Poll: Is enduring physical pain necessary in getting better at aikido?

One - chiba!

I had a painful class last night. I'd being training on Sunday and it was a bit of a rough class ( Nick would not know this his face hurt, or so the text said) as one of the another students is going for his Shodan at the weekend. Thick Sean (that's me) went to the pub and gets hammered instead of a warm down after training. The next day eternity in hell with Satan and all his hellish instruments of torture would have been blessed relief. The one thing that helped me was another hard session the following day. For me personal I find Aikido Training should test you on every level. At the moment the training we are doing puts a lot of strain on your body and after a session like that and in some case during you thick why? But light breaks through and you do it because you love it, all the different things that make Aikido what it is . One of the things is pain or discomfort if you like, you grow to enjoy it and wish to train with people who can put the technique on.

I know that aikido training has definitely helped me learn to deal with pain a lot better. I consider myself to be a pain wimp. I don't like it and for the most part seek to avoid it. I deal with it in training because my desire to train far exceeds my desire to avoid pain. Mind you I'm not talking injury, a better word would probably be discomfort. Some locks hurt, some pressure points hurt, it's all part of the training so you learn to deal with it.

Recently, out in the real world, I had to have a medical test done. My doctor and everyone I talked to who had had that test before said it was terribly painful. Needless to say I was not looking forward to it. During the test all I could think was that it wasn't so bad. All those people who think it's painful should come to the dojo and get punched in the center of the bicep, or get nikyo or sankyo on a regular basis, those things hurt waaaay more than the test did.

So while I don't think dealing with pain in aikido is "necessary", it can't hurt

Bronson

Sean Cassidy wrote: Thick Sean (that's me) went to the pub and gets hammered instead of a warm down after training. The next day eternity in hell with Satan and all his hellish instruments of torture would have been blessed relief. The one thing that helped me was another hard session the following day. For me personal I find Aikido Training should test you on every level.

I think they call this resistance training

I voted no, because saying yes, in m opinion gives refuge to the assumption that it's ok to be a little rough on people at times, so I don't think that pain is a necessary (to practice) part of training. One should practice with the objective of no pain. Which brings me to the understanding that, in the beginning, where I'm at, there is a lot of pain, just from doing things wrong. Also, I think that pain does give way to aikido, just like suffering did in Buddhism. In Buddhism, the practitioner does not practice "in suffering" but rather to escape the suffering. So, in Aikido, it is necessary to know pain, so that when we work with our partners in class, or those who might attack us on the street, we seek to cause them as little pain as possible. I don't know if any of that makes any sense, or has been said already, but there it is.
Amitofo

Janet Rosen wrote: "Experiencing" some pain comes with the territory in aikido, as in any physical exercise. "Putting up with" unnecessary infliction of pain by others is not necessary.

I voted "yes" because as many others have pointed out, pain comes with learning any new physical activity. In order to do things the right way, you necessarily have to do them the wrong way for a while. No one walks in the first day and does a perfect forward role (unless coming from some other discipline).

But this is also true when learning to do techinque with a partner. It is very difficult when you start to know the right amount of force to use with a partner, and vice versa.

Two new students working together may inflict pain, unintentionally, until with practice they learn control. This is a painful process, but is absolutely necessary if you want to learn aikido properly.

The alternative, as in some styles, is to never fully apply joint control techniques or to use pinning applications. Practicing this way may never be painful, but it isn't really a worthwile way to spend your time either, IMHO.

Chuck

I voted "yes," but it was a tough call. Obviously, some stretches and some joint locks can be painful. But it shouldn't be carried to an extreme -- you go that far, and you risk injury.

Can anyone seriously suggest that there can be no pain involved when practicing Aikido?

I know that even students who have only trained in one class often feel pain just because they are taught to stand in a different way and use muscles that they didn't know they have. After an hour of learning to stand straighter and stronger they have sore legs for a couple of days and they come back and do it again.

You warn them. you tell them that their legs are going to be sore for the next couple of days but they do come back and try it again - maybe because there is soreness and that shows them that they are achieving something.

Also...there is a difference (as people have said) between pain and injury. I don't really like the injury part of things and I hope we can all go through training without injury - too late for me though <wry grin>.

Just a thought,

--Michael "Pain is my God" Stuempel

Ron Tisdale wrote: Ok, how many aikidoka does it take to come up with a deffintion for pain???

All of them.


I voted "yes" for the same reasons as the rest of the "yessers" -- but I did find myself wondering whether two like-thinking aikido masters who've worked together for years could spend an enjoyable and painless session of essentially perfect technique and ukemi and with just the right amount of force. (If you two are out there reading this, please let me know!)

Ian Hurst wrote: One - chiba!

Two - Chiba and Arikawa!!

I have not taken part in the poll, but I think the answer has to be Yes�\to the degree that physical pain is involved in training or competing.

Before I took up aikido I used to do long distance running. I was a student at Sussex University and used to run over the Downs to Ditchling Beacon and occasionally went down to Ditchling and back. The journey back up the hill was really painful�\the whole body was crying out to stop.

When I was at school my sports were cricket (dangerous only for being struck by the ball, or straining the shoulder when bowling) and rowing in an eight. Again, there was the training, in the boat or doing circuit training in the gym. I think this would qualify as being painful in the sense Jun meant by the question.

Ukemi training in aikido was very similar when I was a student. We would do 100 kokyu nage in ten sets of ten throws, changing partners each time. As with rowing and running, you can cross the pain threshold, so to speak, and keep going for as long as your physical or mental stamina allows.

The above is all pain as building stamina. However, with K Chiba and S Arikawa�\and also M Fujita�\there was the added factor of taking ukemi... Jun, would this also count as pain?

Best regards to all,

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE PAIN!

On a more serious note, I find that If I dont get some hurt put on me then I dont feel challenged and tend to get a little bored.

I'll remember that for the next class Nick...

Bring It Army Boy.

there's an indian proverb that says 'a stone must take many hits before it becomes a sculpture' i think this applies in aikido training, if you feel pain when someone puts a technique on you then you can see where to manipulate the joints/ muscles etc so that you can get the same effect. i think that training without experiencing physical pain would be like going through the motions, or as one of my lecturers put it "humming the tune but not singing"

Pain and damage are two very differant things. You should never allow an uke or yourself for that matter to have their physical bodies damaged.
Personally I strive for a level of what I refer to as extreme tension--this means controlling the uke so that they are manipulated totally with no room allowed to avoid technique--a good uke will allow themselves to be manipulated for the education of the tori--this means total mind body concentration during the application of technique

the axiom of no pain no gain is somewhat dangerous and outdated in my opinion