Quote:
Attilio Anthony John Wagstaffe wrote:
Graham, the whole point of "aikido" (or even jutsu?) is to use the least point of resistance.... That can only be achieved by your partners (in your discipline) resisting you while you find the least point of resistance..... That includes atemi don't you think? Hence the reason we use the unsoku method in T/S aikido. I found this quite easy to take to after my boxing training in the R.N. All fighting or martial arts have fundamental stances and movement no matter what part of the globe it comes from. Aikido as a grappling art is no different to judo in my opinion...  |
Hi Tony. Agreed on the points of finding least resistance and that it includes atemi.
Partners resisting thus forcing you to find those points and indeed those paths is very good training so no disagreement there.
I got invited to a Yoshinkan seminar many moons ago in Bushey, near watford and watched a great exhibition from Aikidoka from all over. It finished with the great man of Yoshinkan doing his demos which were very humourous and had the audience laughing.
However, due to how I had been trained I came away wondering why the students and most of the teachers used resistance and thus got thrown around like toys. I soon got to meet some of them as they visited our dojo, a lot of them knew my teacher and it was there I found the answer to my question.
They hadn't been taught how to hold without such resistance, how to hold in such a way that was centered, relaxed, yet unenterable by someone attacking or trying to do a technique using force. In other words they hadn't been taught the other side of the coin so to speak.
You could say that when you experience someone holding with full non-resistance you enter a whole new arena for to them they say they feel like they are bumping into a wall or something similar yet to you it feels like you are doing 'nothing' and may I say from the outside it looks so as well.
Now before you jump on me there may I say that on reading your recent comments you have experienced this. That's one thing that made me smile. I mean, if you spent all those years getting up to 4th dan then I knew you must know about this side of things to whatever degree. Am I right?
Regards.G.