, Tae Kwon Do and others because the sparring is all done with prescribed techniques). How often can we expect someone to come at us with an Atemi, or even better a "roundhouse" kick? Very rarely? In my opinion, those who are trained in the arts have the mental capacity not to use it unless necessary (although I'm sure there are a few idiots out there who stray). How many "fights" now are done fairly? None. A fight is combat and the goal in combat for most is to destroy. Anything and everything can be used because there are no rules. If a man attacks me and throws me to the ground then tries to stomp on my head, am I wrong to bite his ankle till he falls no matter how barbarian? No, because my goal is survival, especially in unprovoked attacks.

As for the guys in the original video, I've never known a woman who would be happy about me fighting over her that I wanted to stay with, they are both obviously led by emotions, neither is thinking clearly, and no "technique" is applied unless you count trying to throw your opponent down and stomp on their head technique or (in the case of the white kid) giving up and just trying not to get hurt too bad. It does show a good amount of typical human character from the 2 guys going at it to all their "friends" without enough sense to step in and separate them.

Some of you know already that when an opponent is about to strike or move there are gestures the normal person makes. A shift of the eyes toward the intended target, "cocking back" the fist, even something as small as seeing the muscles in your attackers shoulder tense can be enough warning of a strike. I normal training the guides of attack and defense are set out for us and we don't NEED these signs, therefore we don't learn them. If I know exactly what technique I'm supposed to use because I know exactly what technique my "opponent" will use what do I learn outside muscle memory and proper technique? Not that these aren't important, they are the basis of our training.

Please bear with me as I don't have my copies of these books here at work (I may make an error in the quotes). O'Sensei mentioned on several occasions a point of white light in the path of the opponents attack, Sun Tzu said it is impossible to make someone else vulnerable, only possible to make yourself invulnerable, and YamaTsunetomo (Hagakure) wrote "There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you still get the same soaking.", Musashi wrote of crossing at the ford, Takuan Soho spoke of No Mind, and many others I won't get in to in this message. All these speak of a response to your opponent's actions. Your opponent's actions dictate yours whatever they may be. You MUST be able to react to anything your opponent does to even be able to use any technique. I believe I heard Irimi Nage defined as Stepping in and taking control of your opponents destiny and I think I have a small understanding of maintaining my circle and disrupting the enemy's. All these fit together under the same principle, we do not train our opponent to act, we train ourselves to react. You absolutely MUST believe in victory and surrender after you are dead to "win". Training your spirit and your mind are as important, if not more so, than training your body. In time your muscles will slack and your body become frail and weak, this is time we can't change that, but your spirit and mind can remain strong long after.

I think these types of drills are necessary if you follow the way for more than challenging yourself. How many times have we heard "Cover your face" "keep your head up" "keep your eyes open" or "Is smashing your opponents fist with your face a new style you came up with?"? In most fights people are guided by anger and fear, and do not think rationally. To apply anything you've learned (in fact to make it out without serious injury) you must be able to find your center and stay calm. It is very easy for me to saty calm and follow proper technique when I know what they are and I hear Sensei tell me to begin and end while facing someone whose skill / style I know. Most fears come from the unknown which is what you face. I have asked untrained friends to do the same type of drill and mix it up to learn how I will TRULY react and fix as many flaws as possible in myself. So, to wind my tirade down, I believe this type of training allows you to learn that you may get hit, to take a hit, and how to react and learn how to NOT get hit. If you don't do it now, my opinion is start (in your classes, with a friend, with your significant other [Don't hit them, just ask them to hit you, you might be surprised at how eager they can be ;) ] or however else you can think of) it WILL benefit you. Thank you all for your time. Respectfully submitted, Brian A. Barnard

[senshincenter]

Charles,

This is also how I would tie this topic into the thread. For me, when I look at that video, I see people that are reduced to lower levels of technical applicability NOT because they are out of shape, not trained in the latest kick-ass martial trend, unable to do Osensei’s jo trick, etc. Rather, there are mind issues demonstrated in that video that are the issues that need to be addressed if we are going to ask and answer, “What do we do in our training to be able to deal with a barrage of strikes?” That is why for me, from this perspective, it may not be enough to say, “Just irimi.” Nor would it be enough to say, “We need to sharpen the edge on our Aikido techniques so that they can deal with real-world punches and not just abstracts like tsuki – let’s add ground-fighting and/or see what else Daito-Ryu has to offer.” Etc.

For me, these mind issues are the heart of Budo training. To be sure, Budo is a vast beast, and it has had many hearts, and most likely will come to have many more as it survives into the future, however, for me, it is a focus upon the heart/mind that makes our practice viable in these present times. Thus, my training, our training at our dojo, is focused around this. For us, by placing the heart/mind at the center of our training, and not things like technical mastery, ki development, or martial victory, etc., we not only come to see these things through the center of the heart/mind, we come to see these potentially mundane things as being related to deeper aspects of our inner selves. We bring to them a spiritual quality – one that comes to them via our investment of self, which is of its own accord of the Divine/spiritual.

In the end then, from this point of view, we are talking about bringing an overall depth to our training. What does that mean? That means that we can perform our technical mastery within more situations even though they may be varied by levels of intensity or by degrees of dissimilarity. That means that we cultivate ki development or ki sensitivity not only in terms of various feats we can perform under controlled conditions but more importantly within real-life encounters, such as those with our spouses, our children, our friends, etc. That means that we can grasp the rule that victory over the self is the only true victory. This is important, I feel, because it is only through depth that we have any real chance of bringing the lessons and accomplishments we may gain through Aikido training off the mat and into the real world – be that martially or spiritually or socially, etc. For the human being, there is only one way to add such depth – one must go inward.

