putting kata pieces together

We did a interesting training session at John Stevens seminar last weekend, we put together some of the separate forms we practice into a larger organized form. Instead of 13 count, or 35 count jo, we did a 75 count that encompassed more elements and actually showed the progression of elements in training that are separated into smaller counts for training forms.

Has your training led to enlarging your perception of incorporating more and more separated portions of your Aikido training into larger forms that show perceptable progression?

Included are factors of form taking over verses strength, with using sounds of Kotodama for gaining a better understanding of Aikido's link to training beyond pure physical practice?

Bruce Baker wrote: Has your training led to enlarging your perception of incorporating more and more separated portions of your Aikido training into larger forms that show perceptable progression?

Don't know about "enlarging my perception".

I find that I often get into a very satisfying state of "meditative action," for lack of a better term, doing KUMITACHI; I'm more focused than in empty handed training. The reps of the short sequences* I've done under Saotome (either one) or Ledyard seem more real somehow and seem to increase my responsiveness to UKE/NAGE even to the point of knowing before they do it, when they will attack.

This "flow experience" (as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls it) declines as the KEN sequence increases in length. Indeed, Saotome has several BOKKEN KATA and I always find myself going through the motions with them, distracted by having to follow a prescribed pattern that long. Simplicity works for me:

* E.G., NAGE does KOTE.

UKE does KOTE, NAGE drops knees, does KOTE.

NAGE does KOTE, UKE drops knees, does KOTE, NAGE flicks UKE's KEN back does KOTE.