|
Both Sides - my views as a student and as a MA instructor
What instructions should be given to the Uke/Tori?
For a start, the Uke should be taught to carry out an attack with commitment. Commitment does not necessary means to attack forcefully. The strike (shomen/yokomen) should be aimed at the intended target and carried out in a flowing and willing manner.
There are no "teasing" attacks in aikido as there are no competitions in Aikido. In other competitive martial arts, an artist may carry out deceptive or "dummy" attacks to test the skills of his opponent or to create an opening for the finishing strike/cut/blow. Such techniques of attack have no place in an aikido dojo. Some instructors teach their students that when attacking, the uke is required to have "Awase" -- to blend with the Nage. No doubt "Awase" is a requisite to avoid injury of any kind (spiritual as in ego or physical) to either Uke or Nage. The "Awase" of the Uke is not intended to change the course or technique of attack -- by doing so the "kumi" (drill) would become a "shiai" (duel).
O' sensei has stressed over and over again that Aikido is firstly Budo and its shell is always Budo. Hence, in Budo, when confronted with an attack the immediate response is to Step off the line of attack, next Off-balance the attacker and finally, Control the attacker. Most instructors these days have either have discarded these principles (for reasons they know best) or have not learned them in the first place or lack the skills to present them. Most time the students are wondering, "How come I could do this a moment ago but I can't do now?" or "How come I could do the technique with partner A but not with partner B?" Sometime the instructors themselves are wondering the same thing. In their analyses of what went wrong, the Uke are most times named as the culprits -- the Uke did not have Awase (not blending with the Nage). The Uke are then taught to step here or there or turn to assume an unbalanced posture so that he or she can be moved at ease by the Nage. What an insult to O sensei's art of Aikido? Aikido is not a choreographed dance or action movie scene.
IMHO, there is no such thing as two sets of separate instructions such as one for the Uke and one for the Nage for any technique to work. The role of the Uke or the "Awase" of the Uke is to acknowledge defeat and yield to defeat when already defeated. Any further resistant or attempt to overcome the defeat or impending defeat will only bring more pain. In this regard, all Uke must have the ukemi skills.
The highest level of the art of aikido per O sensei is Takemusu -- spontaneous response to an attack. Control the opponent in the quickest and shortest technique. As in Budo, strive to defeat the opponent without humiliation. Any technique having the fundamental elements of the art will always work regardless of partnering with Uke of different size/height/gender/age or training at different dojo environment. For the technique to work, one also requires the calmness of mind to assess and ascertain the presence of such fundaments. When ones mind is disturbed, the techniques seldom work and even if they do work they are done so with much excessive force. One can always judge the quality of ones instructors by reading their temperaments in the dojo. If they are quick-temper, easily angered or irritated and show their impatience or frustration with violent and excessive force on the students, then they have not reached the level of being teachers. Basically, one judges the quality of the teacher by looking at the quality of his/her students.
Generally in all martial arts (including Aikido, of course), the principles of self-defence in respond to an attack are:
Move off the line of attack (Principle of the Triangle, moving omote or ura)
Off-balance the opponent (Principle of the Circle)
Control the opponent (Principle of the Square)
To off-balance the opponent, we need to understand and apply the following Aikido Principles:
Principle of centricity
Principle of extension
Principle of sphericity
Principle of leading the mind
Aikido is a science and not a mystic art. Generally, if you have a good understanding of the above principles and a good amount of practice and training, you would be able to get a Shodan within two years. If you have been training for years and have not heard your teacher utter a word or demonstrate how these principles work, you better ask them now. The above principles are the magical formulas of Aikido. As in physics and relativity, each scenario requires one or more combinations of the formulas to work effectively.
What, if you then may ask, my teacher does not know all of the above principles yet he/she could successfully carry out the techniques? Some people learn by perceptions and then they teach others based on their perceived understanding of the art or teachings by O sensei. Aikido is a martial art that offers hundreds of perceptions. The danger of perceptions is that sometime you are right and sometime you are wrong and when one teaches based on perceptions both rights and wrongs are passed down. In an isolated group, most times you perceive that a technique is 100% workable but unless you train with someone outside your group you may find your technique jammed up because that someone may offered you a different "Awase".
Many times people have asked me whether Aikido is a good martial art to train for self-defence. My answer has always been - "When it comes to self-defence, it is a question of seeking the right teacher not the right Art". Someone wrote somewhere -- "If you cannot find someone to teach you the right skill, then you are better off not training at all" -- or something to that effect.
Happy seeking or training.
Regards.
|