For these reasons, yes, I do believe it is the role of the teacher (as leader of a dojo or as in a person in a position of authority within the dojo) to provide a training environment/situation where the quality of the heart/mind will reveal itself and thus expose itself to the risk of reconciliation. I also believe it is the teacher’s role to assist in addressing the student in those times when it does. How is that done? Well, as there are infinite ways for each heart/mind to reveal itself, supported by infinite reasons for that revelation, there must also be an infinite way for a teacher to offer guidance and support. As infinite as things must remain, however, some core elements continually come up because we are ultimately all of the same inner self – such as the great significance that must be afforded to community. In fact, it is because we all share in these core elements that spirituality can even exist.

These core elements go on to function along with other types of things that together work synergistically to produce an environment that is fertile in terms of producing the fruits of such aimed for labors. For example, in regards to the notion of community (mentioned earlier in this thread), a dojo that offers such training must have an extremely strong sense of intimacy. That is to say, intimacy issues must be both cultivated and supported by the dojo overall. Thus, things like etiquette, for example, are more geared toward addressing the revealing of the heart/mind and not just the smooth operation of a group of different people that want to exercise together. Hence, etiquette is not just a prescription for behavior but is something that actually comes to rest upon a moral code that is geared toward cultivating those things that can support heavier and heavier amounts of intimacy - that can then go on to support heavier and heavier amounts of self-revelation, etc.

In short, a dojo is a kind of body, made up of parts that must all function toward the wellness of a whole. Therefore, as a teacher seeks to address, or guide, or support, or share, etc., via the process of self-revelation, those actions will themselves have to address, be guided by, supported by, and share in the overall wellness of the dojo/community. I feel it is important to point this out because it is this sense of a total environment that really gives potency to any possible guidance a teacher might actually give his/her student. This means that one cannot simply take some of the examples I am about to offer as an explanation of what such guidance might look like without understanding that such action must take place within a specific context. In fact, we should note, the same action outside of the appropriate context would in all likelihood produce the opposite effect of the one intended.

So far, in this thread, two common types of disengagement have been mentioned: laughing and alienating and/or distancing oneself from one’s attacker. Please allow me to speak generally in regards to these things – mainly using laughing as my example. In addressing these actions, a teacher must understand the “urge” to disengage. A teacher should be able to understand this because the “urge” is shared between them. It is located in the nature of our humanity, which is precisely why anyone who does these drills, anywhere, anytime, comes up against these various types of disengagement and the core urge that supports them. In addressing this urge, at its simplest, a teacher will make use of two primary elements: truth and the student’s commitment to his/her training. Thus, a dojo that approaches this training must have ways of cultivating and of giving value to both truth and commitment. If in the dojo there is no value placed upon truth and/or commitment, or if in the dojo there are no means of cultivating higher degrees of truth and/or commitment, a teacher is at a great disadvantage then, as is the student as well.

When a student laughs through such a drill, it is because they are inspired to not take it seriously. They are inspired to not take it seriously because of the delusion that supports their reality. That is to say, there is some sense within them that what is happening is not really real – because it does not jive with their (deluded) sense of reality. In other words, as in any type of humor, there is a distance present between what is happening and what is expected. What is happening is that they are being pummeled. What is supposed to be happening, what is expected, what is their “reality,” is that they are not supposed to be pummeled. If they are a black belt – that is supposed to be proof that they should not be getting hit. If they have been training for many years (whatever they think is “many years”) – that is supposed to be proof that they should not be getting hit. If they are working out with a partner that they are senior to – that is supposed to be proof that they should not be getting hit. If they are stronger than their partner – that is supposed to be proof that they should not be getting hit. If they are male and their partner is female – that is supposed to be proof that they should not be getting hit. If they do yoga or practice zazen – that is supposed to be proof that they are not supposed to be getting hit. If they have “won” many street fights – that is supposed to be proof that they should not be getting hit. Etc. However, they are getting hit! Moreover, they are getting hit multiple times, at will almost (or perhaps so), and they are getting hit by smaller folks with less rank and with less experience, etc.

At this point, for some, an instructor can point out the truth by simply saying, “You are getting hit.” The deshi more committed to the truth and that have more self-responsibility in their commitment to their training will respond by not only not laughing, by not only no longer seeking to disengage themselves from the drill, but by also coming to shine a bright light on their delusion. Thus, they will come to question the very foolish notions that were making such a drill humorous (i.e. distant from a “reality”). That is to say, folks will gain more truth concerning what a black belt means (or does not mean), what “senior” means, what “stronger” means, what “gender” means, what “winning” means, what “yoga” and “zazen” mean, etc.

