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Old 10-28-2008, 10:26 AM   #1
dave9nine
Dojo: Aikido Institute - Oakland
Location: Oakland
Join Date: Feb 2008
Posts: 80
United_States
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formal "class" as a supplement to keiko?

Hi.
I've been thinking about this for a while, but may not have it all articulated well yet, so bear with me.
There's a few ways to approach this topic, but ill go with this:
ive trained in several places, and one phenomenon that always comes back around is that of the amount of talking that goes on during training; how much should go on? how much is too much? should we be able to train without ANY talking?
I think this goes for the instructor leading the class and demonstrating technique, AND for the class itself during training.
As we probably all have seen, different instructors/personalities engage in varying degrees of 'explanation.' Some are quite good at demonstrating technique with minimal speech, while others need to express their thoughts verbally a lot more--and may be quite eloquent while doing so.

While this topic of the appropriate level of talk on the mat is a discussion in itself, my purpose here is to ask a side question:
Given the sophistication of the Aikido system; the philosophy, the spiritual implications, the historical context of the art, the stories of O-Sensei, the cultural context of the rituals and etiquette, the geometry of the techniques, etc., (i think all of these are what create the apparent need for people to do a lot of explaining on the mat), if your dojo offered a supplementary university-style study class before or after keiko/training, would you attend?

My idea is a classroom-type space with multi-media capablities for showing video; a drawing board for diagraming the geometry of technique, a ciriculum for teaching and learning the japanese terms, and the different facets of the art, in an intellectual way.

Do you think that having such a class would decrease the need to talk during class?

Do any of you have a similar thing already?
If so, I would love to hear about your program and your own take on it.

-dave
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