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Old 10-15-2004, 11:28 AM   #26
Magma
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Re: When Can an Instructor Stop Training?

In response to leaving an instructor, Bryan wrote:

Quote:
Bryan Bateman wrote:
I'm not sure that it would really impact me, unless I have decided to to stop learning myself. By the time I have stopped learning from said instructor, I should already be well on my own path and able move on without it really affecting me.
I think we are into the realm of semantics now, Bryan. I would argue that by having to leave your instructor, your training is affected in that it is not the same as it was before. I am saying nothing of your desire to learn or your desire to train, but only point out that the decisions your instructor makes about his/her own training *do* impact you in some form.

The 75 yr. old instructor that you mention is, indeed, a great example of continuing to train.

Daren, you ask what I think the purpose of the martial arts is. I would say that the simplest way that I could phrase that answer is that the arts are a vehicle for self improvement, though there is obviously much more a blowhard like myself could say about it. Until I understand better where you intended to take the conversation, I will leave it at that.

You also questioned whether Shaolin Monks have forums where they talk about how we aikidoists are lazy for only going to the dojo x number of times a week. My first answer would be yes. Not that they have these forums, but that they have answered for themselves that simply going to the dojo 3 or 4 times a week was not enough for them, else they would not have chosen such an immersive life of training.

However, that misses the point. The matter at hand is not *how much* one should train. Such a line is inherently arbitrary and nebulous, with 10 different practitioners having 10 different levels of acceptability. No, the matter at hand is whether or not an instructor must continue to train at all. Now, the amount of training is very quantifiable, and the question becomes emminently more simple.

I suppose that my personal position on that question is that a person who instructs *must* continue to train. Once a week, once a month... but done so that when that instructor steps on the mat as a student, the student mindset is at the fore. They might very well be the *senior* student on the mat, but they put themselves in the hands of the instructor of the day.

I have known dojos to say that if you teach at all during the week, you must train in at least one class during the week. I do not think that is asking too much, though, as I said, this is more nebulous and individual. I don't think that the question was worried about how much the person trains in a week or month, just that they *do*.

David, very interesting take on questions in general, and on this one in particular. Do you see non-Japanese dojos and instructors now catching up with regard to not using some neo-confucian excuse to limit their training?

Tim
It's a sad irony: In U's satori, he forgot every technique he ever knew; since then, generations of doka have spent their whole careers trying to remember.
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Old 10-15-2004, 05:28 PM   #27
senshincenter
 
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Re: When Can an Instructor Stop Training?

Hi Tim,

Thanks for replying.

I should state that it is my opinion that the displacement of such discourses as Neo-Confucianism from martial arts sub-cultures do not cause things to happen. Rather, such displacements allow for things to happen. Actual driving forces are quite numerous and most likely can never be known in their totality. Most likely, only local-specific studies could determine true driving forces and this it will do at the cost of not being able to say much about the overall general trends that are determining the art as a whole.

As I said before, a mixture made up of viewpoints that equate doing and being with a general tendency for egalitarian worldviews is one possible driving force that is finding a voice in the silence of doctrines like Neo-Confucianism. I also think that another driving force is the fact that folks are being "squished" at the top now. The ranks are swelling. Ten years ago, in the States for example, the rank of sixth dan was probably as rare as something like an eighth dan in Japan at that time. However, today, the rank of sixth dan, because of its growing commonality in the States, is like the fourth dan of a decade earlier. More folks are holding that rank and more folks are holding that rank at a younger age. As a social consequence, when the ranks swell like this, it is hard to justify the growing singularity of a person that watches training from the sidelines and/or only from the viewpoint of nage. In an editorial, Stanley Pranin of Aikido Journal made this exact critique after he said he had been holding his tongue on the matter for a great while. I think Mr. Pranin's critique is an example of this energy finally finding its voice.