Other deshi, those not yet as cultivated in truth and commitment may perhaps wish to support such humor, such distance from “reality,” such delusion, with rationalizations. Again, this is a universal mark of our humanity. Why? Because delusions are never experienced as fantasy – they can only be experienced as real and therefore they are often supported with those things that mark anything that is real – such a reason. However, because these realities are of delusion, such reason is always plagued by internal contradiction and/or inconsistency. The delusion feels and can sound real because it is blind to its own contradictions and/or inconsistencies in reason. Therefore, a teacher must find the contradiction and/or the inconsistency and bring it to the light of the deshi’s mind. For example, some deshi will say that the drill cannot be done – that too much advantage is given to the attacker to not make this drill humorous/silly. The simplest way of exposing this rationalization as false is to put forth the example of it being done as a teacher. It is very hard to say it cannot be done when your teacher is doing it right in front of you – with you. Toward this same end, a teacher might alter the drill when working with this deshi so that even more advantage is given to the deshi as attacker – to show that even then the attacker cannot find his/her mark as the student is claiming he/she would. Alternately, or additionally, a teacher might seek to re-orient the deshi’s rationalizations. This can be done by demonstrating and/or explaining how the structures of the drill do and/or can resemble various aspects of what the deshi feels is relevant to combat reality. For example, a teacher can ask, “So you are getting hit, should you lose your metsuke because you are getting hit? Isn’t metsuke important in your reality?” Or, “So you are getting hit, should you be chasing fakes and feints all over the place like you are? Isn’t it important to not have a mind that chases fakes and feints in your reality?” Or, “What if your attacker had a knife – what would all those hits to your body/head mean then? Etc.

How ever a teacher wishes to shine a light in that place where reason breaks of its own accord due to its attachment to delusion, it is important for a teacher to note that they cannot make themselves fall outside of what is reasonable. That is to say, deshi that are more resistant to accepting the truth and/or toward cultivating more self-responsibility in their commitment to their training, and that use rationalization to support such lack of (directed) effort, often find a way of placing one’s teacher outside of what is rational. This often takes the shape of hero-worship, etc. – things that make the teacher extraordinary. For this reason, it is very important that a teacher remain ordinary. Everything in the dojo must work to keep the teacher just a human – like anyone else, like everyone else. This is key! I cannot stress enough how counter productive it may be for a teacher to posit oneself as extraordinary – as Enlightened, as Awakened, as in possession of some fantastic power, as possessed by some great spirit, as a barer of a secret teaching, as the heir of some noble lineage, etc. In the quest to purify the spirit, it is vital that we as teachers seek to be no ones of particular interest. We must remain, not only in our own minds, but also in the minds of our deshi, men and women like any other. In the dojo, we must be the cook, the servant, the one that scrubs on our hands and knees, the one that holds and cares for everyone’s children, that gives of our time and our resources off of the mat, etc. We cannot stand above the dojo, and to make sure that such a thing never occurs it is best to seek to stand below everyone else – holding everyone else up. This is the context that supports us as we entertain the various rationalizations of our deshi.

Now some students will awake to the openings in their own rationalizations. Some will not, some will hold out, some will continue to laugh – to disengage from the drill for fear of what it is revealing about their “reality.” At this point, for the most part, a teacher will have to rely on the constructs of the drill to mark both the truth and the deshi’s commitment to his/her own training. The drill was about staying aware and about putting that awareness to a martial use. The drill is proclaiming that an intimate relationship exists between awareness and martial capacity. Laughing, disengaging, is a lack of awareness. The drill can still serve its purpose by presenting itself negatively and/or by its contrast. That is to say, as the student laughs (disengages) more, the student becomes more unaware of what is happening, becomes more incapable of martially addressing the situation. This was the point of the drill – the student is learning this inversely, not regardless of the laughing but through the laughing. An instructor can also play with the intensity of the drill to make this more obvious (harder to deny) to the student. For example, an instructor can ask students to pick up the pace and/or to now perform the drill while the defender has his/her back to a wall (restricting all movement). Additionally, an instructor can place a line between the student and his/her urge to laugh/disengage – such that the student is not only laughing, he/she has to cross a line to laugh. The instructor places this line before the student by saying, “Stop laughing, you are losing awareness.”

At this point, should the student continue to resist what is being revealed, the drill’s efficacy must remain within two other aspects. These two aspects are: the mundane elements of the drill (i.e. having a more free-for-all experience in one’s practice, seeing and/or feeling strikes coming in at various angles and at various timings, etc.) and the overall context (i.e. the dojo environment) in which the drill is taking place. It is through the overall dojo environment, that context of the drill, one that is geared toward valuing and cultivating truth and commitment to one’s training, that the deshi comes to this drill again, later, but not in the same way – having more chance, for having done the drill and for participating in the rest of the dojo environment - to accept and reconcile what is being revealed.

I have chosen to deal here mainly with “laughing,” and only very generally, but the structures I have mentioned here are universal to this entire process. As things alter, as different types of disengagement arise, as different delusions come to be supported by different rationalizations, as different emotions capture us, the ways that these things can be addressed by a teacher will remain but variations on these universals. If you were to pull them out of this reply here, they would be: context, commonality, servitude, consistency, humanity, community, truth, and commitment.


Thank you, and please forgive the delay in my reply to your question,
david

[Adam Alexander]

Jean, I know how much we in the yoshinkan and similar schools love kata (I do myself) but this is a case of a distinction between Waza and Kata. Kata will not likely help in the situation posed here. Waza, on the other hand, probably would.

I see kata as teaching the basics. If, during these drills, you fail to hit the basic (getting the grab or recognizing the energy that's coming) then an Aikidoka is nowhere near ready for the technique.

So, although the drill calls for technique, I'd say that (if it's actually the exercise I gather it is), if you're failing to even carry out the initial stage of a technique, then you're short on kata.

Just what I think I see, but I don't know.

