Welcome to AikiWeb Aikido Information
AikiWeb: The Source for Aikido Information
AikiWeb's principal purpose is to serve the Internet community as a repository and dissemination point for aikido information.

Sections
home
aikido articles
columns

Discussions
forums
aikiblogs

Databases
dojo search
seminars
image gallery
supplies
links directory

Reviews
book reviews
video reviews
dvd reviews
equip. reviews

News
submit
archive

Miscellaneous
newsletter
rss feeds
polls
about

Follow us on



Home > AikiWeb Aikido Forums
Go Back   AikiWeb Aikido Forums > Training

Hello and thank you for visiting AikiWeb, the world's most active online Aikido community! This site is home to over 22,000 aikido practitioners from around the world and covers a wide range of aikido topics including techniques, philosophy, history, humor, beginner issues, the marketplace, and more.

If you wish to join in the discussions or use the other advanced features available, you will need to register first. Registration is absolutely free and takes only a few minutes to complete so sign up today!

Reply
 
Thread Tools
Old 12-29-2008, 07:09 PM   #101
Tony Wagstaffe
Location: Winchester
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 1,211
United Kingdom
Offline
Re: Integration and Awareness!

Quote:
Clarence Couch wrote: View Post
But isn't Randori ( and all of Aikido) simply folks running at you( mostly one at a time) with the intention of you throwing them? It's preplanned and they fully cooperate ( dang near throwing themselves). Imo, Randori should be called multiple fully cooperative ukes. On the street, multiple attackers means a real real bad situation.
It does.....

Tony
  Reply With Quote
Old 12-29-2008, 07:29 PM   #102
Erick Mead
 
Erick Mead's Avatar
Dojo: Big Green Drum (W. Florida Aikikai)
Location: West Florida
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 2,619
United_States
Offline
Re: Full Resistance

Quote:
Clarence Couch wrote: View Post
I think this is so important, it bears repeating/expanding. The OODA loop: Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. Everyone goes thru those steps in every situation that requires action.
Actually, not everyone does -- and the good Colonel even put it in his diagram. See here: http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/..._ooda_loop.gif There is an alternate "implicit guidance and control" cycle along the top of the diagram. It is dominated by "Orientation," and lacking in any decisional process, at all. Aikido travels this route.

There is a good thread on the the whole topic of OODA, BTW: http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/showth...highlight=ooda

Quote:
Clarence Couch wrote: View Post
The thing is, those steps takes time and by the time your opponent has acted, he's already gone thru those steps, so you're already behind "the loop". The trick is make your opponent reset his OODA, by interrupting his action in some way, which could be as simple as moving. If you step off the line of attack ( which should be the very first rule of Aikido), your opponent has to re-adjust, which require them to go thru the OODA loop again. So if you're plan is to move and attack, now you're ahead..
The "trick," which is not a trick at all, is to begin with orientation and proceed to action, and then adjust subsequent orientation through observation. In this mode, even in sensen no sen timing you are acting while the attacker is in the midst of deciding, but he has already irrevocably committed his orientation to "attack." There is no "plan." Orientation frames the action and the observational adjustments adjust the orientation, recursively.

Training orients the body intuitively to the principles of the proper action, and attunes the body to observe the variables of proper orientation according to those principles.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
一隻狗可久里馬房但他也不是馬的.
  Reply With Quote
Old 12-29-2008, 07:30 PM   #103
Kevin Leavitt
 
Kevin Leavitt's Avatar
Dojo: Team Combat USA
Location: Olympia, Washington
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 4,376
United_States
Offline
Re: Integration and Awareness!

Quote:
Clarence Couch wrote: View Post
But isn't Randori ( and all of Aikido) simply folks running at you( mostly one at a time) with the intention of you throwing them? It's preplanned and they fully cooperate ( dang near throwing themselves). Imo, Randori should be called multiple fully cooperative ukes. On the street, multiple attackers means a real real bad situation.
Randori of this type is designed to teach you how to move on the outside of uke, to tenkan, to triangulate, and to disrupt the tempo. I think it really has very little to do with self defense directly. It is a very, very basic exercise. Mainly for as the reasons you state, nage knows your coming, uke must "bail" at point of impact, and it is cooperative.

Not a bad exercise for what it is, but I think many people read into what it really does for you way too much.

  Reply With Quote
Old 12-29-2008, 11:54 PM   #104
Walter Martindale
Location: Edmonton, AB
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 802
Canada
Offline
Re: Integration and Awareness!

