View Single Post
Old 07-02-2012, 02:30 PM   #12
D-Ring
Dojo: Aikido of Sacramento
Location: Berkeley
Join Date: Oct 2008
Posts: 19
United_States
Offline
Re: Vetting Our Skills

Quote:
Peter Rehse wrote: View Post
Cooperative vs Competitive do we really understand the difference.
I think most of us understand the difference between cooperative and competitive. In cooperative practice (traditional kihon waza) both partners are there for the express purpose of nage executing a technique. Both parties have implicitly consented to this technique. Nage knows he's throwing, uke knows he's falling. I realize there are variations on the theme (resistance, counters, multiple attackers, etc) but the basic formula is the same. Everybody knows what to expect. Everybody knows who is supposed to be taking the fall. In this practice everyone is successful when nage applies their technique.

In competitive practice each partner is pursuing their own goal exclusive of the other guy. One person wins, one person loses. You know for a fact your technique worked because the other person was trying to get you instead instead of falling.

If you've never tried to put your technique on someone without their consent how do you know how good you really are? In my experience the cooperative training model doesn't always give students a realistic sense of their own skill level. Even when uke isn't being an aiki-bunny there's a level of intent that is missing when there is no possibility of failure.

Dave
  Reply With Quote