[L. Camejo]

David,

Great to see that the concept we were speaking of in another thread evolving and being applied to an even deeper level in this one. It took a while to read the whole thread, but all good and poignantt stuff so far. Keep those thoughts coming, you are helping me clarify and refine my own approach to this sort of training.:)

So, although the drill calls for technique, I'd say that (if it's actually the exercise I gather it is), if you're failing to even carry out the initial stage of a technique, then you're short on kata.
The above makes sense in some cases, but mostly the stuff that happens at the initial stage of a technique or even before the technique is not developed very much by kata (forms) training. Also, many drills actually do not call for technique, but an openness to one's own weaknesses in mind/body movement and a desire to address them through an exercise that is specifically designed to challenge and develop certain things in the mind/body relationship.

The reason that kata training does not develop these things so much is because certain elements such as ma ai, metsuke, mushin, sensitivity and ability to respond to subtle changes in motion/intent/power of an attack are either already present (i.e. pre-set) or non-existent (not addressed) in the practice of set forms where the role and movements of Uke and Nage are already determined. In this sort of practice, one's aim is to emulate these roles (i.e. reproduce the form) to the best of one's ability, not focus so much on the peripheral elements that make the form applicable to the situation (i.e. finding the best response to Uke's movements and "attack").

As such it is highly unlikely that further practice of kata addresses this problem, one needs to isolate what is lacking in one's response before the technique or kata has even started (what I call the "setup" phase). In Shodokan and Judo I think, this is referred to as tsukuri practice and is not technique-specific, but designed on training instinctive responses that allow one to adapt instantly to sudden and constant change, and as such is not a part of kata training per se but more toward the creation of basic structures that one can develop in randori or free play.

Kata practice is great and important, but it is not a cure all that sufficiently addressess the "peripheral" or non-waza aspects that are necessary for quality spontaneous Aikido practice imho.

Just my thoughts.
LC:ai::ki:

[Adam Alexander]

...The reason that kata training does not develop these things so much is because certain elements such as ma ai, metsuke, mushin, sensitivity and ability to respond to subtle changes in motion/intent/power of an attack are either already present (i.e. pre-set) or non-existent (not addressed) in the practice of set forms...

I guess my understanding of kata is different. All things you mention are addressed when I practice kata.

Ma ai: Various techniques and ukes have different ma ai's. By practicing various kata with various uke, you develop an inherent understanding of ma ai.

Metsuke: If you make a conscious effort to be aware of it, you'll be practicing it. I think it's the same awareness as a previous poster said you should have during these drills.

Mushin: It's all about perspective. If you step up to the line to perform a technique, stay aware of all directions and maintain a conscious, yet non-committed, awareness of the technique to be performed, I think that works on mushin.

I think sensitivity and ability is the result of the type of practice I describe above.


Just my thoughts. I'm not trying to say the stuff is good or bad. I just don't see how you'd benefit from it anymore than you would kata.

[Ron Tisdale]

There is kata, and then there is kata, and, then, there is kata.

Most aikido is loosely based on kata.

Yoshinkan (and other forms of aikido) sees kata much the way Jean spoke of it.

Some forms of Daito ryu may take an even more serious look at kata...emphasising exactly the things both Larry and Jean spoke of.

I have felt a shiver run down my back watching the kata of some koryu. Not alive? You've got to be kidding me...

Best,
Ron (remembering Ellis's kiai, and half of a composite bokkuto flying sans tsuka)

[Adam Alexander]

There is kata, and then there is kata, and, then, there is kata.

Spoken like a true Aikidoka...that explains it:)

[senshincenter]

Here's the kicker though - everyone who does kata pretty much thinks like that. Heck - you are supposed to. I do too. If you grasp the fundamentals of training, you understand kata like this. You have to. Only, thinking and doing are two different things. And again - everyone realizes that too. That's not news to anyone. We all know this. And YET, when we only do kata, and/or when we have not done these (types of) drills before and then attempt them, etc., we notice that not everything from kata is readily transferable. It can be, it should be, but it very often isn't, and it isn't because it doesn't HAVE to be.

Somewhere in kata or in how we approach kata or in how we attempt to "transfer" what we learn in kata to some other place, etc., there exists a very real possibility that some very important things don't make the gap from a live kata to a living application. I'm sure there are many reasons for this - some of them are very traditional and are very much a part of kata training - some of them are new to our modern era (i.e. make use of a newer discourse) - but the statistical fact remains: I have never seen anyone that trains in just kata come into this drill and/or these types of drills and see them move like they do in kata and/or see them move as if they had any kind of training at all (e.g. often the training they do have hinders them so they can end up worse off than someone that had no such formal training - heck - Takuan mentions this one, so this problem is very old). In this way, the gap that reveals itself is very much like the one that is experienced by folks that haven't underwent any kind of adrenaline dump training - they find that first one is quite determining in what they can and can't do.

From here, often, many of us run to the "reason" that real life shouldn't look like kata - so we excuse the gap that is really there between what we train in and what we are able to do, but then this reason doesn't account for the folks that can make real life applications look just like kata training sessions - because their body/mind is quite capable of making the transfer from live kata to living art - because they are quite capable of takemusu aiki and not just applying arm bars, trips, and jamming strategies, etc. Those people do these types of drills as part of their kata training.

I hate to repeat the ol' line of "You got to try it to get it" - I generally think that is such crap - but the first two drills are so easy to repeat on your own and the effects are so readily amplified that you cannot really have a hard time gaining some relative insight in regards to this "gap," that I would still like to suggest that folks give them a try - to see for your own self what is transferable and what is not. Again, I do not think this falls outside of kata training and/or in place of kata training. For me, this is just part of the a larger whole - one that will indeed come to make kata training (i.e. kihon waza training) even more alive when you return to it after having done this other type of training.

david

[Ron Tisdale]

Another good post David. One question...do you have problems yourself (as the person being attacked) finding someone who is able to bring sufficient pressure to bear?