Quote:
Clarence Couch wrote: View Post
But isn't Randori ( and all of Aikido) simply folks running at you( mostly one at a time) with the intention of you throwing them? It's preplanned and they fully cooperate ( dang near throwing themselves). Imo, Randori should be called multiple fully cooperative ukes. On the street, multiple attackers means a real real bad situation.
I dunno. My nikyu test involved 4 attackers in jyuwaza. One was ikkyu, the rest were nidan or above, including one of my sensei. the attack was ryokatadori, the instruction from shihan was move, don't get caught. Needless to say, I was on the mats, under four guys, in a big hurry, all three tries.

Ikkyu test was only slightly better. 4 yudansha again, same instructions but I was told no hitting by the shihan. Once again, I was mushed, but I managed to stay upright and moving for a little longer.

Shodan test - four yudansha again. Again - ryokatadori (and then some relatively random shomen, yokomen, tsuki) - this time I was able to move a bit, keep turning, moving, and turning - well, for about 10 seconds, anyway.

Not really looking forward to nidan...
Ain't nobody ran at me one at a time, and ain't nobody let themselves get thrown. Each time it was all four, all at once, and each time it was MOVE FASTER.

Cheers,
W
  Reply With Quote
Old 12-30-2008, 06:35 AM   #105
C. David Henderson
Location: Santa Fe New Mexico
Join Date: Sep 2008
Posts: 606
United_States
Offline
Re: Full Resistance

Gnarled testing, that.
  Reply With Quote
Old 12-30-2008, 07:55 AM   #106
DonMagee
Location: Indiana
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 1,311
United_States
Offline
Re: Resistance and realism

Quote:
Clarence Couch wrote: View Post
This is excellent! This is more what I'd think'd work in real situations.
My problem with the video you quotes is that after the initial throat strike the uke simply stops. This simply does not happen and makes everything after that first strike meaningless imho.

- Don
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" - Albert Einstein
  Reply With Quote
Old 12-30-2008, 10:28 AM   #107
L. Camejo
 
L. Camejo's Avatar
Dojo: Ontario Martial Arts
Location: Mississauga, Ontario
Join Date: Aug 2001
Posts: 1,423
Canada
Offline
Re: Resistance and realism

Quote:
Don Magee wrote: View Post
My problem with the video you quotes is that after the initial throat strike the uke simply stops. This simply does not happen and makes everything after that first strike meaningless imho.
This is what I was thinking.

Kevin: Your CPR analogy is a very good example of what I was getting at earlier in this thread. I tend to use a similar analogy when teaching. A few seconds of reality can clear up years of accumulated delusion imho.

Overall, applied Aikido (as in self defence or resistance training) is an intuitive use of many mind/body principles that function to optimize the human self towards ending conflict in different ways. If one keeps thinking of "technique" as in particular waza that will "work in a fight" or "winning" then one is far away from the objective we seek in applying Aiki imho. In this way, competition can limit ones development, but competitive practice, done properly can develop the instant intuitive responses to resistance that are a part of applied Aiki. Ideally, if there is resistance there is no Aikido, but how does one learn the optimal ways of negating, going around or utilizing resistance without engaging it at some point in training?

All techniques that work (whether physical, mental or otherwise) are governed by certain base principles. These principles apply always, whether one is striking, throwing, locking, grappling, armed or unarmed. If one has found a way of integrating these principles into ones practice then proficiency can be achieved in cooperative practice, resistance practice, competition, scenario training and self defence since the same principles are applicable to each endeavour in different ways and at different levels.

Best.
LC

Last edited by L. Camejo : 12-30-2008 at 10:31 AM.

--Mushin Mugamae - No Mind No Posture. He who is possessed by nothing possesses everything.--
http://www.tntaikido.org
http://www.mushinkan.ca
  Reply With Quote
Old 12-30-2008, 03:04 PM   #108
Tony Wagstaffe
Location: Winchester
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 1,211
United Kingdom
Offline
Re: Integration and Awareness!

Quote:
Kevin Leavitt wrote: View Post
No you cannot, but within every scenario there are some common elements that will come up in just about any fight that we can train. Fighting distance, weapons, no weapons.....okay.

Lets only look at the clinch since this is primarily what we are concerned with in an empty handed or close fight situation. What are the common elements in the clinch in every fight regardless of the other factors?

Okay, someone goes down on the ground. One is up, one is down. What is common and what can we study here?

Both are down, one is one, the other is on the bottom. What is the orientation of the two people? Side, Mount, Guard, On the Back.

Multiple Opponents? Well LOL that one gets tricky doesn't it? I tend to stick with one person for most of my training as, IMO, if you cannot control one, what makes you think you can control more?

Sort of like trying to eat an elephant, how to you do that? One piece at a time!