As I said, there are many of these types of energies at work, energies I feel are making it okay to say that no one should disengage from the training simply because of the status they have been afforded by time or by institution. These same energies are working across the globe to "pressure" all aikidoka to continue their training as fully as they can for as long as they can. For example, I train as a regular member of our dojo though I am the instructor. After demonstrating a technique, I partner-up like everyone else. We rotate two to three times per technique so I can instruct several folks directly as nage and as uke. This is also an integral part of my own practice. When a common point in need of correction is coming to the surface, I will stop the class to demonstrate a point meant for all. After that, it is back to partnering-up. That is what my students are used to.

One day, I overheard one of our lower ranks talking about Aikido with a friend that trained at a dojo in the next city. In their conversation, the friend was talking about training with her teacher. She was talking about how great it was, how much she learns from it, etc. Through the course of the conversation, my student was able to deduce that his friend was talking about a "special" occurrence. My student was shocked and could not focus in on anything other that this assumed "specialness." He was at a loss for words. When the friend realized that my friend was shocked that her teacher only trained on "special" occasions, she too was at a loss for words. Of the words she did say, they were all about trying to show how her teacher did train on a more regular basis than she first implied.

When that matter was elaborated upon, it became clear to my student that his friend's idea of "training with" did not include taking ukemi. Again, they were both at a loss of words, as they could not find the right way of saying it is better that a teacher not train with his/her students and/or it is better when a teacher does not take ukemi from his/her students on a regular basis. When I was a full-time deshi, what this girl was describing was the norm. No one thought it strange or odd or lacking in any way back then. Now it seems different. Now this is just our little part of the world, but I think in some very subtle ways it is related to energies like the editorial offered by Aikido Journal (mentioned above). So I would say yes to your question. Yes, dojo not in Japan are beginning to have less and less folks that do not participate in the training for reasons of "knowing it all" or "for having done it all," etc.

dmv
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Old 10-15-2004, 06:16 PM   #28
vanstretch
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Re: When Can an Instructor Stop Training?

Well,...uh..The Shihans I have trained under didnt fall much, didnt have to, I think those guys paid their dues and we should be grateful for their teachings,regardless of their current physical condition. Lots of em' have pot bellies(Good strong Hara!), and yet,can pitch us young bucks around like toys. And also, has anyone who has posted thus far ,gone up to a Shihan and directly asked him/her the question stated at the onset of this thread? Has anyone dared "shake the pillars of the aikido community?"
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Old 10-16-2004, 01:57 AM   #29
maikerus
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Re: When Can an Instructor Stop Training?

Hi Tim,

Thanks for the thoughts and the replies. It certainly seems that you've been thinking about this for awhile.

Quote:
Tim Rohr wrote:
Michael and Daren, I agree that there is a difference between training and learning, and understand how you both applied that to your high ranking instructors. However, I would counter by saying that there is learning that can specifically only be gained by training, and not just by taking ukemi, but by taking part in a class. More on that in a minute, but would you agree?
*I* would agree. My response, however, was that I had the highest respect for a few, top teachers who do not train in classes. They do take part, sometimes being the second or third instructor on the mat under anothers class, but they do not train as a regular student.

I also stated that I firmly believed that they could take part in a class and out-do anyone on the mat in terms of physical stamina, ukemi and basically anything else you could throw at them.

Quote:
Tim Rohr wrote:
Bryan - ultimately, I agree with you of course, recognizing that this is a personal journey for each of us. However, it is only through asking these sorts of questions and judging the worth of different paths that we find for ourselves the best way. So I ask the question to think about our instructors, but I also ask the question because it is a question that should be considered individually as we move up in rank and take steps toward being an instructor.
Perhaps the question as one becomes an instructor is two-fold.

1. What can we do during our mat time (I purposely don't say training here) to improve our own Aikido

2. What can we do during our mat time to improve the Aikido of our students.

I personally have found that I learn more, and my Aikido improves when I am instructing or even perceived as an instructor while on the mats. This might be more a solidifying of existing ideas and concepts while instructing rather than learning something new. Or it might be finding new things based on questions from people who have different thoughts and backgrounds.

