Thread: Full Resistance
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Old 08-11-2008, 02:19 PM   #11
ChrisHein
 
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Dojo: Aikido of Fresno
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Re: Full Resistance

Always so much confusion about this...

When people are pitting themselves against each other (a fight) there are two factors that cannot be overlooked: desire to win, and ability (technical skill, experience, physicality etc.).

Looking at the “bad Judo” comment. If you see high level Judoka, doing Judo at a highly competitive level, it looks like “bad Judo” (from the outside). Both competitors are very able, and have a true desire to win the match. Neither has the clear advantage in ability, or drive, so it becomes a tussle for grips and small advantages. This keeps the spectacular throws and clean technique down to a minimum.

If you compare this to a Judo newbie doing randori with the sensei you’ll get a different scenario. The newbie maybe full of desire to win the match, but he is no where near the ability level of the teacher, so he will be thrown in spectacular fashion time and again. Even though he has the desire, he lacks the ability. So the teacher even half trying can effortlessly defeat newbie time and again.

Another example would be when two competitors of equal ability match, but one is seriously invested in winning, while the other really doesn’t want to win. Sometimes you see this in competitive martial arts like Judo, but this can more often be seen in a street fight. When one guy wants to win at any cost, and the other just doesn’t want to get hurt. The one with less desire will almost always lose, even if he has more ability then his attacker.

In Aikido the uke never has the desire to “win”. So this makes it easy for nage to throw uke, even if uke is “better” then nage. This is why white belts can toss black belts with such beautiful throws. This is why Aikido always looks the way it does, there is no desire for uke to defeat nage.

The desire to “win” often makes it impossible to use clean, effortless technique. You’ll see during the match that if you just force this, or that a little bit, you could achieve victory. Now a philosophical argument could be made that, if you’d just give up your desire to “win”, you could always have clean effective technique. That is true, but then you’ll have to face the fact that if you ever get into a fight with someone with slightly less ability then you, but much more desire to win, you’ll always lose. When your children's lives are on the line that’s not really an option, you want to win.

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