So, no we cannot train every conceivable scenario, but we can focus on those things that will come up in just about any fight working with different positions, timing, weapons involved.
Of course totally agree with you here....... Have been in nasty situations where I have been attacked by more than two...... the trick is to keep them at bay and for them to get into each others path of destruction, but not easy when you have innocent people, cars, sidewalks, waste bins, street seats, lamp posts, bollards, sign posts and every other conceivable thing that tends to get in your way or trips you up, where ya don't want ta be!! and you only have street lighting for visibility!..... Hairy and scary..... Tanbo comes in bloody handy!!
Nice and tidy in the dojo where the mat is nice and level and there are no obstructions except the four walls that constrain you and the the brethren that "attack" you......

Take Care Kevin

Tony

Last edited by Tony Wagstaffe : 12-30-2008 at 03:07 PM.
  Reply With Quote
Old 12-30-2008, 09:07 PM   #109
CNYMike
Dojo: Aikido of Central New York
Location: Cortland, NY
Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 1,005
United_States
Offline
Re: Integration and Awareness!

Quote:
Salim Shaw wrote: View Post
The future is not about separation, but rather integration with other styles of Jujutsu, fueling a natural progression of Aikido ....
It is? Based on what?

There seem to be as many takes on Aikido as there are people practicing it, and so the "natural progession" will be different for everbody. Sure, it might be "natural" do what Roy Dean did in a clip and go from kote gaeshi to juji gatame; anyone knowing those moves can do it. But is that a "natural progression" of Aikido or jut a personal foible?

Quote:
.... Working with non-resistant opponents can lead to a false sense of security. This leads to disappointment when skills are needed most.
My Kali instructor keeps saying, "Any technique that saves your bacon is the best one in the universe." If someone who trains against non-resistance defends himself or herself in reality, who are we to say it'll never work? Cleary it did.

Quote:
Should we as Aikidoka change our training methods, redefining Aikido practice as a whole? ......
Only if it accomplishes the same thing as the old practice, but if it doesn't, no. Every martial art has its strengths and weaknesses. The trick is to appreciate what it offers alreay, and work from there. Not as easy as slapping on some BJJ and adding sparring and calling it "Modern Aikido" -- not easy at all, in fact! -- but more rewarding in the end.

"I am not a big fat panda. I am the big fat panda." --Po, Kung Fu Panda
  Reply With Quote
Old 12-31-2008, 09:49 AM   #110
Ketsan
Dojo: Zanshin Kai
Location: Birmingham
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 865
United Kingdom
Offline
Re: Integration and Awareness!

Quote:
Salim Shaw wrote: View Post
The future is not about separation, but rather integration with other styles of Jujutsu, fueling a natural progression of Aikido. Ultimately, awareness, timing and sensitivity are the attributes that will take you the farthest in acquiring deep skills, and conserve energy when facing larger opponents.

While Aikido is philosophically rich, competition and practicing at full resistance is generally discouraged by most modern Aikidoka. This is a reflection of the founders religious orientation.

Working with non-resistant opponents can lead to a false sense of security. This leads to disappointment when skills are needed most.

Should we as Aikidoka change our training methods, redefining Aikido practice as a whole? Sparring clearly illustrates that the first attempt at a technique does not always work. Ueshiba's vision may be well served, even enhanced by incorporating training methods of full resistance. Should we as Aikidoka learn to adopt sparring in it's true nature of learning of what works? It's time for change, and perhaps the time has arrived.
I'd argue the opposite, Aikido's future is about the development of what it, since the refocusing of Judo onto competition, uniquely has: The ability to overcome an opponent before he can resist.

My personal dislike of the idea of competiton is that it produces a false sense of reality. My experience of Judo convinces me that you're only goot at overcoming the resistance you're trained to produce. When someone resists in a different way everything goes out of the window. Also your ability to resist depends on your level of training; in fact in large part resistance is a product of training.

Think about this: If we regard training to overcome resistance as being vital to Judo's effectiveness, then it follows that any untrained person can effectively resist Judo, other wise there would be no need to learn how to overcome resistance.

This, clearly, is bollocks. Put any untrained person up against even a low level Judoka and they will get pwned. This leads me to ask the question "Is Judo randori about learning to throw a resisting opponent or is it more about learning how to resist being thrown?"

I'm inclined to believe that since someone with relatively little Judo experience can defeat an untrained person that the answer to the questions is that randori teaches one to effectively resist more than it teaches one to overcome resistance.

So if we're going to introduce resistance training and competition we'd better ask who we're planning on fighting and we'd better learn to resist as they do and to their level.

