Re: Why bother keeping Aikido 'pure'?
"Compliant uke" has been a fairly consistent complaint for as long as people have been arguing about Aikido on the internet. It seems to come most often from people who like wrestling. In my experience, as long as the instructors foster neither a "you must never resist technique and must always take the fall" nor a "never take a fall unless the technique works" attitude, things just work themselves out.
Beginners get on the mat, people take a fall of them so they can get the feel for what the results of the technique are supposed to be. Then when its their turn to be uke, they take the fall to learn to take the fall.
When they get more advanced, you are basically always willing to take a fall, but if they aren't giving you anything to work with, you don't. When it's their turn, you dial it up a bit if they can take it.
Then when advanced people work together, sometimes you show each other that such and such a thing doesn't work on you. Sometimes you give each other time and space to innovate.
If you look at the antecedent systems of Aikido, uke may not be "compliant" but he is certainly cooperative in general practice. To the extent that uke will allow you to apply a painful join lock or choke. There is no other safe way to train moves that are meant to cause serious injury. In regular practice you can't just decide to break someone's neck - even if you teach counters, if uke doesn't know what's coming, accidents will happen. Aikido has softer techniques that allow for practice to involve spontaneity without lots of injury.
|