Heehee, love this thread
My husband once practiced kaiten nage with somebody of lower rank than him. Just before the throw the kohai said to him "But at this point I could bite your ankle!"
Hubby smiled and replied: "You probably could. But didnīt you see my knee right in front of your nose? What would you reckon would be more painful - a bite in the ankle or a knee in your face?"
I used to get terribly upset with people like that (and still do sometimes). Just last weekend I practiced with a kohai. We were doing a version of nikkyo shown by the teacher. Or at least I was, as kohai was not doing what was being shown. Anyway, I kept my mouth shut about it as I think that I should only correct somebody if asked for help.
All of a sudden this guy started correcting me on a very minor detail. Normally I would have gotten all upset and would have started a discussion with him. But then I remembered somebody here at aikiweb saying once "less chat, more mat" and instead I let the next technique sit properly. Kohai collapsed to my feet and shut up.
I have only been able to do this recently, because before I would have been scared to hurt uke, but now that my technique (at least that one
) is better, I can actually apply it strongly without putting uke in danger.
This seems a very easy way of dealing with people like that and it certainly feels good afterwards, but I canīt help feeling that it is also a somewhat macho way of dealing with that problem. Unfortunately I am not enlightened enough to find a better way yet.
With beginners it can be a whole different story though. Often their attack is "wrong" or they turn out of a technique (sometimes to prove that they know better, sometimes simply because they donīt know better or are even trying to be helpful). I have just started to teach my first beginnerīs course and find this a difficult question, too. So far, I have had good succes trying to show people that by turning out or attacking wrong (e.g. shomen uchi with straight arm, etc) they actually put themselves in a worse position or leave themselves open for atemi, etc. This has helped so far, but I havenīt had any particularly hard cases of newbie-delusions-of-grandeur