For my own training and while training with my students (under another instructor) I am probably looking for different things in the techniques than they are. This is true when a 3rd kyu trains with a white belt or a black belt trains with a third kyu.

This isn't neccessarily a bad thing, but just something to point out. At my level, it probably isn't important because there are tons of things I can learn by working with these other various levels.

With this idea in mind, however, training with peers or people of higher levels would seem to give the most opportunity for focused training on things that I am working on right now. For me, training in seminars and under other people who have the same or greater experience as me would be valuable.

In my example of the top Yoshinkan instructors...well...they have no one better than them and I don't know how the work out the peer thing. Maybe this is why they stopped "training" but continue learning from observation and teaching and questions.

Quote:
Tim Rohr wrote:
But I think that there is another way of looking at the question, that there is a benefit to an instructor not only taking ukemi, but also in sitting in and participating in another's class. I think there is a great benefit to actually being a student in another's class, in dropping out of the instructor role, in training the mind to stop thinking of the training in terms of answers (that they must be ready to provide), but in terms of questions (that they must be willing to pose).

I think that is a fundamental difference in the mindset of these instructors who stop training and the students that follow them.
I'm going to refer this back to my previous comment about training in another class of someone who is a peer or ranked above me.

Quote:
Tim Rohr wrote:
The matter at hand is not *how much* one should train. Such a line is inherently arbitrary and nebulous, with 10 different practitioners having 10 different levels of acceptability. No, the matter at hand is whether or not an instructor must continue to train at all. Now, the amount of training is very quantifiable, and the question becomes emminently more simple.
This is a cop-out. I've been told by many instructors that it is better to do a technique once, properly with total focus than to do it 100 times without commitment and spirit.

If this is true, then teaching a technique that *one* time is training and there is no longer a discussion.

Quote:
Tim Rohr wrote:
I suppose that my personal position on that question is that a person who instructs *must* continue to train. Once a week, once a month... but done so that when that instructor steps on the mat as a student, the student mindset is at the fore. They might very well be the *senior* student on the mat, but they put themselves in the hands of the instructor of the day.
Hmm...I'm think I'm seeing the difference between learning and training, which you were very right in differentiating, being blurred here.

I don't believe that an instructor necessarily loses the mindset of the student. In fact, I believe that the better instructors are those who are always looking forward for what's around that next technique and helping you to see it too. That isn't necessarily done through training.

One of the instructors I was talking about sometimes had classes where he would throw out questions to the students asking what they thought of this or that, or how that came about or what made this technique effective. Invariably he would throw something out there that he didn't have a firm answer to himself. We'd give him different thoughts and he refute them pretty solidly. When no one had any more ideas we'd ask for the answer. His response was sometimes "I don't know. I haven't figured that one out myself yet".


Anyway...another long post. In thinking this over and reviewing the answers and discussions that have come up I would have to say that you stop training when training as a regular student when that training doesn't benefit you or your students anymore.

However, you shouldn't stop looking for answers and you definately shouldn't stop finding interesting and new things in hopefully every class you are part of.

For most of us...this will probably be a few days after we're dead.

--Michael

Hiriki no yosei 3 - The kihon that makes your head ache instead of your legs
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Old 10-16-2004, 10:18 PM   #30
Charles Hill
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Re: When Can an Instructor Stop Training?

Quote:
Michael Stuempel wrote:
One of the instructors I was talking about sometimes had classes where he would throw out questions to the students asking what they thought of this or that, or how that came about or what made this technique effective. Invariably he would throw something out there that he didn't have a firm answer to himself. We'd give him different thoughts and he refute them pretty solidly. When no one had any more ideas we'd ask for the answer. His response was sometimes "I don't know. I haven't figured that one out myself yet".
Hi Micheal,

Was this a Japanese teacher? If it was, as I`ve said before, Yoshinkan is in some ways so ahead of the rest of us!

As for the topic, I think that Aikido is so complex and deep that there is no way to answer the question unless you yourself (me, myself) hit that level. Until then, it is just guesswork.