Thanks,
Ron (did I spell that bear correctly?)

[senshincenter]

Hi Ron,

Yeah - I do that too. I think it should be spelled "bare" but you are right, it's "bear" (like to bear arms/bring weapons to bear, etc.) - go figure.

Well, let's see, I've been doing that drill and those types of drills for nearly most of my training - I started in 84' and started playing with those types of drills by at least 86'. Today, if I do get my ass handed to me, let's say I can see it clearly being handed to me and I can accepted it calmly - lol. I'm am able to keep my awareness as I might be getting pummeled into the floor. The great part is that when the drill is opened up - or when we do other drills with less restrictions on both sides - that same situation most often turns around as I am through that lasting awareness able to SOMEHOW "find" that one opening I need to relieve the pressure and/or to apply pressure in my favor. If on the other hand I find I am working with someone that cannot apply adequate "pressure" for further insights (no matter what) I will very often place further restrictions on myself - such as putting my back against a wall and restricting myself from all movement and/or relying on only one arm to provide any necessary Angle of Deflection, etc. In short, there are always ways to increase the pressure no matter who you are going with and/or how skilled you may become. Moreover, there are other drills beside these - these are only beginner drills. The more advanced drills tend to be insightful no matter who you go with, nor how many times you go with the same person - this is because the variables are just too numerous and dynamic to ever become "stale".

Thanks,
david

[L. Camejo]

There is kata, and then there is kata, and, then, there is kata.

Most aikido is loosely based on kata.

Yoshinkan (and other forms of aikido) sees kata much the way Jean spoke of it.

Some forms of Daito ryu may take an even more serious look at kata...emphasising exactly the things both Larry and Jean spoke of.

Hi Ron,

So I guess there is kata training where one's partner utilises unknown, unplanned, targeted continuous attacks, constantly fakes, jabs and deliberately tries to destroy his partner's ma ai by sudden changes, utilises muscular or positional resistance and other pressure methods to place his partner in a place where his mind/body movement, toitsu ryoku and kokyu ryoku (not his waza) are truly tested or otherwise enticed to fail, thereby helping him to improve. Would be interesting to see this sort of kata practice imo.

We tend to refer to kata practice as the cooperative, choreographed practice of technical form, whereas the above stuff I mentioned falls into either drills that are not specifically technique-oriented, but designed to train certain fundamentals that can be applied to technique; or randori practice. I always thought the Hiriki no Yosei practice of Yoshinkan (we have a similar counterpart) was a drill to train movement fundamentals and focus of power, breathing and relaxation, not kata (actual techniques and forms) practice per se.

I guess one learns something new every day.;)

Happy training.
LC:ai::ki:

[Ron Tisdale]

Hi Ron,
Hi Larry, :) Of course I do understand the difference between kata and free sparring/free play...but lets look at some of the areas you mention. Others should feel free to chime in here, especially if I mention something I've seen that they do:

So I guess there is kata training where one's partner utilises unknown, unplanned, targeted continuous attacks, constantly fakes, jabs [

I would generally say no here. What I have seen (and to some extent experienced) is a teacher putting pressure on a student by taking a kata where they know the basic movements, putting them in a pressure situation (like a public demo), and then inspite of the fact that it is a kata, attacking them with a full commitment to the engagement.

...and deliberately tries to destroy his partner's ma ai by sudden changes, utilises muscular or positional resistance and other pressure methods to place his partner in a place where his mind/body movement, toitsu ryoku and kokyu ryoku (not his waza)
are truly tested or otherwise enticed to fail, thereby helping him to improve.

Yes, this I have seen and experienced to some extent. Just because you are performing kata doesn't mean that an experienced person can't change the timing, commitment, angle, distance of an attack, amount of muscular resistance. I have seen koryu members do this in person...at the first aiki expo, as an example. Ellis attacked his student with so much power his partner's composite bokken (those very rarely fail, its the *only* time I've seen it happen) snapped. He called out "kodachi" and switched the kata to short sword vs long sword. His partner responded fluidly...I saw no gap in intent. I can tell you right now *I* would have failed that test.

Would be interesting to see this sort of kata practice imo.

Try making some of the aiki expos, or certain koryu demonstrations.

We tend to refer to kata practice as the cooperative, choreographed practice of technical form, whereas the above stuff I mentioned falls into either drills that are not specifically technique-oriented, but designed to train certain fundamentals that can be applied to technique; or randori practice.

Well, bully for y'all! :)

I always thought the Hiriki no Yosei practice of Yoshinkan (we have a similar counterpart) was a drill to train movement fundamentals and focus of power, breathing and relaxation, not kata (actual techniques and forms) practice per se.

Absolutely correct, Hiriki no Yosei (elbow power) is not a kata. It is a basic movement. Why would you think that I thought of it as kata? :)

I guess one learns something new every day.;)

Well, maybe today will be one of those days :) When I refer to kata in the yoshinkan, I'm refering to things like the 150 basic techniques, performed with a partner, united basic movements and related technique, things like that. The movements are set...shite and uke know basically what's coming. What they don't necessarily know is what the power, speed, exact distances, timing, of the attacks will be. All of these things can and often are varied. All I am saying is that there are many ways to change the nature of the kata to make it more alive. And I've never seen it (in the yoshinkan) approach the nature of what I saw Ellis and his partner do. Which is why I told Jean that I didn't believe kata was what was needed in the situation discussed. Waza, on the other hand, probably would have helped, in my opinion. As would randori, obviously.

