Poll: How helpful is feeling techniques in learning aikido for you?

AikiWeb Poll for the week of December 11, 2005:

How helpful is feeling techniques in learning aikido for you?

• I don't do aikido
• Critically helpful
• Very helpful
• Somewhat helpful
• Not very helpful
• Not at all helpful
  

Here are the current results.

I came up principally in Saotome schools. He's masterful at imparting the feeling of a technique.

Years later, I find myself inclined to Yoshinkan/Iwama/DR style, "This is where you put your foot"-style teaching. I've benefitted greatly from Mary Heiny's step-by-step instruction as well as Saito's videos.

I find it makes my technique more economical, precise.

In my teaching, I try to give my students the benefit of both--clear instructions and lessons built around the prinicpal so they practice the same thing all class, the same feeling, albeit with different "techniques".

Sounds great Don. I didn't understand why Andy Foertsche taught ikyo, then sumi otoshi on Friday night - until early the next morning - when I was half dreaming about throwing a stiff armed kohai. KUZUSHI !!!!!!!

I like to close my eyes if I'm doing a technique wrong, so I can feel more. Of course this is trickier if the attack is a strike and contact hasn't been made yet!

David

Sorry. Not sumi otoshi, a kokyu nage similar to ikyo - throwing to the front.

dk

Don J. Modesto wrote: I came up principally in Saotome schools. He's masterful at imparting the feeling of a technique. Years later, I find myself inclined to Yoshinkan/Iwama/DR style, "This is where you put your foot"-style teaching. I've benefitted greatly from Mary Heiny's step-by-step instruction as well as Saito's videos. I find it makes my technique more economical, precise. In my teaching, I try to give my students the benefit of both--clear instructions and lessons built around the prinicpal so they practice the same thing all class, the same feeling, albeit with different "techniques".

Don,

As for me, I came from the opposite direction. From the Yoshinkan style of teaching i.e., "put your foot here, hands 89.995 degrees perpendicular to the mats, feet 57.678 cm apart bla bla bla ...", now my sensei forces us to do lots of randori / jiyu waza and our stance are from shizentai rather than from kamae. And we are loving the free style of doing aikido.

Feeling is very important in teaching / imparting technical knowledge. Try explaining kuzushi by words versus showing kuzushi by action, my vote is on critically important.

Boon.

By feeling, I assume you mean having it done to you?

If so, then yes. I feel it is quite important.

You can't, logically, know how to apply any martial principle or technique without knowing how it feels to be at the receiving end first.

In my school we practice the same two techniques and a few of their variations for a few months straight, then move on to two others for a few months, etc... Strange, I know, but it actually seems to be a superior method of training. We get plenty of practice on each technique and I seem to progress much faster due to that.

I answered critically helpful. Anyone who has ever attended a seminar with Ezra sensei will understand why...

kvaak
Pauliina

David Knowlton wrote: Sorry. Not sumi otoshi, a kokyu nage similar to ikyo - throwing to the front. dk

Hi, David,

We in the ASU fold aren't real strong on the terminology of aikido. In John's dojo, SUMI OTOSHI throws to the front. This is what I mean by the term, too. That's different than the way that, say Mifune Kyuzo's did, though. Both do throw to A corner...

Mike Haftel wrote: By feeling, I assume you mean having it done to you?

Hadn't, but that makes sense, too.

Don M. said: "Hi, David,
We in the ASU fold aren't real strong on the terminology of aikido. In John's dojo, SUMI OTOSHI throws to the front. This is what I mean by the term, too. That's different than the way that, say Mifune Kyuzo's did, though. Both do throw to A corner..."

I looked the throw up on google images and realized my error - for once though I chose to be silent and try not to make it worse! The last ten years I have focused on 'doing' life and my vocabulary has slipped - aided by the sudden onset of middle age - so strange to see an over forty face in the mirror.

Re: current discussion I will hazard to add that it is the feeling during koshi, or falling, ukemi that set me free when I was a teenager. That feeling of accepting without fear or tension I think is what makes us really learn and really know our bodies - and the truth of the world around us.

Dave

Pauliina Lievonen wrote: ...Anyone who has ever attended a seminar with Ezra sensei will understand why... kvaak Pauliina

Tell me more Bwana, I will probably be moving to England in March and have heard of Ezra Sensei from an English guy I respect quite a bit. I'm interested in hear more about this "Ezra Sensei".

joe

When I first started aikido I found it very frustrating being told that I had to feel it. That was the way it was in my first school, and I just interpreted it then as a lame excuse for not understanding how to teach the technique. I'm way more analytical and step-by-step instructions is what works for me, at least to learn the technique. But these days, now that I know the basic mechanics of most techniques, getting feel and flow is really helpful. For example, Donovan Waite was visiting our dojo and he taught a class for the night and whenever I tried to break things down my techniques just wasn't right, but then I just watched his overall movement and imitated his movement. And, voila! There it was and everything came into place. Of course, I wasn't able to duplicate it.

Feeling a technique wasn't as important to me as was knowing were to place my hand, foot or whatever part of my body, when I started out with Aikido. However, that was five years ago, and as I progress in my Aikido, feeling does get more important. I think it's a bit like carving a statue. Knowing were to place your feet is like the deft strokes you use at the beginning, until you have the crude form of what you want. But as you get to the core, your motions need to be finer, and sometimes a nearly impercebtible brush over here and there is what makes the difference between something ordinary and a masterpiece.
In Aikido that is the point, where feeling comes in. The part, which is to small to put in terms of put your left here or there, but which actually makes all the difference. I'm just starting to feel, that there is something like that.
I think, most people start out the same, and it doesn't really matter if your Sensai starts out with teaching you step by step, or tries to make you feel the technique from the beginning. You always start to get into the physical position, and as you get near it, you, if your mind is open for it, start to feel it.

I had to answer, "Critically helpful" --- learning is practically all about feel to me these days.