Charles Hill
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Old 10-17-2004, 09:15 PM   #31
maikerus
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Re: When Can an Instructor Stop Training?

Quote:
Charles Hill wrote:
Hi Micheal,

Was this a Japanese teacher? If it was, as I`ve said before, Yoshinkan is in some ways so ahead of the rest of us!
Hi Charles,

It was a Japanese teacher who did this. I saw him do it many times (well...many might be a stretch) but at least once, maybe twice a year.

cheers,

--Michael

Hiriki no yosei 3 - The kihon that makes your head ache instead of your legs
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Old 10-18-2004, 05:38 AM   #32
Dazzler
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Re: When Can an Instructor Stop Training?

Quote:
Tim Rohr wrote:
Daren, you ask what I think the purpose of the martial arts is. I would say that the simplest way that I could phrase that answer is that the arts are a vehicle for self improvement, though there is obviously much more a blowhard like myself could say about it. Until I understand better where you intended to take the conversation, I will leave it at that.
Tim...not too concerned in taking the conversation much further. Purpose of question was to see where you set your threshold of acceptability. You've dodged this by focussing on those that just teach and never train.

As others have pointed out, you may lead a class but still have a student mindset and still be training. It isn't necessary to get physical to sharpen the mind.

Quote:
Tim Rohr wrote:
You also questioned whether Shaolin Monks have forums where they talk about how we aikidoists are lazy for only going to the dojo x number of times a week. My first answer would be yes. Not that they have these forums, but that they have answered for themselves that simply going to the dojo 3 or 4 times a week was not enough for them, else they would not have chosen such an immersive life of training.

However, that misses the point. The matter at hand is not *how much* one should train. Such a line is inherently arbitrary and nebulous, with 10 different practitioners having 10 different levels of acceptability. No, the matter at hand is whether or not an instructor must continue to train at all. Now, the amount of training is very quantifiable, and the question becomes emminently more simple.

I suppose that my personal position on that question is that a person who instructs *must* continue to train. Once a week, once a month... but done so that when that instructor steps on the mat as a student, the student mindset is at the fore. They might very well be the *senior* student on the mat, but they put themselves in the hands of the instructor of the day.

I have known dojos to say that if you teach at all during the week, you must train in at least one class during the week. I do not think that is asking too much, though, as I said, this is more nebulous and individual. I don't think that the question was worried about how much the person trains in a week or month, just that they *do*.
Tim...this was actually a joke! perhaps I should have made it more blatant with a . My point (that you seem to have missed )in using shaolin monks is that they represent an extreme end of the martial arts spectrum. What they do or don't do doesn't necessarily set a standard for the rest of us normal MAs. Lets see how many of these guys can juggle wives, kids, injuries, jobs, poor weather, writing lucid and meaningful posts when working and life in general and maintain their rigid training schedule...suddenly spinning back kicks on poles is nothing compared to the above list.

The point of it was to highlight that setting any level of acceptable training is indeed 'arbitrary and nebulous'. We agree on this it seems. Further to this...everyone is different, one mans training goals may differ to anothers. You've made the point that we are talking about 'experienced' aikidoka. Let them be the judge of what is right for them.

I tend to agree that if you continue to instruct you should be open. I don't think this means you have to go to someone elses classes - just that you keep thinking about aikido in your everyday life and don't roll up weekly to trot out your formulaic lesson.

For me my instructor mindset goes as far as ensuring that the training environment is conducive to learning and that a lesson plan is present. Every week I teach a seniors class where the majority are dan grades, many have experience of other arts and we are all learning together.

I am not the instructor who must be obeyed ..I just happen to be the most senior student present and leading the others so we progress together. again using my standard role model Pierre Chassang...while working with groups of instructors he often requests us not to continually kneel in breaks. His reasoning is that this is unnecessary for his old knees, but as he views us all as equal in being students of aikido who instruct, if we kneel then politeness forces him to do the same.

I have been taught to used Aikido as a vehicle in pursuit of spiritual development as well as physical. As such I feel that achievement of this does not sit with being told that I must attend x lessons in a given period.

