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Having my friend start Aikido is an interesting experience for me. I see him working hard on getting to 6th kyu and here's me at first kyu thinking that in order to improve I need to remove myself from my Aikido.
The gap between the two seems overwhelmingly vast.
Ever watched a dog shake itself dry? Notice how it shakes itself from front to back? Notice how that kinda looks like a wave is rippling through it's body.
I was in the kitchen making tea and while I was waiting I was going through irimi nage and I caught my relection in the door and I have this wave that starts about my knees and ripples up through my body when I do irimi nage.
Then I was doing a henka of ryoto dori tenchi nage and again I noticed this wave, although it's different to irimi nage.
Harmony, Non-contention, Non-confrontation and Non-resistance:
The Aiki Way of Life.
I've said elsewhere that studying Aikido, or any martial art, purely for self-defence or to acquire fighting skills is a bit pointless. It's akin to walking around with a life jacket on in the off chance there's a flood because it's so rare to be physically threatened. If anything Aikido has prevented more fights than it's won because it's given people what I'm about to talk about here; put simply Aikido is the gateway to a powerful way of handling life.
Often people, me included, decide that we need to study a martial art to feel safe, we like the idea that we can develop fighting skills that will keep us safe from the dangers we feel we are potentially facing. We like the idea that we can become more powerful than others, more in control than others. For a human being to keep training for this reason is really quite difficult; they need a real sense of paranoia, an actual genuine fear that they could be attacked despite the reality that they never are attacked.
The rest of us, often uncomfortably, come to the realisation that in training to fight we're training for an event that probably won't happen. It's not easy acknowledging that your amazing fighting skills have no purpose because there is no-one to fight when you may have spent years, decades even, developing them. Often martial artists will solve this apparent problem by seeking someone to fight, they'll climb into the ring t
...More
Blueberry and jasmine twist, that's what real Aikidoka's keikogis smell off yeah, smell the machoness of my keikogi. Fabric softner is a must for any keikogi, it's not in any way optional, well, not for those of us that enjoy having skin.
Harmony, Non-contention, Non-confrontation and Non-resistance:
The Aiki Way of Life.
I've said elsewhere that studying Aikido, or any martial art, purely for self-defence or to acquire fighting skills is a bit pointless. It's akin to walking around with a life jacket on in the off chance there's a flood because it's so rare to be physically threatened. If anything Aikido has prevented more fights than it's won because it's given people what I'm about to talk about here; put simply Aikido is the gateway to a powerful way of handling life.
Often people, me included, decide that we need to study a martial art to feel safe, we like the idea that we can develop fighting skills that will keep us safe from the dangers we feel we are potentially facing. We like the idea that we can become more powerful than others, more in control than others. For a human being to keep training for this reason is really quite difficult; they need a real sense of paranoia, an actual genuine fear that they could be attacked despite the reality that they never are attacked.
The rest of us, often uncomfortably, come to the realisation that in training to fight we're training for an event that probably won't happen. It's not easy acknowledging that your amazing fighting skills have no purpose because there is no-one to fight when you may have spent years, decades even, developing them. Often martial artists will solve this apparent problem by seeking someone to fight, they'll climb into the ring t
...More
I'm still writing it but this is what I have so far, eventually it'll get philosophical
I've said elsewhere that studying Aikido, or any martial art, purely for self-defence or to acquire fighting skills is a bit pointless. It's akin to walking around with a life jacket on in the off chance there's a flood because it's so rare to be physically threatened. If anything Aikido has prevented more fights than it's won because it's given people what I'm about to talk about here; put simply Aikido is the gateway to a powerful way of handling life.
Often people, myself included, decide that we need to study a martial art to feel safe, we like the idea that we can develop skills that will keep us safe from the dangers we feel we are potentially facing. For a human being to keep training for this reason is really quite difficult; they need a real sense of paranoia, an actual genuine fear that they could be attacked despite the reality that they never are attacked.
The rest of us, often uncomfortably, come to the realisation that in training to fight we're training for an event that probably won't happen. It's not easy acknowledging that your amazing fighting skills have no purpose because there is no-one to fight when you may have spent years, decades even, developing them. Often martial artists will solve this apparent problem by seeking someone to fight, they'll climb into the ring to beat someone up to justify learning how to fight, and often in the name of "realistic training
...More
There's a definate martial arts way of looking at the world and it's distinct from how normal people view it. If a coat is stolen the normal person blames the thief but the martial artist blames themself for not putting the coat somewhere safe.
Where do people get this 1v1 bollocks? I've noticed that Americans talk about 1v1 more than Brits do so I'm wondering if there's some kind of cultural thing to it.
Here in the UK though, and you can see this any thursday, friday or saturday night in any town centre, most fighting is group on group.
People here will literally jump into a fight for the fun of it.
This is partly why I don't buy the BJJ stuff. They say no-one can fight off three people to cover their asses because they can't do it. Uh right, come to the UK I'll introduce you to people that can do it.
Well actually I'll point them out from the other side of the bar.
Here people that are untrained but can throw three punches and down three guys are reasonably common.
I grew up in a pub; I've seen this on many occasions. If what the Gracies say is true they'd better not decide to become publicans in the UK, their career would probably be over in hours.
The local hooligans would hear that there's a new gaffer down at the fox and dogs and immediately, as they do, go to see how hard he is. I wouldn't give any of the Gracies 12 hours. Seriously.
So she grabs my wrist and says, "help me up" so I pulled. Now to me this pull felt gentle, I was totally relaxed, but still pulled her onto her feet and all the way across the room. The first I knew of it was when she went flying past me squeeling.
I feel like a kid in a sweet shop with this stuff. Well sorta. I can't conciously do it but doing it by accident is becoming more frequent.
Or like I can do it first time, but not the second time.
03-25-2010 06:27 PM 
Fabric softner is a must for any keikogi, it's not in any way optional, well, not for those of us that enjoy having skin.
