Techniques feel good/bad?

I have some "favorite" and, shall we say, some "less favorite" techniques. Some just feel really great, while others continue to feel awkward. I mean, if you can learn and "own" one, why will another refuse to be absorbed?
For instance, we'll do iriminage over and over again, and I really don't like it - but tenchinage, on the other hand, I am so in love with. Today we did some ushiro techniques, and they felt pretty good too. Under pressure, I'll often default to shihonage...
Do others have such likes and dislikes? Does it go away? Can you train your way out of it?

I have favorite and less favorite techniques as well, but I've noticed that over the years which ones are which has changed.

Although i always have liked iriminage a lot, and still do.

kvaak
Pauliina

I suppose the ones that feel awkward are the ones we should be working the most.

It's weird, but I always find that my favourite technique is the one I am doing. And I'm not just saying this to be cute...its actually true. My students laugh at me...

I often start teaching a technique saying "This is my favourite technique because..." and its only when I start teaching the next technique and start saying "This is my favourite technique because..." that I hear myself and realize that I shouldn't have more then one favourite technique...at least not in the same class.

Unless its Hijiate Kokyu Nage...I get real frustrated with that one...and it doesn't become my favourite when doing it. I guess I have to train more on that one so that it, too, can be a favourite. <sigh>

So...yes...train more so that you like them all

--Michael

Michael Stuempel wrote: It's weird, but I always find that my favourite technique is the one I am doing.

I'm moving more and more to this way of thinking. There isn't as big of a distinction between the techniques now as there used to be.

Bronson

IMHO, the techniques I like best are those I do best. The ones I don't like are because I don't do them well. To like them more, I need to relax, pay attention, slow down, and get the basics of them by training them more. No big secret.

Lynn Seiser wrote: IMHO, the techniques I like best are those I do best. The ones I don't like are because I don't do them well. To like them more, I need to relax, pay attention, slow down, and get the basics of them by training them more. No big secret.

Yes, I do try to not be "The-One-Who-Does-Not-Like-Iriminage" and to make a conscious effort to immediately raise my sinking heart when the instructor demonstrates it as the next technique, and to practice with a fresh attitude every time...
I still find it very hard to make it work for me. I understand that it is my performance of the technique that makes it so unlikeable, but why is one technique harder to learn than another? What makes - in my case - tenchinage or shihonage a more comfortable fit than iriminage? Is there such a thing as "easy" and "difficult" techniques? It just puzzles me that learning a physical movement can be such a varied experience - I mean, you can break it all down to "foot here, arm there" etc. Some of them come together beautifully, requiring no thinking, and others are still terribly fragmented and hence fraught with pausing and consciousness. Perhaps the question should be "why are some techniques easier to learn than others?"

Camilla Kieliger wrote: Perhaps the question should be "why are some techniques easier to learn than others?"

IMHO, its often a matter of can I get my head around it. The easier techqniues for me are the ones I understand, I am familiar with, or are somewhat close to my internal mental map. The difficult ones (like Kokyu-nages for me) are becasue they were/are harder for me to understand. As our physical training progresses, hopefully so does our understanding. Sorta a body-mind unification thing.

Ah, yes, the great divide at the neck...
Bridge it with more training, certainly. But - is there then a difference between a technique that you learn because it feels right and one that you "train" in so it becomes a learned response? You can do it, but because you have to? Or is this completely irrelevant after the proverbial 30 years of training? (I've put in 1 so far).

I must confess to not having read much about aikido - if anyone has suggestions for further reading on the mental process of techniques or how to understand them - I should be very happy if you would pass them on to me. Thanks!

Camilla Kieliger wrote: It just puzzles me that learning a physical movement can be such a varied experience - I mean, you can break it all down to "foot here, arm there" etc. Some of them come together beautifully, requiring no thinking, and others are still terribly fragmented and hence fraught with pausing and consciousness. Perhaps the question should be "why are some techniques easier to learn than others?"

Some are more "you" than others.
The first technique I really got (at my current level, that is) was shiho-nage, but irimi-nage and ikkyo omote (especially to shomen uchi) I still don't get. But that's part of who I am, I am more of a tenkan than an irimi kind of person. (And perhaps even more of a kaiten person, especially on shomen uchi, just invite it to the fullest and add a little twist. )
So imho if you're saying that it's all "foot here, arm there" you're forgetting that your limbs move relative to your uke and it is that relation to your uke that determines the feel and by that the likeability of the technique.

I found that I often have favorite techniques per Randori round, in the next round or another day, I will favor another technique.I guess it has to do with the Randori partner behavior, some people drive me towards one type of techniques, and others kind of invite other techniques. This small set of favorite techniques seem to match almost regardless of the attacks. The strange thing is the techniques are not constant per partner, I guess my mood and feelings also affect my choices.


