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thoughts on teaching...
Well, Chuck has an interesting swing of thoughts in the direction I would like to see more of us walk towards.
The difficulty of understanding the old ways, finding the feel of a technique while seeking its underlying subtleties while looking for adaptations to continue the future effectiveness of Aikido?
Because something does not work for us in particular situations should we change it, relearn it, or find new avenues?
There is a wealth of information in the old ways of those who have come before us in the last fifty years of western Aikido, and an almost endless supply of MA study before that. Still, as I look at the old style, try to understand what it is based upon when executed with body, mind, and spirit in harmony. I find a new wealth of questions as well as answers that fit withing many of the Chi/Ki categories that we sometimes miss in western methodology to teaching, but then we are just finding scientific ways to measure and understand them?
Understanding the positive and negative ki flow of the body relevant to a particular execution of a technique with hand open or closed, this way or that, feet rooted or not, and a whole host of positive and negative energy being exchanged brings and entirely new light to some of the old useless techniques?
Teaching is so complicated, that we basically go through twelve grades of school to absorb information. How can we expect to learn that much quicker with even the teachers still learning as they teach? (Not presupposing that one person could not be a master of any one discipline, but even the masters still continue to learn and grow.)
I guess it all comes back around to always being the beginner, even when you are the teacher, humble.
I see most teachers still having the most fun when they disappear into the class ... they smile and laugh a lot more. The old, with the new, and find out why it always works.
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