Also we need to realise that testing out techniques on each other is pointless in a discussion of effectiveness on non-aikidoka. We've all spent years learning these techniques to the point that they are now intuitive.
Just because we know how to lock them down and reverse them it does not follow that anyone outside of Aikido does, just because we do not commonly resist does not mean that our ability to resist our own art is the same as an untrained person or a person from another art.
I can belt n00bs around the dojo with ease after 6 years of training, but I struggle to move my seniors. This suggests that far from co-operating with me, my seniors have become highly resistant to Aikido, and can resist Aikido far more effectively than any untrained person or anyone from a different art.

The problem, therefore, is not that our techniques do not work, it's that they do not work on someone who is trained to resist them.
Training to produce yet more resistance (just so that we can overcome it) will not help us overcome someone who is not trained or experienced enough to resist in the first place.

As an example of this there is a video on youtube of a karateka getting seriously pwned by a BJJer. How much time did the BJJer spend learning to overcome karate resistance? How much use was the BJJers knowledge of how to overcome BJJ in a fight against a Karateka?
I'd argue that the BJJers abaility to overcome BJJ resistance meant precisely squat when he fought against the Karateka.

So how much more effective will Aikido become against non-aikidoka if we learn to overcome purely Aikido resistance?
  Reply With Quote
Old 12-31-2008, 11:23 AM   #111
C. David Henderson
Location: Santa Fe New Mexico
Join Date: Sep 2008
Posts: 606
United_States
Offline
Re: Full Resistance

Hi Alex,

Interesting post. Does the same apply to Aikido training with resistence -- that we're learning how to resist Aikido more than how to do Aikido in the face of resistence?

Regards,

David
  Reply With Quote
Old 12-31-2008, 11:24 AM   #112
C. David Henderson
Location: Santa Fe New Mexico
Join Date: Sep 2008
Posts: 606
United_States
Offline
Re: Full Resistance

Oh, never mind, you answered that too.
  Reply With Quote
Old 12-31-2008, 11:34 AM   #113
DonMagee
Location: Indiana
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 1,311
United_States
Offline
Re: Integration and Awareness!

Quote:
Alex Lawrence wrote: View Post
I'd argue the opposite, Aikido's future is about the development of what it, since the refocusing of Judo onto competition, uniquely has: The ability to overcome an opponent before he can resist.

My personal dislike of the idea of competiton is that it produces a false sense of reality. My experience of Judo convinces me that you're only goot at overcoming the resistance you're trained to produce. When someone resists in a different way everything goes out of the window. Also your ability to resist depends on your level of training; in fact in large part resistance is a product of training.
I think it is obvious that the more you know about how to fight, the better you are going to be at fighting. A untrained person may punch off balance with no power. A trained fighter is going to throw a strong, fast, well placed, well balanced, punch. Because of that, he is also going to have a better guard, because he will have other guys doing the same to him. If he only blocks wild weak haymakers his defense is going to suffer.

Quote:
Alex Lawrence wrote: View Post
Think about this: If we regard training to overcome resistance as being vital to Judo's effectiveness, then it follows that any untrained person can effectively resist Judo, other wise there would be no need to learn how to overcome resistance.

This, clearly, is bollocks. Put any untrained person up against even a low level Judoka and they will get pwned. This leads me to ask the question "Is Judo randori about learning to throw a resisting opponent or is it more about learning how to resist being thrown?"
I submit to you the wrestler, or the bigger stronger opponent. Both could resist a judoka. I submit to you MMA fighting, where judoka have beaten and been beat non-judoka. You train not to overcome resistance. You train WITH resistance. You might ask why. The reason is to get a close approximation of how a person will react when preasure is placed on him/her. Not a guess, or an act, but a real reaction to say being punched in the face, pushed, pulled, thrown, choked, etc.

Quote:
Alex Lawrence wrote: View Post
I'm inclined to believe that since someone with relatively little Judo experience can defeat an untrained person that the answer to the questions is that randori teaches one to effectively resist more than it teaches one to overcome resistance.
Again, I think it is simply that as you become better at fighting you become better balanced, and your techniques have less openings, thus you are harder to attack. I can't possibly see how this could every be a bad thing.

Quote:
Alex Lawrence wrote: View Post
So if we're going to introduce resistance training and competition we'd better ask who we're planning on fighting and we'd better learn to resist as they do and to their level.