Best,
Ron

[L. Camejo]

Hi Ron,

Your last post was a good clarifier. In the end it seems like we are saying the same thing in different ways. Though imho periodic variances in ma ai and other aspects during the performance of kata do not work as well (as a developmental tool) as targeted drills designed to address certain issues. The simple reason is because during the practice of kata, one is still pretty focused on executing technique correctly, hence the amount and depth of awareness being applied to other things may not be as deep as they can be in a targeted training drill.

Using the example of Hiriki no Yosei - it is a great exercise to understand how to focus elbow power during movement, which can later be applied to waza like Shi ho Nage and many many others. However, though the continuous kata practice of Shi Ho Nage can also help one develop one's elbow power, during the practice of the architectural structures (form or kata) of Shi Ho Nage, one's focus may be more concerned with other aspects of the kata such as alignment, positioning, extension, kuzushi, atemi etc. All this means is that one still develops elbow power during kata training, but one does not focus on and internalise the deeper elements of breath, thought, alignment, movement etc. that help generate elbow power as is done in a targeted exercise like Hiriki no Yosei. To me, the difference merely comes down to what is one's primary focus during either kata, randori or drill type training. Each one is better than the other for different elements of one's development. My only point is that it is not always best to use a wrench to drive in a nail, even if it could do the job.;)

I hope this clarifies.

Also, I plan to meet Ellis at the Budoseek / Gulf Coast Martial Arts Winter Camp in Jan. 2006 in New Orleans, should be much fun.:)

Happy training.
LC:ai::ki:

[Ron Tisdale]

Hi Larry,

Agreed. Ask Ellis to do that monkey kiai he does. Quite interesting.

Best,
Ron

[Adam Alexander]

I guess it's the same in all cases...what works for me isn't necessarily what works for others. In the times that my training has been called upon, I didn't feel a lack of transfer from kata to application. However, since I don't know everything there is to know about kata, I imagine there might be some stuff that I didn't notice transfer just because I haven't experienced it yet...if that makes sense.

What I do know, in the situations I've been in, it's always been reflex. My body moved before I knew what was happening...and that's because of kata.

However, I've been in fights as a youngster before training and maybe that gives me something that someone else would get from the drills.

I don't know.

[Charles Hill]

David,

Thanks so much for your explanation. I downloaded the appropriate software and so was able to view the videos. That plus your commentary have inspired a lot of thought and I am now thinking of how to incorporate stuff.

A couple of comments,

I understand that any negative reaction during such drills is likely due to a number of causes. One of which is likely to be not feeling safe (psychologically) with one's training partners. I think that there needs to be a kind of "We are all in this together, helping each other" attitude before one can relax into or trust in the drills to do their work. I think the best way to do this is a lot of cooperative kata training. If we define "kata" as fixed role-playing of a combative situation as opposed to "drill" which might be defined as unfixed or semi-fixed role-playing of a combative situation, kata is obviously less psychologically demanding. People new to martial arts or Aikido can start to find their bearings in this weird world of strange movements, customs, clothing, and language if everything is fixed. It is my experience that two beginners are much more likely to become friends than a newer person and a more experienced person. That is because they both see the other struggling just like themselves and that helps them form a bond. To me, this is the most important thing about beginning aikido.

I think that it is between two people who have formed a close relationship that drills can have the most positive effect. They can safely (psychologically) push each other. The point is not to test but to explore. When we are tested, we revert to what we already know. That is why I feel that a person should not be pushed too much during drills nor kata. And the less one is pushed psychologically the more they can be pushed physically, and vice versa. I think that the adrenal dump type training that is now the rage is for 1. to show the person their current reality and 2. how to work within those new-found parameters. I think that arts like Aikido and systema are different. Here, the main point is to expand what an individual is capable of. That is, adrenal training is testing and working with the results, Aikido is expanding capabilities.

I always read with chagrin posts which say that aikido is not effective because there is no resistance. This, in my opinion, is false. Resistance naturally happens when two members of a dojo start to trust and respect each other. I have done similar training as the drills on David's website. However, they were always informal and all of a sudden. One friend just suddenly starts to pour it on until both are on the ground and one person is pinned. Then both laugh and stand up to go on to the next technique. I do think that David's drills are a very good idea and I would probably greatly improve if I made my "free" training a little more structured.

Of course, this is just my current thinking and as always, I reserve the right to be wrong.:)

Charles

[senshincenter]

I agree Charles, trust is very important here. This is why I tried to speak about having a context to such drills, having a community capable of supporting such drills, and/or, if necessary, trying these drills with a few friends or peers that you are close to, etc.

For me, Aiki is about relationships. When we opt to look at Aiki in this way, we may start by looking at things in terms of opposites and/or in terms of sameness, but then we move on to look at things in terms of harmony and in terms of blending, etc. If we keep going with this, soon we are going to look into those things that keep us from harmonizing, from blending – from manifesting Aiki within all kinds of relationships, etc. So eventually, our practice is going to come head to head with issues like trust (or our incapacity to trust), but also with issues like faith (or our incapacity to have faith) and eventually even intimacy (or our incapacity to have intimacy), etc.

