Thread: Beautiful Uke
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Old 03-10-2011, 07:35 PM   #33
JO
Dojo: Aikikai de l'Université Laval
Location: Sainte-Catherine-de-la-J.-C., Québec
Join Date: Jun 2000
Posts: 292
Canada
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Re: Beautiful Uke

Interestingly, I just had a discussion on this topic with someone who commented on my nidan exam.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2ktVfruPnQ

He felt I wasn't blending enough and sent me this link, in a private message, to give me an idea of what he meant by good blending:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ4Lqc6K97Q

My response was to point out that one of the big differences between the exams, was the behaviour of the ukes. In his example, the techniques are nice and smooth but uke is doing half the work. In my exam, the ukes are still attacking cooperatively, but there is much more weight behind their attacks and I even have to change up techniques when they refuse to just fall over.

On a seperate note, one should be careful of idealizing "real" attacks or ukemi as if this meant anything. I often deal with people who give an untrained response, their called beginners and tend to fall like stiff boards, though there are exceptions. People from other "throwing/takedown" oriented arts like judo have their own training, but it could also be considered stylized. One thing I'll say about judoka though is that they tend to be quite good at not falling. I mean, what is considered a good fall in aikido is an instant loss in a judo match.

What I try to work on is not giving up your center, make nage work for it. I spent much of Wednesday night showing beginners not to fall over when giving a shomen strike, but to be ready and in a position to strike again. Why is this so hard a concept for newbies to catch. And why is it that even beginners with some prior training in striking arts still give the stiff, leave the arm hanging there strikes. You'd think they would try give us the benefit of their experience. Need to find some people with boxing experience, they're usually less inclined to be overly cooperative (I speak from having a sister that used to do kickboxing and something her club called streetwise jiu jitsu).

I try to maintain my center and keep myself in a position to counter-attack, whetherr or not I do depends on who I'm training with and the type of training (basic waza vs jiyu waza). But I rarely go through a turn with someone without showing them a few holes in their technique, even in basic waza. I'm working on getting my partners to do the same back to me. But some stubbornly keep jumping over my back in koshi nage or continuing with the ukemi even after I have stopped moving. Still not sure why.

Jonathan Olson
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