I'll train when I want to train. Anyone that doesn't agree is of no matter to me personally.

Personally I'd train every day - I often go to classes with other instructors, some are several grades below me, some are much higher...I welcome the chance to just practice without having to consider the audience but study of Tore / Uke shows me others may have their own opinion which is valid for them.

My aikido is my aikido. Yours is yours.


Respectfully

D
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Old 10-18-2004, 08:29 AM   #33
Magma
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Re: When Can an Instructor Stop Training?

Quote:
daniel vanhee wrote:
The Shihans I have trained under didnt fall much, didnt have to, I think those guys paid their dues and we should be grateful for their teachings,regardless of their current physical condition.
Whatever dues they have paid are dues that they paid to better themselves, are dues that they paid to become a leader in the aikido community, are dues that they paid to be the one to instruct. Those dues, however, have nothing to do with their own training. You set up a false dichotomy of training vs. instructing, as if one can (or need) only be in one camp or the other. The dues shihan have paid mean that they can lead others, that is all, IMO (in terms of the scope of this question).

BTW, "pot belly = good hara" is a joke I've never really bought into. YMMV.

Quote:
Michael Stuempel wrote:
1. What can we do during our mat time (I purposely don't say training here) to improve our own Aikido

2. What can we do during our mat time to improve the Aikido of our students.
Michael, thank you for the discussion, however, I disagree with you. Your first point, quoted above, makes me ask, 'When do these 'other' things an instructor does on the mat (not necessarily training) become a substitute for the whole of training?' When can training be written off totally? Again, I understand that there is learning that can be done without training, but my point is that I believe training is an integral part to aikido, and that there is particular learning that one only come upon by training. Yes, I hold that true even for shihan.

Your second point dealt more with the notion of what an instructor does during the time that they instruct, while I wish to focus on the time outside of their role as instructor, so I will leave that comment alone.

Quote:
Michael Stuempel wrote:
For my own training and while training with my students (under another instructor) I am probably looking for different things in the techniques than they are. This is true when a 3rd kyu trains with a white belt or a black belt trains with a third kyu.
Just because you're looking for different things in the technique does not mean that you cannot both find those different things by training together.

Quote:
Michael Stuempel wrote:
This isn't neccessarily a bad thing, but just something to point out. At my level, it probably isn't important because there are tons of things I can learn by working with these other various levels.
I hold this true for all levels.

Without this being true for all levels, you have stagnation. More, stellar examples of senior students (ie, shihan still training) would not be possible if this were untrue.

Quote:
Michael Stuempel wrote:
With this idea in mind, however, training with peers or people of higher levels would seem to give the most opportunity for focused training on things that I am working on right now. For me, training in seminars and under other people who have the same or greater experience as me would be valuable.
It seems here you are referring to personal goals in your trianing, but that you cloud who you train with and who you train under. As I said above, there is no reason that in working with a lower rank you cannot find what you're looking for in the technique. Perhaps you can find it better or easier with someone of equal or greater rank/experience than you, but what does this do to the sempai/kohai relationship? If everyone thought this way to the point of never training with a rank below them, aikido would soon lose membership and proficiency.

As for whom you train under, you can still train toward your particular goals (considering that these goals are principle oriented and not "get-this-one-particular-technique-down") if you're taking a class from a more senior rank or a rank below you. You can still learn because (1) everyone presents the information differently, and (2) you are still *training* and can shape your movements/mind/expression/etc.

Now, what is good for the goose must be good for the instructor. Or the shihan.

Quote:
Michael Stuempel wrote:
In my example of the top Yoshinkan instructors...well...they have no one better than them and I don't know how the work out the peer thing. Maybe this is why they stopped "training" but continue learning from observation and teaching and questions.
Again, I am not denying that they can learn through observation and mental acuity, but this still rings to me as an excuse on par with, "aikido becomes much more mental and holistic as you get up in rank." In fact, it is this sort of situation that I think you find as you begin to dig into the reasoning of people who defend an instructor not training. I believe that behind the defense of the idea that an instructor need not train you find a set of instructors that the person feels the need to defend or protect since these are the instructors that that person looks up to and respects.

