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Old 06-09-2005, 10:42 PM   #232
xuzen
 
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Dojo: None at the moment - on hiatus
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 965
Malaysia
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Re: Tales of Judo Sparring Aikidoists

About 2 years ago, my sensei sensed something was wrong with our aikido practice. We were doing the traditional Yoshinkan syllabus and we fairly good with the kata/waza but suck totally with randori / jiyu waza or resistant training. So he revamped the syllabus with very heavy emphasis on free sparring or jiyu waza. It took us a short while to adjust but we managed it well eventually.

Pro:
1) Newbies and children students learn ukemi much faster than traditional route.
2) One very quickly find out what works best for oneself and apply it to their best abilities during randori session
3) Randori is arguably as close to as possible to a real fight in a dojo setting... so this method of training IMO is a better way of mentally and physically preparing one for street encounter should the need arises than the traditional way.

Con:
1) As randori progress, I do see that most students tend to repeat their favourite techniques most of the time while ignoring the whole syllabus. Sometimes from the perspective of preserving the art, I feel that we may be losing some of it.
2) Randori is chaotic and dynamic... sometimes students use muscle to force a technique through. It still work though wrt face planting uke onto the mat. But again, from the perspective of preserving the art, I feel students may shortchange themselves wrt maintaining the aiki principles.

Just my rant people. I have done the traditional waza method and currently very involved with the jiyu waza/randori type of training and I can see the pros and cons from two side of the coin. I am not sure if the Cons are applicable to the Judo people, but the cons are something that is on my mind lately. Thoughts anyone?

Boon.

Last edited by xuzen : 06-09-2005 at 10:44 PM. Reason: Grammar correction

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