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Old 12-01-2013, 07:06 PM   #1
Amassus
 
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Dojo: Aikido Musubi Ryu/ Yoshin Wadokan
Location: Hamilton
Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 306
New Zealand
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The uke/nage paradigm

Hello all

I have been thinking about compliant uke in aikido and why we seem to have a lot of cases where uke 'takes a fall' during training.

I practised aikido for nine years and then moved into a koryu. In classic budo, the uke/uchitachi is the senior partner and the person doing the technique is the junior. In this case it is uke's job to 'teach' nage by providing problems to solve in his or her technique. This does not mean being immovable or being completely compliant. It means making the technique just hard enough for nage.

This is where some aikido dojo go wrong IMHO. Uke becomes a ragdoll to be thrown around and the nage learns that is the way to do the technique. We then get aikidoka who move without a strong base or any decent connection with uke and think they are doing good technique.

I sometimes wonder that if we could go back to the originals roles of thrower and receiver, whether this would help?

Thoughts?

Dean.

"flows like water, reflects like a mirror, and responds like an echo." Chaung-tse
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