In a way then, training is not only that which requires things like trust, faith, and intimacy, it is also that thing which cultivates trust, faith, and intimacy. It cultivates these things by requiring these things. For that reason, I think we should probably understand these drills as NOT those things we cannot do if we do not have trust, but really as drills that help cultivate our capacity for trust, but also for faith and intimacy, etc. To be sure, this can and should also be what is happening in forms, but as with other elements, forms often fail us in this regard. Many times, forms can become a filter through which we actually alienate ourselves from others – thus, many times, forms can cultivate alienation, not intimacy. We know, at least intuitively, that forms are done and/or can be done without raising issues of intimacy, etc. This is one reason why we can pretty much do Kihon Waza training with anyone around the globe (whereas in drills like these we are pressed to be not only in a very close relationship with someone but also in a very good relationship with someone).

Once a student came to our dojo from another local dojo – she did not even get to this type of training yet. She was just on the verge – with nearly all of her training coming to her through Kihon Waza. As you can imagine, each of us takes back what we learn and what we reconcile within these drills into Kihon Waza, which is something that is supposed to happen. So our Kihon Waza was operating in a different way or at a different place in her body/mind than hers was at her other dojo for her before. She was intuitively aware of this. Eventually, she just sort of halted her training. She said she could see how potent the training was, but that it was extremely difficult for her because all her life (these are her words) she has had “intimacy issues”. She noted how close everyone was in the dojo and she felt that she could never open up like that, share like that, etc. When I told her that we all have intimacy issues, and that the resolving of these issues is one very good way of understanding Aikido training, she just could not believe me – no faith, no trust. Sometimes forms are not enough, sometimes nothing is enough.

Sometimes, heck, every time, you just got to do what you got to do – this is especially true in a system of practice that opts to cultivate things in you by requiring these things of you. We want there to be this notion of “first this, then that,” but that is almost impossible in something so holistic and synergistic as Budo. So sometimes, heck, every time, you just go for it, cultivating faith by practicing faith because faith is required; cultivating trust by practicing trust because trust is required; cultivating intimacy by practicing intimacy because intimacy is required, etc.

Oh well… I’m rambling now – thinking out loud.

Thanks very much for the reply and thank you very much for the effort to get the software so you could look at the videos. I am also grateful for your comments - very well said.

Much appreciation,
david

[L. Camejo]

Extremely well said David.

I think certain things are revealed about our inner selves via the vehicle of testing and chellenging, such as in the drills you gave and others. Imho a well designed test works to deeply examine what is known or seen in order to greater illuminate that which is unknown or unseen. This sort of training forces us to look deeper than our surface facades and what we allow ourselves to (sometimes falsely) believe. When we begin to see deeper and reveal the previously unseen, it may be a good idea to attempt to humbly understand and analyse what is revealed in order to learn and evolve instead of allowing the ego's protective response to reign and sweep things back under the rug or discontinuing the method which has gotten us to this new level of self realisation. Of course, not everyone can deal with self realisation and revelation in the same way. What is illuminating for one can be blinding for another so it is important for the Instructor and the individual to use these tools/drills with skill and in a measured way, based on the particular individual's needs.

I have also experienced in my own dojo what David spoke of regarding the student in his dojo who decided to discontinue training due to issues in other areas that needed addressing. It reminds me of the old adage about not breaking the mirror if you dislike the image, but to instead work on manifesting a better image. Often this marks the difference between the indivdiual who makes a breakthtrough in his/her training and moves to a higher level of understanding of the self through aikido practice and the other who is perpetually repeating form at the same level without any sort of development or insight into self or art.

This returns to the initial point of the thread regarding how one trains for certain types of highly stressful encounters e.g. quick, continuous attacks with intent. Without training the mind and body in a manner that allows it to gradually enter the realm of this sort of stress and experience the effects of low to high stress situations upon the self, then one never truly understands what is lacking, and hence what is required to deal with these situations.

I agree with Charles H. that Aikido is about expanding capabilites. But how does one expand something when one does not first test or check to find the limits of that which one is attempting to expand? It's sort of like learning to swim without ever seeing or touching water imho.

David: I just thought I'd let you know that your earlier posts on this thread regarding the psychological links to responses such as laughter, denial, quitting etc. has really helped me to make my own drills even more targeted and address certain previously unforeseen student needs. It has helped to add a whole new dimension and awareness to the feedback aspect of my teaching approach. Arigato Gozaimasu.

Keep those thoughts coming.

Happy training all.
LC:ai::ki:

[toyamabarnard]

If I may, I'd like to touch on a few points:

I agree wholeheartedly that a lot of training in kata with each other is an excellent way to build trust. It is my belief however that that is also part of the problem with these types of drills. To have someone that I know and trust attack me does not seem in order. I believe this is where many of the psychological issues may stem from. In these drills it is necessary, for me at least, NOT to think of my "attacker" as someone I know and trust, and to detach myself from that harmony I share with this person. While it is impossible to create the feelings of "UN-safety" and maliciousness that would be presented in a real life situation, I find it very important to think of these attacks as coming from an opponent. After all I would have to call these drills much more psychological than physical in nature and while we are all aware of the physical effects an attack can have it is difficult to understand the psychological response we react to the situation with unless we've dealt with it before. In order to truly follow the path we must use Aikido both inside and outside of the Dojo. In time do we not change the way we breath, the way we walk, the way we look at the world outside of the Dojo? We begin to take a different outlook on everything as time progresses, of course, because this is the way we chose to follow. If I train as if I was always in harmony, I'd have little idea what to do when my harmony became disrupted.