Also we need to realise that testing out techniques on each other is pointless in a discussion of effectiveness on non-aikidoka. We've all spent years learning these techniques to the point that they are now intuitive.
Just because we know how to lock them down and reverse them it does not follow that anyone outside of Aikido does, just because we do not commonly resist does not mean that our ability to resist our own art is the same as an untrained person or a person from another art.
I can belt n00bs around the dojo with ease after 6 years of training, but I struggle to move my seniors. This suggests that far from co-operating with me, my seniors have become highly resistant to Aikido, and can resist Aikido far more effectively than any untrained person or anyone from a different art.

The problem, therefore, is not that our techniques do not work, it's that they do not work on someone who is trained to resist them.
Training to produce yet more resistance (just so that we can overcome it) will not help us overcome someone who is not trained or experienced enough to resist in the first place.

As an example of this there is a video on youtube of a karateka getting seriously pwned by a BJJer. How much time did the BJJer spend learning to overcome karate resistance? How much use was the BJJers knowledge of how to overcome BJJ in a fight against a Karateka?
I'd argue that the BJJers abaility to overcome BJJ resistance meant precisely squat when he fought against the Karateka.[/quote[
Again, I believe you are wrong. I have studied TKD for a good while (black belt), aikido for a short while (a few years), judo for a shorter while (still preparing for my shodan) and bjj for 3 or 4 years (2 stripe blue belt).What I have experienced is in direct opposition to your argument.
My TKD was heavily forms based. I did not do any contact sparing, just the occasional no touch/light touch tag game. When I trained aikido we never used any resistance in our training (beyond static resitance of not letting someone move you). When I started judo I was unable to use any of my aikido against a judoka. Basically I would try to do anything and end up flat on my back with a man either looking down on me or pinning/choking me. When I started bjj shortly afterwards I discovered that because of the more limited ground ruleset in judo I was getting up right schooled by 3 month white belts in bjj. Because they were used to dealing with wrestlers they were hard to throw just like my judo training partners (of my level).

Now in bjj we rarely spared standing. The only guys who did were training MMA. I did not train in MMA, so I almost never got to start standing with the bjj guys. However I kept going to judo and kept getting better at throwing judoka. After a few of our bjj guys started asking for more work on takedowns we started sparing standing up more often. I found that in the timespan I had gotten a lot better at throwing bjj guys. Now why does this matter? Because bjj guys do not stand or move like judo guys. BJJ guys are more worried about single legs then harai goshi. So they have a low stiff armed posture with bent knees and a upright head. Ready to shoot. Judo players stand almost upright and a posture that is not protecting of a shot at all. Yet somehow though my training with judo I got better at throwing bjj students.

Why? Because in judo randori I was trying to throw a person who only had two things on his mind.

1) Throw me.
2) Do not get thrown by me.

This means I was learning to create very efficient basics of control and position. I was learning to control the encounter and lead the fight to where I wanted it to go. The throw is inconsequential.

Likewise with bjj. The point of sparing is to improve your control and positioning. The submission are secondary. Because of this my judo ground game (with different rules) improved dramatically. It doesn't matter that the basis of my bjj game is drastically different then my judo ground game (most of my favorite submission and positions in bjj would either get me disqualified from a judo match or force us to stand back up). I was learning solid foundations of position and control that can be applied to any situation.

Overtime I was also able to learn to use some of that TKD and Aikido that I trained. I started slowly modifying the techniques I was taught to deal with the realities of the alive training. I no longer had a partner throwing a unbalanced punch at the direction of my face, but a person hell bent on hitting me with good footwork, timing, speed, and power. He was not going to leave that hand out to grab, but bring it in for defense so I did not do the same to him. I had to learn to draw my opponent out and create openings for my techniques. I've slowly gained a small reputation at the club for being the sneaky guy with the crazy controls, takedowns, and wristlocks.

On top of this, the sparing is forcing me to grow as a fighter. When I first started bjj I had an awesome sholder hold pin and a nice choke from that position. It was dominating my training partners. But after a short while they all knew the trick and not only could defend it with ease (forcing me to learn new things), but they started doing it to me (forcing me to be more aware of my situation).

On top of this we would frequently get new people to spar with. He may be a wrestler looking to get into MMA, or a karate guy looking to learn grappling. Each one brought a new uniqueness to the sparing match. This caused us to be more adaptable to changing situations, and we even adopted some tricks from these guys. You quickly learn things you would never learn without noobs. Such as that while pinching the inner theigh hurts, you can tolerate it, or how to defend fingers being bent back, eyes gouged, biting, etc.

Even greater then this situational sparing is just aliveness. Doing drills with very open rulesets. Allowing the person to give a real response to their partner. MMA sparing does this very well. It is no longer just learning to deal with something limited like judo, bjj, aikido, boxing, etc. But learning to deal with people, some who are better strikers, grapplers, stronger, bigger, faster, more technical, smarter, etc then you are. It forces your defenses to get tighter, your attacks to be sharper, and your mind to be more focused.

