Thread: Cross Training
View Single Post
Old 08-29-2016, 12:42 AM   #24
Alec Corper
 
Alec Corper's Avatar
Dojo: Itten Suginami Dojo, Nunspeet
Location: Wapenveld
Join Date: Apr 2003
Posts: 350
Netherlands
Offline
Re: Cross Training

Cross training will definitely improve your aikido if you have a solid base and are clear that aikido is your core art. If you merely add techniques to a bag of other techniques you will end up with a mess. The way to cross train successfully IMO is to focus clearly on the art you are trying to learn and seek to identify the principles of movement and power generation and absorption within that art. Gradually you can try to see "the system within the system" as Datu Kelly Worden often calls it. Working from the outside to the inside, I.e. Learning techniques and skills to create a responsive body will lead to inside out work, mind leading energy leading body. Each person chooses what they consider to most important to them. For me it used to be perfecting the "forms" of aikido but now I am far more interested in the spontaneous aspects of the art. My last teacher, Hiroshi Kato, frequently spoke about the "feeling" of ikkyo, nikkyo, sankyo, etc. as expressed both in tachiwaza and bukiwaza, as being the same energy shapes. A close study of other arts, especially combat arts rather than sports, will reveal the range of most effective usage of the body. I believe that staying within one system only can lead to huge assumptions about what you have really developed and a good doe of humility never hurts. This is the value of testing (sometimes competing), not to win but to lose and see your own suki.

Last edited by Alec Corper : 08-29-2016 at 12:46 AM.

If your temper rises withdraw your hand, if your hand rises withdraw your temper.
  Reply With Quote