AikiWeb Aikido Forums - View Single Post - How essential is timing, and how do you develop it?

jonreading · 12-29-2014, 07:21 AM

To get a little math-y, space and time are kinda the same. As we think of timing, we are correlating a phenomenon with a place in time. Dan Messisco likes to use space anaology and talk about meeting orbits and I think that closely resembles *our* common understanding of timing. We have a primary movement which is synchronized by a secondary movement. I think as long as we are interested in synchronizing our movement, we are in the role of the secondary movement and actually not doing anything substantial - other than synchronizing ourselves with a partner.

Rather, I think what we talk about in aiki shifts our perspective from secondary movement to primary movement. Essentially, the goal becomes not to be concerned with timing, because that is the role of the secondary movement to resolve. Most of what we mistakenly call "leading" movement was intended to deliberately train this primary movement. We mucked up those exercises and now we have an uke that is colluding to let us lead an exercise.

A fun exercise George Ledyard likes to do is create a tension between partners and nage actually pressures uke to initiate or retreat. It's not that uke chooses to attack, but she actually has to attack or abdicate the space. Because of the sport-orientation, sometimes judo has a better perspective because most judo players work very hard to create the scenario that crafts their throw. Karate, too. Aikido people sometimes get caught with the "I win 4 times" mentality and uke is actually crafting the throw, which is why we call it colluding.

The "always on" mentality of the aiki body is what allows us to transcend the second-movement perspective. Since that is difficult we have other training methodology to help along the way. I am falling out of love with the word "timing" since we have difficulty expressing timing as part of a progressive training strategy and tend not to put it down once we pick it up. I have moved towards interpreting maai and daai as the observation of being in the right place at the right time, without the baggage of making that time and place happen (i.e. "doing" something to somebody).

12-29-2014, 07:21 AM	#14
jonreading Dojo: Aikido South Location: Johnson City, TN Join Date: Aug 2004 Posts: 1,209 Offline	Re: How essential is timing, and how do you develop it? To get a little math-y, space and time are kinda the same. As we think of timing, we are correlating a phenomenon with a place in time. Dan Messisco likes to use space anaology and talk about meeting orbits and I think that closely resembles our common understanding of timing. We have a primary movement which is synchronized by a secondary movement. I think as long as we are interested in synchronizing our movement, we are in the role of the secondary movement and actually not doing anything substantial - other than synchronizing ourselves with a partner. Rather, I think what we talk about in aiki shifts our perspective from secondary movement to primary movement. Essentially, the goal becomes not to be concerned with timing, because that is the role of the secondary movement to resolve. Most of what we mistakenly call "leading" movement was intended to deliberately train this primary movement. We mucked up those exercises and now we have an uke that is colluding to let us lead an exercise. A fun exercise George Ledyard likes to do is create a tension between partners and nage actually pressures uke to initiate or retreat. It's not that uke chooses to attack, but she actually has to attack or abdicate the space. Because of the sport-orientation, sometimes judo has a better perspective because most judo players work very hard to create the scenario that crafts their throw. Karate, too. Aikido people sometimes get caught with the "I win 4 times" mentality and uke is actually crafting the throw, which is why we call it colluding. The "always on" mentality of the aiki body is what allows us to transcend the second-movement perspective. Since that is difficult we have other training methodology to help along the way. I am falling out of love with the word "timing" since we have difficulty expressing timing as part of a progressive training strategy and tend not to put it down once we pick it up. I have moved towards interpreting maai and daai as the observation of being in the right place at the right time, without the baggage of making that time and place happen (i.e. "doing" something to somebody).
	Jon Reading