Quote:
Alex Lawrence wrote: View Post
So how much more effective will Aikido become against non-aikidoka if we learn to overcome purely Aikido resistance?
Resistance also does not have to be sparing to add drastically to your training. It could be as simple as taking a student and asking him to hit you. Not throw a shomen strike, but hit you and not stop trying to hit you until he has been subdued. Give your partner a real goal besides being a willing participant in his own beat down. Don't say "I want you to shoot a single leg and I will practice defense X", but rather "I want you to try to take me down for 3 minutes any way you know how without striking". Will you have to learn more then you would if your only attacker was a 5'4" 300 pound 16 year old with heart disease? Of course, however I would think being able to beat a trained fighter will make you better at handling a untrained one. For example, if I can block a sharp sniper like boxers attack, I think I can deal with the tells and giveaways of the laymans haymaker with ease.

On top of this, there are some things you can't train without doing it for real. You can't learn what it is like to have someone punch you in the face via kata and compliant drills. You can't learn what it is like to recover from a drastic mistake from compliant drills and kata, you can't learn what it is like to stand back up after you have fallen and are still under attack. You can't learn what it is like to get so stressed you lose awareness and get cornered and pummeled.

Aliveness is about dealing with adversity and learning to control it as best you can. You can't learn to be a great chess master though kata, what would the same not apply to any other art of strategy.

Last edited by DonMagee : 12-31-2008 at 11:38 AM. Reason: fixing quotes

- Don
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" - Albert Einstein
  Reply With Quote
Old 01-02-2009, 11:39 AM   #114
Ketsan
Dojo: Zanshin Kai
Location: Birmingham
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 865
United Kingdom
Offline
Re: Integration and Awareness!

Quote:
Don Magee wrote: View Post

I submit to you the wrestler, or the bigger stronger opponent. Both could resist a judoka. I submit to you MMA fighting, where judoka have beaten and been beat non-judoka. You train not to overcome resistance. You train WITH resistance.

No argument, as I said you learn to cope best with the resistance you're trained to produce. Judo, MMA and wrestling are not identical and so each, I would suggest, resists in subtly different ways. A judoka would find fighting a wrestler different from fighting another judoka.

Quote:
Don Magee wrote: View Post
Again, I think it is simply that as you become better at fighting you become better balanced, and your techniques have less openings, thus you are harder to attack. I can't possibly see how this could every be a bad thing.
Or as you become better balanced, perfect your form you become harder to attack. It's a chicken and egg thing.

Quote:
Don Magee wrote: View Post
When I started bjj shortly afterwards I discovered that because of the more limited ground ruleset in judo I was getting up right schooled by 3 month white belts in bjj. Because they were used to dealing with wrestlers they were hard to throw just like my judo training partners (of my level).
Or forms of resistance appropriate to a Judo ruleset were inappropriate under a BJJ ruleset.

Quote:
Don Magee wrote: View Post
I found that in the timespan I had gotten a lot better at throwing bjj guys. Now why does this matter? Because bjj guys do not stand or move like judo guys. BJJ guys are more worried about single legs then harai goshi. So they have a low stiff armed posture with bent knees and a upright head. Ready to shoot. Judo players stand almost upright and a posture that is not protecting of a shot at all. Yet somehow though my training with judo I got better at throwing bjj students.
BJJ guys in short, do not have the appropriate resistance for dealing with stand up Judo. My previous comment in reverse, what makes sense in BJJ doesn't prepare you to deal with Judo.

Quote:
Don Magee wrote: View Post
Why? Because in judo randori I was trying to throw a person who only had two things on his mind.

1) Throw me.
2) Do not get thrown by me.

This means I was learning to create very efficient basics of control and position. I was learning to control the encounter and lead the fight to where I wanted it to go. The throw is inconsequential.
No argument within a Judo context. I'm not so sure that fighting a judoka is great prep for fighting anyone else though.

Quote:
Don Magee wrote: View Post
Likewise with bjj. The point of sparing is to improve your control and positioning. The submission are secondary. Because of this my judo ground game (with different rules) improved dramatically. It doesn't matter that the basis of my bjj game is drastically different then my judo ground game (most of my favorite submission and positions in bjj would either get me disqualified from a judo match or force us to stand back up). I was learning solid foundations of position and control that can be applied to any situation.
Any situation on the ground.

