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Old 08-31-2006, 11:59 AM   #32
Don_Modesto
Dojo: Messores Sensei (Largo, Fl.)
Location: Florida
Join Date: Mar 2001
Posts: 1,267
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Re: Dealing with a jerk...

Quote:
Kevin Wilbanks wrote:
The other day we were doing a knife takeaway and I had a partner who seriously resisted my doing the technique....all the smart-ass stuff he was doing to demonstrate how badly I was doing the technique was a violation of the parameters of the training scenario.
I had a guy doing this with KUMIIAI once. The defense consisted of entering on the attacker's upswing. He was being too clever by half, beginning with his BOKKEN in JODAN. I, not being able to do the technique, simple thrust into his belly. His insolence frustrated, we left, muttering.

Good riddance.
Quote:
This was just ordinary practice and I was trying to work out the technique - not reality testing. All of his gotcha nonsense was predicated on the assumption that I would not use atemi - punch him in the face, snap his knee or instep, etc... As a higher ranking sensei here has often said, without atemi, any technique is resistable.
Quote:
Kevin Wilbanks wrote:
violation of the parameters of the training scenario.
Actually, while partners like you suffered irritate me, too, they are also useful.

Some people dismiss kata entirely (Bruce Lee?) But if you always have tenacious resistance, you cannot develop clean technique. At some point, you HAVE to do kata, you have to GO THROUGH THE MOTIONS.

OTOH, I personally think we may do too much of this in aikido. I think aikido defenses against weapons are very misleading to practitioners and we ought to be getting stabbed by those wooden knives a lot more than we do in order to convey how dicey and unlikely disarming someone really is to folks with us for self-defense rather than philosophy. An argument could be made for making all aikido practice a lot messier.

So in the original conflict, I think both parties had arguments. Kevin, for kata, the "asshole" for realism (not doubting for a moment Kevin's contention that the partner was all about ego--I've run into too many like this to doubt it.)

Quote:
Don Magee wrote:
I know you are trying to work a single technique, but my advice is to just change the technique. Make it work by just changing to something he is not resisting. Blend with him. It will make you better.
I agree and do this.

Unfortunately, you may run into the teacher's ego here. I've had more than one come by and chide me for doing something different than he had divinely dispensated to the class. Geez, at some point, the rubber's gotta hit the road. With TAKEMUSU AIKI the ideal, we can realistically ask if it's not explicitly prohibited in most teachers' classes.

TOPIC FOR ANOTHER THREAD: When is HENKA WAZA hunky-dori?

( http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/newthr...=newthread&f=1 )

Quote:
Roman Kremianski wrote:
This is why I avoid giving advice even to lower-ranking people then me. Even with the best of intents, you can still be seen as an asshole by some.
Yes. Me, too. I wait until I'm asked.

Don J. Modesto
St. Petersburg, Florida
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