Pain in aikido?

There is old saying from Shingen Buddism, Himalaya:

Everything that doesnt kill you, will reinforce you.

Not for nothing O sensei practiced exercises from Shingen Buddism.

they hijacked it from my man Friedrich Nietzsche.
"Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker" (That which does not kill me, makes me stronger) - Nietzsche <The Twilight of the Idols, 1899>

Or my bumper sticker that says:

What doesn't kill me will only require brief hospitalization.

Szczepan Janczuk wrote: There is old saying from Shingen Buddism, Himalaya: Everything that doesnt kill you, will reinforce you. Not for nothing O sensei practiced exercises from Shingen Buddism.

Do you mean Shingon Buddhism? Could not find a Shingen Buddhism.
Shingon Buddhism is an Japanese esoteric form of Buddhism. O'Sensei study Shingon Buddhism in his early years.

I was actually thinking about the pain vs discomfort thing last night. A few says ago I was working with a guy in bjj. He was trying to drive his forarm into my throat as a crude attempt at a choke. I was calm and worked my position and caught him in an armbar. Afterwards he asked me "Didnt' that hurt?". My response was "Yea, it was actually very painful, but I knew I wasn't in any danger of getting hurt by it.".

That got me thinking. New people tap to pain. Experianced people learn to listen to their bodies and learn the difference between pain and damage. There are positions that just plain hurt, and those which are going to hurt you. Another example would be an attempted rear nakid choke done on me last week. It wasn't sunk deeply enough and I was in no danger of actually getting choked. While I was working my defense my partner (Who seems to think sparing is competition) slid his arm up and tried to choke out my nose and mouth. His goal was to apply enough pain to get me to tap vs choking me. There was a significate amount of pain, but I knew he wasn't in position to break my nose and he wasn't twisting in a way that was dangerous to my jaw. So I just kept fighting it half heartedly until he gassed from using all his muscle to 'choke my face'. Then I turned into him and got the tap. It was a huge amount of pain (the insides of my lips were cut and it sucked to eat that night), but I knew there was no danger so it was easy to push though. When I was just starting out I would of tapped 2 or 3 seconds into that 'choke'.

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Don Magee wrote: IThere was a significate amount of pain, but I knew he wasn't in position to break my nose and he wasn't twisting in a way that was dangerous to my jaw. So I just kept fighting it half heartedly until he gassed from using all his muscle to 'choke my face'. Then I turned into him and got the tap. It was a huge amount of pain (the insides of my lips were cut and it sucked to eat that night), but I knew there was no danger so it was easy to push though. When I was just starting out I would of tapped 2 or 3 seconds into that 'choke'.

I've experienced very similar thing when training in a jujitsu dojo while working away from home.

The pain from the ulcers that set in to my cut mouth in the next couple of days was far worse than anything at the time.

In a dojo situation I'll definitely tap next time...it just wasn't worth the pain every time I ate anything with salt in in it.

Different if its not the dojo of course.

But your right , experience enable you to recognise the difference between unpleasantness or dangerous.

Regds

D

I would normally just tap. But in this case I was trying to make a point to my partner that using 'jerk' moves wont cut it in competition against someone who knows whats going on. Sadly, he still hasn't learned that slams, face chokes, and other crappy techniques just dont work in competition.

endorphine addiction

After not having been active on Aikiweb for probably more than two years I came back to this thread today since Dirk wrote me a quick mail in regards to the issue of pain in aikido practice. And to my own amazement I found that my idea of what aikido practice should be and of how pain fits in with that idea has changed completely Funny.