Quote:
Michael Stuempel wrote:
Tim Rohr wrote:
The matter at hand is not *how much* one should train. Such a line is inherently arbitrary and nebulous, with 10 different practitioners having 10 different levels of acceptability. No, the matter at hand is whether or not an instructor must continue to train at all. Now, the amount of training is very quantifiable, and the question becomes emminently more simple.


This is a cop-out. I've been told by many instructors that it is better to do a technique once, properly with total focus than to do it 100 times without commitment and spirit.

If this is true, then teaching a technique that *one* time is training and there is no longer a discussion.
Except that you have missed the point, IMO. If, as a student, you properly do the technique *one* time and do it with focus... should you then stop? The complete focus that you talk about is the mindset that I think shihan and instructors the world over would tell you is the mindset that should permeate our training. *All* of our training. All of this one hour class, that two hour class, or the weekend seminar. You do it once properly and then you go back and do it again and again, properly.

Does the one technique done with focus somehow qualify the instructor for an exemption at being a student? I say no, and *that* - using a technique done with focus as an excuse to not train as a student - is what I call the cop out.

Most importantly, I think you shorten the scope of what I am calling training. Training is not just being nage, is not just being uke, IMO. Training involves a beginner's mind and a willingness to learn what one can when and where one can. If an instructor had all the answers, there would be no divisions in aikido. Why not much more so many different people? Why can't one instructor learn from what another instructor has to say?

Again, I say that when you dig deeper with the people who defend not-training, you find an instructor of theirs that they are protecting.

Tim
It's a sad irony: In U's satori, he forgot every technique he ever knew; since then, generations of doka have spent their whole careers trying to remember.
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Old 10-18-2004, 11:12 AM   #34
Ron Tisdale
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Re: When Can an Instructor Stop Training?

Quote:
In fact, it is this sort of situation that I think you find as you begin to dig into the reasoning of people who defend an instructor not training.
Why should I defend it? Surely you know instructors who do just this...why not go and ask them yourself?

Ron (why the heck would they need *me* to defend them)

Ron Tisdale
-----------------------
"The higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of his behind."
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Old 10-18-2004, 11:38 AM   #35
Magma
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Re: When Can an Instructor Stop Training?

Ron,

No one is asking you or expecting you to defend anything. Where did you get such a notion? My point was that for those who *do* defend this sort of behavior, you will normally find behind such protestations an instructor that the defender respects and feels the need to defend.

And this thread *is* aimed at those instructors as much as to everyone else. This is my posing of the question to them, and I await their response.

Tim
It's a sad irony: In U's satori, he forgot every technique he ever knew; since then, generations of doka have spent their whole careers trying to remember.
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Old 10-18-2004, 11:49 AM   #36
Ron Tisdale
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Re: When Can an Instructor Stop Training?

Where did I get such a notion? From this thread...perhaps even your posts. Of course, I was being a bit facetious as well.

Frankly, I would pose such a question in person, if I had a mind to pose it at all...but that's just me.

Ron

Ron Tisdale
-----------------------
"The higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of his behind."
St. Bonaventure (ca. 1221-1274)
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Old 10-18-2004, 02:11 PM   #37
Magma
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Re: When Can an Instructor Stop Training?

Ron,

Neh. I posed the question to see what response there would be. People neither need defend nor argue against this practice of non-practice.

It is simply an observation, then, that those who do choose to defend the non-training tend to have an instructor that they are defending. Is that the reason why they choose to defend it? Perhaps. They could believe that their sensei can do no wrong. Or they could have been brought up that this sort of approach was the way things should be. Or they could believe that the non-training is right and good for other reasons of their own. There is no way that I can prove any of these, so I just stick to my observation.

