View Single Post
Old 04-28-2010, 06:50 PM   #46
Mark Gleadhill
Dojo: York
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 5
United Kingdom
Offline
Re: Favorite Partners

When we train, or at least when we started all the high grades stood at one side of the mats and the low grades stood at the other. After every technique the lower grades would rotate around so we would be with a different higher grade every time. As we've gotten better as a club (student club) people intermingle a lot more but we still do the rotation thing to keep new partners working in and out. We try and keep the higher grades at one side still but due to numbers we have lower grades on that side of the mat too.

When we do randori practice (I'm a shodokan Aikidoka) there is people I do much prefer to train with, because I know they are giving it as much as me. The whole iron sharpens iron thing. If people are scared going in to attack/ defend then that's throwing your practice off too.

The best partner isn't always someone you train with. I just won a Gold Medal for my Nage No Kata at the Shodokan Student Nationals with a partner I met 5 mintues beforehand, due to lack of full teams. Both without partners we were placed together, and with a couple of run through's we won the comp.

Providing both Uke and Tori give it there best, and you try and learn from every situation, then every partner is a potential good one, as far as I've found.
  Reply With Quote