Also I agree that 2 beginners are more likely to join if left to do so. This has obvious benefits of course such as progressing together. I also believe it is very important for, not only instructors, but senior students to try and bring newer members in. It was difficult for me walking in to understand the relationships between Aikidoka at my school. While there was camaraderie where I had trained previously, it was nowhere near to this. I believe that this too is part of the fundamental nature of Aikido. To bring a new student to this level of understanding is also one of our responsibilities.

I have also seen people leave because they couldn't accept the closeness shared between all those at the Dojo. I've had people I've never met tell me if there's anything they can do to help just ask (people that meant it), and on more than a few occasions been told that I'm welcome to train somewhere if I'm ever in town, even though I don't pay dues there. On a few occasions when times were rougher for me and thought I would have to take several weeks or months away I was told It to "bring what you can when you can". I've even had friends I've known for many years who did not train question the way I interact with other Aikidoka. It has been beyond me to explain these things to them though I try.

Friendship is a complicated thing to explain, but I feel I have a duty to my friends that follow the way (i.e. all of us) to help them to the extant I can along their path. This includes discussing philosophy, listening if they have a problem, or stepping up the pressure when the time is right. I would hope my friends feel the same.

As a former Law Enforcement Officer, it was standard learning to study the adrenaline dump (Through PPCT combat and the effects on the body and mind actually). I do not push this statistical knowledge at anyone, but I found it interesting to study. The content of the material I had was confined to basically Police Officers under duress. As we all know there are many factors to be taken in. By focusing (Centering, staying calm etc..) we can have some effect on the bodies systems. The human is a complex thing and the body can "learn" to do the "impossible". While we must still train the body, my opinion (though it may be wrong) is that it is also as important to train the mind and spirit (or train the mind and spirit to train the body).

Anyone can learn to fight, many can learn to fight and "win". I follow this path not to fight, but to overcome any of life's confrontations by bringing them to my Way, our Way. Sorry if I went a little astray.

[AikiSean!]

Was anyone else surprised at how easily he got on that fake armbar? Promising!

[senshincenter]

If I may, I'd like to touch on a few points:

I agree wholeheartedly that a lot of training in kata with each other is an excellent way to build trust. It is my belief however that that is also part of the problem with these types of drills. To have someone that I know and trust attack me does not seem in order. I believe this is where many of the psychological issues may stem from. In these drills it is necessary, for me at least, NOT to think of my "attacker" as someone I know and trust, and to detach myself from that harmony I share with this person. While it is impossible to create the feelings of "UN-safety" and maliciousness that would be presented in a real life situation, I find it very important to think of these attacks as coming from an opponent. After all I would have to call these drills much more psychological than physical in nature and while we are all aware of the physical effects an attack can have it is difficult to understand the psychological response we react to the situation with unless we've dealt with it before. In order to truly follow the path we must use Aikido both inside and outside of the Dojo. In time do we not change the way we breath, the way we walk, the way we look at the world outside of the Dojo? We begin to take a different outlook on everything as time progresses, of course, because this is the way we chose to follow. If I train as if I was always in harmony, I'd have little idea what to do when my harmony became disrupted.

Also I agree that 2 beginners are more likely to join if left to do so. This has obvious benefits of course such as progressing together. I also believe it is very important for, not only instructors, but senior students to try and bring newer members in. It was difficult for me walking in to understand the relationships between Aikidoka at my school. While there was camaraderie where I had trained previously, it was nowhere near to this. I believe that this too is part of the fundamental nature of Aikido. To bring a new student to this level of understanding is also one of our responsibilities.

I have also seen people leave because they couldn't accept the closeness shared between all those at the Dojo. I've had people I've never met tell me if there's anything they can do to help just ask (people that meant it), and on more than a few occasions been told that I'm welcome to train somewhere if I'm ever in town, even though I don't pay dues there. On a few occasions when times were rougher for me and thought I would have to take several weeks or months away I was told It to "bring what you can when you can". I've even had friends I've known for many years who did not train question the way I interact with other Aikidoka. It has been beyond me to explain these things to them though I try.

Friendship is a complicated thing to explain, but I feel I have a duty to my friends that follow the way (i.e. all of us) to help them to the extant I can along their path. This includes discussing philosophy, listening if they have a problem, or stepping up the pressure when the time is right. I would hope my friends feel the same.

As a former Law Enforcement Officer, it was standard learning to study the adrenaline dump (Through PPCT combat and the effects on the body and mind actually). I do not push this statistical knowledge at anyone, but I found it interesting to study. The content of the material I had was confined to basically Police Officers under duress. As we all know there are many factors to be taken in. By focusing (Centering, staying calm etc..) we can have some effect on the bodies systems. The human is a complex thing and the body can "learn" to do the "impossible". While we must still train the body, my opinion (though it may be wrong) is that it is also as important to train the mind and spirit (or train the mind and spirit to train the body).

Anyone can learn to fight, many can learn to fight and "win". I follow this path not to fight, but to overcome any of life's confrontations by bringing them to my Way, our Way. Sorry if I went a little astray.

Brian,

An excellent post - if you will allow me to say so. Many thanks for sharing your thoughts here.

david

[Chuck Clark]

Brian,

I also appreciated your post. It sounds as though you're part of a good dojo. Familar stuff to me and many others. I'm sure you'd always be welcome in many of our dojo.

Gambatte!