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Old 02-14-2003, 09:52 PM   #61
ikkainogakusei
Location: All over CA
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 137
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Quote:
Karen Kujo (Kujo) wrote:
It reminds me of how I play with the fear edge when I train.<snip> The other night we were doing a shomenuchi kokyunage<snip>I knew I could physically do it, but the fear was making me break my momentum and was very frustrating. Then when I was nage, sensei started talking to the class while I was in mid-throw. I thought, "oh sh*t!" and suddenly I had executed a perfect throw and my partner was grinning at me. Sensei looked in my direction and said, "...just like that!" The class laughed, and I replayed what Sensei said that had broken my concentration (and my phobia): "Move confidently!" BAM! "...just like that!"

My partner later said, "of course that throw was perfect -- sensei stopped you from getting in your own way!"

Breaking through inhibitions? Letting the ki flow better? Both sound plausible to me.
kujo
Sure. Another aspect is the 'you think too much' factor. Not you necessarily, we haven't trained together. Pardon me whilst I relate a story.

About a year ago I had gone back to the first Aikido dojo where I had trained. There was an uchideshi there who obviously didn't know me from Adam and seemed to have a look on his face like 'I'm going to tell you why you should train at this school.' At that moment an old friend had come up to say hello. He introduced me as his first teacher and since he was a well established yudansha, the uchideshi paused with an 'oh' expression. I think I was given a little too much deference, but I think that's what my friend found entertaining.

I explained that I have had to limit my training greatly because I was going to school, explaining the kinesiology thing. With that the deshi immedaitely asked me to give him a biomechanical breakdown of a movement he found difficult. To this I gave him the Kinesiologic version of 'You think too much'. It's called (by some) Bernstein's Paradox. He asked the question 'How can our brain hold so much information for so many movements?' He came up with the assertion of our brains having what he called

'coordinative structures'.

Okay this is an oversimplification but here goes: You begin to learn a task, and a significant part of learning that task is doing the task. While you are trying out all the possible movements to execute it, your brain is acting like Michelangelo to David and carving away all the things you don't need to do, until you develop this coordinative structure. Part of this is making neurological 'batch-files' which will execute the task without you having to actively think of every little element. E.G. when was the last time you thought, 'uh, walk...okay I need to pick up my right foot, equalize my balance while I swing my left leg...' and so on? Rather, you just think 'walk' and it happens.

So sometimes when you are doing a task which you are not confident you know, some of that batch file processing in your brain is hindered by this micromanagement your consciousness is asserting.

So I don't know this to be true, but it might be that the shock induced by your sensei, broke your active mind of it's control of your movement, and allowed your body to do its thing. As your partner said.

Mabe.

Food for thought.


Last edited by ikkainogakusei : 02-14-2003 at 09:56 PM.
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