John Matsushima

I think the best uke's are the untrained ones. The new people that come to the dojo and may or may not know how to punch, fall, roll, or defend themselves, but just do whatever they can in a very natural manner. Putting too much weight on how the uke SHOULD act and even providing training to this effect leads to our aikido becoming artificial.

In my opinion, a lot of people who put a lot of weight on deflection have got in wrong too. Merely putting your hand in front of your face doesn't work. If you are faced with an uke like this, just give a good snapping punch to his hand and watch him hit his own face with his own hand; you'll get a reaction for sure.

Some people say "the harder uke attacks, then the harder he will be thrown". This is wrong. It's this idea that leads to people being too soft in the dojo to avoid injury. Why would an uke want to attack hard with resistance if he is just going to be blamed if he sustains injury as a result of his own attack. What a lot of people here seem to be saying is that as uke, one then learns how to defend oneself while attacking. So then as uke defends against tori's technique, tori then must give a counter attack to uke's counter defense, and it keeps going and becomes... a fight, which is what we should be trying to avoid.
I think that if you are good at what you do, then you should be able to control the technique. If you believe in the idea of not hurting your attacker, then you should be able to perform your technique at full speed then without causing injury. As uke, I think its fine to do anything you want, but uke should also be able to control his attack so that it does not cause injury, and that it is not excessively aggressive. But this is not for beginners. You have learn your abc's before you start making poetry. As tori, if you have to think at all about what you are doing, then you aren't ready for resistance. Then when you are ready, and uke comes for you.....no excuses.