Tim
It's a sad irony: In U's satori, he forgot every technique he ever knew; since then, generations of doka have spent their whole careers trying to remember.
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Old 10-18-2004, 11:35 PM   #38
Yokaze
 
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Re: When Can an Instructor Stop Training?

I don't know about anyone else, but to me, ukemi is the most fun part of training, especially when you get someone who's really advanced and quick so you can keep fluidly attacking.

THat's also the part where I get the most exercise. All that getting up.

"The only true victory is victory over oneself."

Rob Cunningham
3rd Kyu

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Old 10-18-2004, 11:39 PM   #39
maikerus
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Re: When Can an Instructor Stop Training?

Tim,

I'm getting confused. I understood that you had separated Training and Learning for the basis of this discussion. I guess your definition of training and mine in this context is different, so I figure I'll go through what my thoughts are. Its quite possible that we are saying the same thing in different ways...but just don't know it.

In my view, there are many ways to learn. As an instructor I learn and grow within my Aikido using the following methods:

1. Training - physically taking uke and being shite and not being involved in the teaching of the class except perhaps answering questions from current partner. This works when working both with people of the same rank or people of different ranks. The focus of training might change depending on partner but I will always be able to learn something with my training partner.

2. Physical Exercise - push-ups, sit-ups, solo ukemi, bunny hops, duck walks...anything that makes you sweat and improve your physical stamina that is not done by doing a technique. Stamina is good. I can do more Aikido.

3. Teaching/Demonstrating Technique - Running the class or part of a class where I use an uke to demonstrate different parts of the technique or a particular part of the technique while everyone else stops and pays attention to what is being taught. I have to really focus and think of the points I'm explaining and my Aikido improves because of this.

4. Visualization - a form of solo training where I try and remember not only the different steps in the technique, but how my balance feels while doing and receiving the technique. This is best practiced when trying to fall asleep or when bored on the train.

5. Planning a class - everything from warm-ups to the final seiza can be planned to flow together. How different techniques are similar and how similar techniques are different is a challenge to explain and makes me think alot about Aikido. Putting together a class with a different focus a few times a week is a challenge I really like because it makes me compare and contrast all the Aikido I know and find a way to try and explain it and make it fit together.

6. Listening to questions - Learn what people are thinking by what they ask. This is usually technique related, but also expands to more general Aikido questions. By thinking about the answer, or if you don't have an answer to the question you can always find someone else to ask. My Aikido grows in either case.

7. Watching the class practice - getting an overall feel for the pace, safety and general mental attitude of a class and finding a way to use that attitude or change it to something else. It is very interesting to watch the dynamic of a class and to see what flows and what is a little outside of the dynamic. I learn something about the way people move from this.

8. Watching a single shite/uke practice - getting a feel for what they are seeing/doing in the technique and finding a way to improve that feeling, or conversely, learning from something that you see them do that you hadn't thought about even if you do it.

9. Taking ukemi from students - a way to feel what they are doing and sense their Aikido. This is not training as in #1, but a way of teaching. To describe how I feel and what I feel makes me think about Aikido and the technique. This challenge is to determine the students ability and to try and teach just above that so that the goal you set for them is within their grasp. My Aikido gets better as I think of this.

10. Doing a technique with a student as uke - also not training as in #1 or teaching as in #2 but a way of showing a student what you want to feel when they throw you. The challenge here is not to do an amazing technique that uke doesn't understand, but to do the technique with emphasis on something that the student can feel and understand. I want to show them what the next step towards the technique as I currently understand it is, not just show how good I am.

11. Discussing Aikido with people - gives me a chance to think upon what I learn and formulate my ideas to a stronger degree and to listen to others and their views and incorporate them (or not) into my gestalt. It gives me lots to think about and is much like having to write a university paper with a thesis I am actually interested in. Go Aikiweb! <g>.

So...all I am saying is that for three people who I have studied under, I have not seen them training as in #1 and I think that that is fine <i>for them</i> because they have passed the point where training the technique repetitively would benefit them or me (as a student). It is possible - I just don't know - that they do train as in #1 with each other, but I haven't seen it.