Amir

It's easier to ride a horse in the direction it wants to go, and tenkan suits my basic desire to get the heck away from that big guy who's about to hit me a lot better than irimi does, so tenkan techniques are easier....

Don't know why I like sankyo so much, though. Maybe because of that moment when you've got uke, he knows it, and you can actually think about what comes next--rare in aikido. Whatever the reason, several teachers have commented that sankyo is my friend--the thing I find when suddenly grabbed and at a loss for a response.

Mary Kaye

I have certainly experienced this. it seems like for some moves the body just has a natural flow while others seem jumpy & unnatural. I suppose the one's you "like" most would be done first in an emergency or such, but as a beginer I've also noticed that certain moves don't work as well on others (for instance sankyo sp? doesn't seem to work well on me as I have very flexible wrists, every once in a while, but not usually) so although you may not like a particular move as much as another it's still a good idea to train it as back up so that you could use it in the case that another move doesn't work out.

Camilla Kieliger wrote: Perhaps the question should be "why are some techniques easier to learn than others?"

heheheh. I think each of us carries a combination of physical and psychological traits that tend to make certain movements "more natural."
I'm short, low to the ground and round, and have a self image of a badger, so downward spirals seem to come naturally to me.
For same reason, I tend to like entering to the inside, rather than the more popular outside, which is a lot like the one good thing I was good at in gym class as a kid: in volleyball, being in the front line and getting right into the net to get the ball out of it.
On the emotional/psychological side...
At the same time, IF I make an effort to tap into my adolescent New York self, I can go to a barely off the line irimi (we won't get into my tendency to directly BLOCK in that mode, oh no we won't...sigh).
I like to protect my partner (is this where my tendency to cradle the head comes from...or is it my evil realization that it's the easiest way to control that sucker?).
Some days, moods, partners, I might --subconsciously at first --not want to commit or to connect, so I tenkan too early or keep myself too small, and if the technique being practiced relies on being large or somewhat later timing, well, for that class at least I'm having a hard time with that technique, unless I catch what's happening early enough.
The movements that come most naturally to me are ura version of shihonage and inside turning variants of iriminage. So of course they are the ones I most enjoy!

Mary Kuhner wrote: It's easier to ride a horse in the direction it wants to go, and tenkan suits my basic desire to get the heck away from that big guy who's about to hit me a lot better than irimi does, so tenkan techniques are easier.... Mary Kaye

We were doing some kind of kokhyu nage last night where I thought nage was going to take my head off, and the teacher kept saying "I want you to try to run around and grab him around the throat!" and all I could think was "Why in God's name would I want to do something as stupid as that?!"

Jeanne

It may have something to do with height? I also love shihonage & tenchinage. And according to sensei, my shihonage was the weakest part of my fifth kyu test. And I have so issues with iriminage I jsut started a thread about it!
But you and I relatively the same size, and i have heard both tenchinage & shihonage called "short people's technique" and iriminage is definitly difficult for small people to do well with larger people, atl east in the lower-to-mid kyus.

And Jeanne-every dan test in our dojo has a tanto take-away where uke is behind nage with a tanto at her throat, and every time we train this technique Sensei says "if you even let yourself get into this kind of fix,do you think you should be a black belt?"

Jo Adell wrote: i have heard both tenchinage & shihonage called "short people's technique"

Yep, shihonage can be a pain for tall people to execute on shorter ones. I am almost 6"2 and in the beginning my upper thigh muscles were... welll, how shall I put it.... virtually non-existent, so going low for shihonage irimi was just extremely exhausting. Same problem with koshinage and getting under uke´s center.

Tenchinage, though, I have found very different and actually a technique that is suited especially for tall people. My arms are really quite long and when I do tenchinage on say my husband (who is a bit shorter and has much shorter arms than me) and it sits well, then he says it feels like it is ripping him apart right through his middle

"junte katate muchi sankyo" (SP!!) (stepping forward under the guys arm, tenkan and grapping sankyo)...I like it most because it is easy to apply, I think. And I like irimi as well...If I can do it, I like it
I do not like kaiten nage techniques so much...not applicable in slow motion attacks / I can not

I cant think of a hand technique that I dont like in some form. Jo waza I dont like, I find it repetitive and boring and to be honest I really just dont care. My aikido seems to have much more in common with the bokken and its shorter movements than the large spirals of the jo. But thats just me.

Oh hang on, I dont like aiki koshinage, leading someone to fall over your back as you take their balance. Its too subtle for me. I prefer to pick them up and dump them down, more in common with jujitsu or judo.

Right now my favorite is ushiro kubishimi koshinage, both as uke and nage. There's such an extreme shift from, 'haha, now I have you!' to 'whoa!,' with just a duck from nage. It only works that way if uke really is out to get nage, but when that happens it sure is fun.

-LK

Sometimes my instructor will mention that he is really only teaching one technique and he is puzzled why people find it so interesting.