Quote:
Janet Rosen wrote:
That is not an acceptable learning paradigm for those of us who canNOT muscle through.
I almost always have had instructors, yes even as a relative newbie, who could suggest alternatives to correct my technique that did not involve muscling through. And it is those alternatives I must suggest to my juniors when I'm in a senior role, since I cannot teach muscling through.
The generally involve corrections to position or angle relative to center line, to connection of center to hand/arm, to posture, to movement or to extension.
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I am just saying this is the natural progression in the training, using muscle strength to using aiki. It's not a learning paradigm, you can't prevent it from happening. All of us have used muscle strength when we were beginners, even now at mid-yudansha level people I know with some techniques because some of the technical details have yet to be discovered. Even if a sensei is excellent in teaching how to get unstuck, a student can only take so much information and progress so much Good progress can only happen through a lot of repetitions, self-analysis and self-correction.
I've never met anyone who was a beginner and never muscled his/her way through a technique once resistance is offered. Otherwise, the uke is being too compliant and they are just fooling themselves. Pretty dangerous situation if you'll need to apply it in realistic situations. Yes, you can teach muscling through but you also need to teach the aiki way.
IMHO, we need to be able to differentiate between a muscled through technique and one using aiki, otherwise, how would we start to understand the concept of aikido and how could we teach the correct technique to the juniors? For me, it's easier for somebody to understand if I teach it 2 ways: the wrong and right way but its just how I work. Teach only the correct way and they are bound to partner with somebody later who can resist their technique and later find out that the"correct" technique is not entirely correct.