Quote:
Don Magee wrote: View Post
Overtime I was also able to learn to use some of that TKD and Aikido that I trained. I started slowly modifying the techniques I was taught to deal with the realities of the alive training. I no longer had a partner throwing a unbalanced punch at the direction of my face, but a person hell bent on hitting me with good footwork, timing, speed, and power. He was not going to leave that hand out to grab, but bring it in for defense so I did not do the same to him. I had to learn to draw my opponent out and create openings for my techniques. I've slowly gained a small reputation at the club for being the sneaky guy with the crazy controls, takedowns, and wristlocks.
You studied the art, found the openings, applied what you learned elsewhere aided, I'd suggest, because what you're doing is "crazy" it's new and no pattern for resisting it exists in your new envoironment.

Quote:
Don Magee wrote: View Post
On top of this, the sparing is forcing me to grow as a fighter. When I first started bjj I had an awesome sholder hold pin and a nice choke from that position. It was dominating my training partners. But after a short while they all knew the trick and not only could defend it with ease (forcing me to learn new things), but they started doing it to me (forcing me to be more aware of my situation).
Again, that's pretty obvious, thing is they had the chance to study and develop effective resistance. This is not something someone out on the street, in a situation, can do. They can't stop you half way through shiho nage and then say "That's an interesting technique, could we go through this a couple of times until I work out how to resist it?"

Quote:
Don Magee wrote: View Post
On top of this we would frequently get new people to spar with. He may be a wrestler looking to get into MMA, or a karate guy looking to learn grappling. Each one brought a new uniqueness to the sparing match. This caused us to be more adaptable to changing situations, and we even adopted some tricks from these guys. You quickly learn things you would never learn without noobs. Such as that while pinching the inner theigh hurts, you can tolerate it, or how to defend fingers being bent back, eyes gouged, biting, etc.
Exactly what I was saying, each art brings it's own approaches. Just because you learn one approach it does not follow that you are prepared for all other approaches. So if we introduce resistance training in Aikido we have to be sure that we're training against someone acting as a real opponent does, rather than as an Aikidoka would. Assuming there's a difference, which I suggest there is.

Quote:
Don Magee wrote: View Post
Resistance also does not have to be sparing to add drastically to your training. It could be as simple as taking a student and asking him to hit you. Not throw a shomen strike, but hit you and not stop trying to hit you until he has been subdued. Give your partner a real goal besides being a willing participant in his own beat down. Don't say "I want you to shoot a single leg and I will practice defense X", but rather "I want you to try to take me down for 3 minutes any way you know how without striking". Will you have to learn more then you would if your only attacker was a 5'4" 300 pound 16 year old with heart disease? Of course, however I would think being able to beat a trained fighter will make you better at handling a untrained one. For example, if I can block a sharp sniper like boxers attack, I think I can deal with the tells and giveaways of the laymans haymaker with ease.
By and large I agree with you and I know a lot of dojo that train just like that. Although I will say that it's no good training against a trained fighter if it doesn't reflect how most people attack. A trained fighter in a ring or sparring situation is not the same as a pissed off guy and his mate(s) who thinks you've been eyeing up his girl and is now venting in your face. Will a boxer slam you into a wall and restrain you and then start punching you? Is that part of his training? Is a Judoka going to make a good puncher?

When we talk about a trained fighter we need to sort out just what this guy is trained in and how that training lines up with what goes on in the street. Are we sure that a trained fighter hasn't been trained out of things which are in fact very useful?

Quote:
Don Magee wrote: View Post
On top of this, there are some things you can't train without doing it for real. You can't learn what it is like to have someone punch you in the face via kata and compliant drills. You can't learn what it is like to recover from a drastic mistake from compliant drills and kata, you can't learn what it is like to stand back up after you have fallen and are still under attack. You can't learn what it is like to get so stressed you lose awareness and get cornered and pummeled.
Again this is my experience of randori and in fact kata practice. Mistakes are made and where I come from uke is expected to do something. On monday night I goofed irimi nage and was promptly thrown by my uke.
  Reply With Quote
Old 01-02-2009, 05:02 PM   #115
DonMagee
Location: Indiana
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 1,311
United_States
Offline
Re: Full Resistance

I guess I simply don't get it. I go with imperial evidence. I trained aikido for years and TKD for almost a decade, yet I could not leverage it against a bjj white belt with 3 months training. So I guess bjj students train to deal with TKD and aikido movements?

Either that or their training strategies simply work. I'm not a religious man, so I'm going with evidence over faith.

