Quote:
Dan Harden wrote:
Don
Asking would be a waste of time. There are levels of resistance that are profound and refined and not gross resistance. What do you think I was offering to do? I'm a gentleman. The former-is a trained skill that is demonstrable and obviously different than a 28 yr old going after a 90 yr old guy. Come on guy.
There are easy and small finite tests, larger tests, static and moving tests, and then while I am a lowly mudansha in Aikido I can fly and move quite well. So offering a shomen or a wrist grab, or just standing there and seeing if he can "suggest" I fall, can be a pleasant way to spend an afternoon for both parties. In fact I'd be willing to bet no one even breaks a sweat. 
That type of training is empty and requires conditioned responses or it will not work. It is that simple. |
I'm not saying he should be above testing. While I personally do not hold value in many of the tests aikidoka do, I am not apposed to testing instructors of any age. In that regard I have tested my judo instructor. He has done throw lines and uchi komi with me and I do not give him my balance, I do not let him throw me, i stand there. I do not however resist him attempts to throw me.
It comes down to how you define resistance. If i was to test someone's aikido with resistance, I would attack them (with permission of course). I would either attempt to use my abilities to leverage them into submission (strikes, throws, pins, submissions, etc) or I woudl define a drill to work in and use that frame work to attempt to accomplish whatever goal I was given (strike nage, take nage down, pin nage, etc) To me, resistance training is not a full force shomen strike to the gut, but rather a free form expression where I am told to strike you, but not given direction as to where to strike from, how to strike, when to strike, etc.
But I am off my point. My real point is you do not need to test an instructor to test his training methods. You can do it in two easy ways:
1) Practice his methods, try it out yourself in an alive situation and see how it holds or fails. In the case of something like this, you probably do not want to go this path (unless you have years to potentially waste). This is a great way to test a cardio workout, or a bjj technique or teaching method, not so good on this aiki stuff.
2) Find someone willing to (and a good representative of) that instructor and 'play' with them. I can tell a great deal about a persons training by how they react to a strike, or a grap, or even a single step towards them.
I am not a fan of the attempt to lock down a static technique during drills to test your partner. I wouldn't dream of for example not allowing my partner to armbar me during a armbar drill. That is the time to work on form and build up speed. The time to learn to adjust to resistance is during the alive parts. In the case of the armbar drill, we would switch to I have to pass his guard, he has to submit me or sweep. Now he can see how that armbar fits into a persons real, and not what we think a person would do, reaction.
and Ron,
I'm not injured, just stuck at work (which is basically the same thing
)