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Old 10-20-2009, 07:23 AM   #10
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Re: Measuring IP within kata

Quote:
Ernesto Lemke wrote: View Post
It would be interesting to see if, in your post-IT training phase (and I don't mean one ever reaches a point when one is 'done', merely thinking of having a solid enough IP foundation to start picking up aikido again) you will discover ways in which to integrate IT with aikido from day one. I find this especially interesting and important when starting teaching new students.
When you have no aiki and you're looking at things from the outside, trying to develop a way of training that includes something you have no experience in and your body doesn't have the structure ... yeah, tough to integrate IT and regular aikido practice.

I've covered parts of this before, but when you're training to "blend" in regular aikido practice, you're working on timing, body positioning, applications of the body's physical weaknesses (ex. dropping someone in a "hole"), etc. These are all jujutsu based training. "Relaxing" and "being soft" aren't internal principles, as pertains to aiki, at all.

So, when training Internal Skills (IS) and trying to work on timing, body placement, etc, that sort of detracts from building those skills. It isn't that those skills aren't important, just different than aiki.

The warm ups done in Aikido are another example. Most work them as limbering up exercises, precursors to jujutsu movement in techniques, semi-centering exercises based upon physical body movements, etc. How many actually do these warm ups with a full focus on Intent driven movement? Not imagination, not thinking, but Intent driven that makes you overheat and start sweating in about a minute, all the while you've only completed about one or two repetitions of one exercise -- not five minutes of aerobic type body movement.

Looking at things now, with a minimal amount of training, but a better structured body, I can begin to see how one *might* start training both. Until I get a few more years in, though, I'm not sure how well those ideas might hold up.

One thing that I'd most definitely change is the warm up exercises. Do them Internally without all the physical jujutsu level aspects. Add shiko.

Once those are done in class, start with two partner pushing exercises. Ueshiba did them his whole life, it should be an integral part of aikido. I don't mean all those "push tests" I've seen on Youtube where the pusher barely puts any effort into the push. I mean working up to full force pushes where the pushing person is really trying to break your structure. Some of my Youtube vids show this.

And then you get to the tricky part. Applicational usage of aiki. Just how do you build a curriculum that trains this while still keeping within the realm of Ueshiba's aikido. I really want to sit down with people like Allen Beebe, Chris Moses, Bill Gleason, Rob Liberti, etc to talk to them about how they're doing things. Distance and time don't seem to line up right. One day.
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