Now, I am pretty sure, if I protect my balance and raise my awareness and start boxing, very few Shodans in my dojo will be able to defend properly. In a recent training in the dojo, with knife attacks, the nage could simply not perform the technique, because I didn't want to give my balance away. And you know what the nage said? I was not "committed" enough.. Apparently, the cooperative confines of Aikido need an uke who has no sense of their body, balance and improvisation abilities. and this is called "committed". In my dictionary, committed means a person who does all they can in their abilities to perform something. And giving my balance away, or leaving my hand/arm hanging forever (instead of pulling back) for nage to grab is not commitment. It is illusion. I know this will come back to the necessity of Kata discussion, but the problem is that even in Randori, neither real commitment nor real atemi is used.