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Originally posted by Erik
There's been a lot of weapon's threads so I thought, "why not add another."
The other night I led a class which began with 100 bokken cuts, moved to a couple of drills and finished with one of the ASU kumitachi. There was probably a total of 400+/- cuts. I have been told that it was too much by some of the students. In fairness, the bokken isn't used much in our dojo but I actually thought I was keeping it way toned down.
Am I nuts? That doesn't seem like a lot to me but clearly others saw it differently.
Thoughts?
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What? I am sorry. First, you didn't even push them as far as the workout was concerned. It takes me about a half an hour to do one thousand cuts and as Chuck Clark sensei says it is important to put real attention on each one as much as possible. But second, are you training at one of those places where every body gets to comment and make judgements about what is being taught? I once had experience teaching in an environment in which every body felt that they should have an opinion about everything. I never taught a single technique without first thinking about who it would piss off and what flack I would take for it later. It has been my experience that if that is what is going on you will find the training degenerating into lowest common denominator Aikido. If people are being injured or humiliated in class that is cause for concern and comment. But if you've simply given them a bit of a workout that may have made their little arms tired, I don't think you should feel in any way out of line. It sounds like there is a bit of disagreement between yourself and others about what constitutes real training. If you back off you will damage your own training and spirit, ifd you don't back off the whiners will complain and eventually leave to be replaced by people who really want to train. If it is not your own dojo that may not be your call. Then you ask yourself if it's the right place for you. Just don't think it's your problem because it's not. Not on a few hundred sword cuts it's not.