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Old 09-04-2013, 08:32 AM   #17
Janet Rosen
 
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Join Date: May 2002
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Re: Techniques are dead: Living movement vs dead technique

Quote:
Mary Malmros wrote: View Post
That aside...I was thinking the other day about a practice partner who struggles greatly in partner weapons practice -- much more so than in solo weapons practice or in body art. As it happens, this person also tends to verbalize a lot, not chit-chat but verbalizing what he's doing. After years of practicing with this partner, it finally occurred to me that this verbalizing may be what's getting in his way -- that the act of verbalizing is engaging a part of his brain that is interfering with the ability to do the technique. I think the next time we practice, I'm going to try and find a tactful way of suggest he experiment with simply not talking, and that while it will doubtless be really hard at first, I have a hunch it will make for better practice.
Some of us have to do that in order to learn. There is not a weapons kata I ever learned successfully with out making written notes and following them at home step by step over and over. There was not a single aikido "basic technique" that, when first learning the gross movements, I was able to learn the basics of without parsing them into tiny pieces and murmuring aloud what to do with my body.
I do find it curious that he has never stopped doing that, though. It may be that it has become pure habit and isn't actually necessary or it may be that he is neurologically wired to need to do that. Worth a VERY gentle exploration with him.

Janet Rosen
http://www.zanshinart.com
"peace will enter when hate is gone"--percy mayfield
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