Quote:
Bob Strahinjevich wrote:
Devils advocate:
I'm unclear on what you mean Amir
Why is resistance "bad"?
Is it "bad" that he resisted, or is it "bad" that you got angry because he resisted? And even if it is bad(tm), it seems you learnt something from it, without any injury to the parties involved? Why is that bad? (Unsettling, distrubing, a shake up - sure)
Say, did you get a chance to talk to the other fellow after the event - what were his thoughts?
May I also ask - how did this feel abusive to you - ie: do you feel it broke some unspoken contract between the two of you? Or something else?
Feel free not to answer any or all of these - just trying to clarify (mostly for myself, as I've encountered similar situations. Not trying to second guess or preach
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Resistance is not always bad. But in the context of
en-randori, when I am slowing down and scaling back the power to work at a rate the other person can take, if he jumps the speed and adds resistance it can make the en-Randori rather strange, and difficult to maintain, as I have seen.
Note that
En-Randori is not supposed to imitate a fight not is it a contest. It is an educational practice with well defined purpose (see the link). Re-reading the link my-self, I think I understand my Sensei problem with that particular en-randori - I acted too much as an equal rather then as the senior and guide, leading to a better Randori. I have yet to figure out exactly
how am I to guide when the other person is not exactly following the rules and I don't feel confident in his Ukemi (if I do, I guess the answer would be to increase the speed to his speed and let him take the falls full force).
As for my getting angry. It had more to do with his responding with non-proportional force and speed to an attack I felt I was feeding him with, slowly. When you give another an opportunity to perform the technique with a slow and clear attack, to which they should be able to respond with clean Aikido at similar speed, and they instead rush at you with full speed and power and enter your face
strongly, it can give you some abusive feeling (I give you my body for a chance to learn and instead of using it for this purpose, you are hearting me with non directed force, doing nothing but causing pain).
There was no point in discussing with the beginner. My feeling was that he did not control his actions. This was not the case in which your Uke is trying to teach you something.
Did I learn from this ?
I sure got something to think about. But this has more to do with my Sensei then with the particular partner. I already know that doing good Aikido under stress is much more difficult then it seems. I knew I had much to improve in this respect even before this Randori.
Amir