For me and for other instructors who I have had the pleasure to train with, *not* doing point #1 would be a mistake. I agree with you that it is an important part of training and in particular of *my training*.

Instructors other than the three I mention who I have seen stop training as in #1 I feel have made a mistake and their Aikido has suffered. The Aikido of their students has probably suffered as well, which is tragic.

I understand how someone might think I am defending something about these three instructors I mention, but I don't think that is the case here. I had never considered the question before with respect to them before this thread came up. With others...yes. They should train. With these instructors I didn't notice they weren't until I had to think about it and realized that I hadn't actually seen them "just train".

Anyway...that's a long post (again). I'm enjoying this thinking about it and asking what else you might get from time on the mat was a good thing to help put it in perspective for me.

cheers,

--Michael

Hiriki no yosei 3 - The kihon that makes your head ache instead of your legs
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Old 10-19-2004, 07:45 AM   #40
Magma
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Re: When Can an Instructor Stop Training?

Michael,

I guess that I am specifically referring to training as in your #1 example above. The rest are methods of learning, to be sure, but are not specific to the role of being a student (as opposed to being an instructor).

I think we have a great deal of agreement on this subject now that I understand better what you are saying. We both do not want to allow ourselves to use instructor-level or instructor-roles as an excuse to end our training, and we both recognize in instructors that have stopped training that their aikido has suffered. That is their decision, true, but that doesn't mean that we cannot look at their choices and form our own judgment about those choices, and it is from that feeling that thoughts and threads like this one grow... trying to understand why they might have made the choice to stop training.

I know that some of the instructors that I am aware of who have stopped training would say - if confronted or asked about it - that they haven't stopped training at all. That they apply the other situations you list (other than #1) and that they are therefore - nearly pompously - training all the time. I don't buy that, and I think you and I have hit on why, coming at it from two different directions. As I said, I think it comes down to being willing to ask a question regarding our aikido, and only #1 is aimed at asking a question. The rest seem aimed at providing an answer. And while #1 might provide answers, I think it is unique in the cases you presented that it is focused on the question, and on acknowledging that there are answers that will come from outside of us. That's a lot of talking around and about the subject without just naming it what it is: a beginner's mind.

Too many instructors forget that there questions to be asked. Too many others get wrapped up in themselves as the only valid poser of questions, and in so doing, become wrapped up in providing the "answer." They have lost focus on the question.

Eh... thoughts running through my head... the focus of my training recently. Sorry if they are not completely coherent.

Tim
It's a sad irony: In U's satori, he forgot every technique he ever knew; since then, generations of doka have spent their whole careers trying to remember.
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Old 10-19-2004, 06:46 PM   #41
maikerus
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Re: When Can an Instructor Stop Training?

Hi Tim,

As I said before, I am enjoying this discussion. One of the main things that came out of it for me is that it made me quantify what it is that I am learning/doing/enjoying every time I think of Aikido whether it be here on the forums, training really hard without thinking and just being "in the zone", teaching or just thinking during brief bouts of insomnia.

It's also good that you raised the point because it seems that both you and I don't want to fall into that category of instructors that stop their physical training. The posts that talk about older instructors participating in classes and taking ukemi are very heartening.

I suppose we should always be vigilant about this :-)

cheers,

--Michael

Hiriki no yosei 3 - The kihon that makes your head ache instead of your legs
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Old 10-19-2004, 07:14 PM   #42
GaiaM
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Re: When Can an Instructor Stop Training?

Michael,
I just wanted to let you know that I really appreciate your list of ways that you learn in aikido. I have copied it into a word document for future inspiration on the day when I begin regularly teaching aikido (a while off yet).
Gaia

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Gaia Marrs
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Old 10-20-2004, 01:51 AM   #43
maikerus
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Re: When Can an Instructor Stop Training?

Thanks Gaia. I appreciate the vote of confidence

--Michael

Hiriki no yosei 3 - The kihon that makes your head ache instead of your legs
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