View Single Post
Old 09-12-2008, 03:06 AM   #99
Mark Stokmans
Dojo: Utrecht
Location: Driebergen
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 25
Netherlands
Offline
Re: Aikido and kicks

Yesterday I taught a class to a number of aikidoka with on average experiance of 5 years in aikido. I spent 15 hours on keri-waza, covering all three forms we defined in the course of our research (te waza, ashi waza and ashi-dori) for both Mae geri and Mawashi geri attacks. There were about three guys with kicking experiance. Two had had taken ukemi for me on a number of occassion and a TKD guy. The rest didn;t have that much experience.

Nevertheless we were able to train in a very constructive way. Sure, with some of the students kicks were less then perfect, but they picked p on a lot of thing quite quickly and the energy in the class was intense but wonderfully aiki. Moreover there was no injury whatsoever even though we did leg catches, and throws where breakfalls were necessary. I did a lot of stuff in that one and half hour class, really pushing them, seeing how far they could follow and at the end of the class everybody was still right there.

Obviously this is just one man's opinion but Keri-waza is aikido, there is no doubt in my mind. All you have to do is think about how you want to reach your students. Be thorough: think about the warming-up and stretching exerices, think about kicking practice (look at other MA's (like Richard Sanchez suggests) and learn from them), make your choices and figure out how you can help students by linking the Keri-waza techniques to what they already know.

Mark
  Reply With Quote