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Old 06-29-2015, 11:19 AM   #6
lbb
Location: Massachusetts
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 3,202
United_States
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Re: You are giving me the wrong energy...WTF

Robin broke it down quite well, I think. The point isn't whether uke can thwart their partner, it's whether they should. Many a time in a martial arts class I've seen a smug knows-a-little student thwart their beginner partner by cheating in small ways. This serves no purpose except to inflate the ego of the cheater -- unwisely so, I think. The only reason you succeed in such situations is because your partner is playing by the rules and you're breaking them, not because your partner's technique sucks or your attack is so devastatingly excellent. Partner training is a learning experience; if you act so that your partner can learn nothing (because they're just learning this stuff; because they need, for now, to work more slowly to get the technique correctly; because they're trying to work on a technique that is a sensible response to the attack that you should have done and chose not to), the only value you derive from the experience is ego-aggrandizement, and the only value your partner derives is to learn that you're not someone useful to train with.
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