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Old 10-19-2012, 11:29 AM   #70
Rob Watson
Location: CA
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 697
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Re: Aiki vs useless waza ?

Quote:
Rupert Atkinson wrote: View Post
Fall apart? Well, I don't think it was ever intended to be whatever 'together' might mean. Katas - such as the Jo kata - are just collections of ideas/principles. If you don't suss out what they are and then take the principles on board by practising them in other contexts then all you have is the form. How could you possibly expect to be able to use a Jo in combat by just practising kata? Of course, that is all they give us, and so, with that in mind, it is up to us to go figure out what to do with these new principles we discover.
Quote:
Peter Gröndahl wrote: View Post
I dont think that Rob was thinking of "using a Jo in combat" when talking about fall apart but rather the way that aikiken/aikijo is designed to instill a specific way to move, and it´s that specific way of moving that falls apart. Does a boxer stop moving like boxer under pressure?
Well, yes and no. I mean, martial arts are not for reading tea leaves. Kata is an established vehicle to transmit hard earned lessons from combat. Certainly kata alone cannot convey the complete lesson. Lesson learned in kata are a foundation to build upon.

Working the progression from suburi to kata to paired practice in ki no nagare mode and then randori (honestly how many actually practice randori with weapons or completely unstructured freestyle with weapons) and finding a distinct lack of continuity in tranferable skills leaves large questions in my mind.

On the other hand learning specific methods of body conditioning as a foundation there is an ever increasingly obvious transfer of skills so I find less need to study waza and more need to rebuild the foundation to achieve the 'aiki that make waza just appear'. I already know plenty of waza that I know works considerably less effectively that I believe is should and I do not see more practice of said waza as an efficient means to improvement. The more I concentrate efforts on body conditioning to create aiki the waza does actually become more effective and efficient.

Waza is not useless ... I just do not find it enough to further me along my journey.

"In my opinion, the time of spreading aikido to the world is finished; now we have to focus on quality." Yamada Yoshimitsu

Ultracrepidarianism ... don't.
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