- Don
"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" - Albert Einstein
  Reply With Quote
Old 01-02-2009, 05:20 PM   #116
Randathamane
Join Date: Apr 2005
Posts: 56
United Kingdom
Offline
Re: Full Resistance

resistance = any mechanical force that tends to retard or oppose motion

isn't it fairly academic as resistance implies knowledge or foresight? one can resist and block ikkyo as long as one knows that ikkyo is coming. the true question is- can Joe blogs can defend/ counter/ resist if he does not know what is coming?

surly to argue to opposite is to argue the nature of aikido????

as according to my master teacher- "to meet the spirit and the way". To encounter the path of non- resistance. surely if an opponent resists, change the technique?

  Reply With Quote
Old 01-02-2009, 05:36 PM   #117
Ketsan
Dojo: Zanshin Kai
Location: Birmingham
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 865
United Kingdom
Offline
Re: Full Resistance

Quote:
Don Magee wrote: View Post
I guess I simply don't get it. I go with imperial evidence. I trained aikido for years and TKD for almost a decade, yet I could not leverage it against a bjj white belt with 3 months training. So I guess bjj students train to deal with TKD and aikido movements?

Either that or their training strategies simply work. I'm not a religious man, so I'm going with evidence over faith.
It's more that TKD and Aikido have no resistive strategies to deal with BJJ in the same way that, as you yourself, stated BJJ has no resistive strategies to deal with stand up Judo.

Right, back to the party.
  Reply With Quote
Old 01-02-2009, 09:41 PM   #118
L. Camejo
 
L. Camejo's Avatar
Dojo: Ontario Martial Arts
Location: Mississauga, Ontario
Join Date: Aug 2001
Posts: 1,423
Canada
Offline
Re: Full Resistance

Quote:
Richard Player wrote: View Post
resistance implies knowledge or foresight?
I think this can be misleading to many. Especially people who do not train with someone exercising their free will to not cooperate with ones waza.

Resistance does not exactly require foresight, unless we see the human nervous system as a way of having foresight or foreknowledge. People in general react very quickly and instinctively to sensory input, especially touch input. The instant someone senses that they are being moved in a direction that they do not want to go, they start an instinctive chain of motions designed to thwart that movement. This is as instinctive as reaching ones hands towards the ground if falling. A good example is found in trying to lift a child or animal that does not want to be lifted for any reason. The instinct of making the body heavy through dead-weight relaxation appears almost instantly when someone tries to lift them against their free will. This is instinctive resistance. It requires no foreknowledge except for the neuromuscular system.

There is a reason why Aiki waza involve a matching of energy, direction and motion with the aggressor, because if one does not detect that they are being taken somewhere that they do not want to go they will have no reason to resist or not cooperate.

It's interesting that in Tomiki's writings on what we call "resistance" training he hardly uses the word resistance but instead says that ones partner is "expressing free will." This is the free will to not be thrown by ones partner if one chooses not to. Imho if one is engaging in randori and uke has the choice not to be thrown/pinned etc. then something is lacking in the application of that waza. It is simply not effective as executed.

I can concur with a lot of what Don is saying above since I have entered Judo and Jujutsu dojos with pretty much only Aikido knowledge and been able to effectively resist (i.e. block waza) when engaging in standing waza. Imho this had less to do with any prior knowledge or training I had in those arts (which were zero) and more to do with my ability to feel my partners' attempts at kuzushi and merely maintain posture and body weight in a way that canceled out what they wanted to achieve. In ground work, it was a new environment to me at first, but again when I held on to Aikido principles when on the ground it was very difficult for the guys to pin me. Of course I had no experience in these arts so all I could do was defend/resist until I did get pinned at some point, but I did not require foreknowledge in order to do so.

Quote:
Don Magee wrote:
On top of this, there are some things you can't train without doing it for real. You can't learn what it is like to have someone punch you in the face via kata and compliant drills. You can't learn what it is like to recover from a drastic mistake from compliant drills and kata, you can't learn what it is like to stand back up after you have fallen and are still under attack. You can't learn what it is like to get so stressed you lose awareness and get cornered and pummeled.
Again this is my experience of randori and in fact kata practice.
This has also been my experience. Bruce Lee had a saying that the best way to train for an event is the event itself. Fighting, randori or any engagement involving people who are allowed to use their free wills during the encounter is the exact opposite of kata practice which requires foreknowledge of what is going to happen next, cooperation and compliance. As soon as one leaves the realm of pure compliance in kata practice one enters the realm of randori. Definitions of the terms can be found on Aikidojournal here - Kata & Randori. Imho the purpose of kata is to learn technique - it is the reference manual. The purpose of randori is to test and develop ones instinctive application of kata. When ones waza fails in randori one can revisit kata to look for any technical flaws and then return to randori to test and develop instinctive application.

Quote:
Mistakes are made and where I come from uke is expected to do something. On monday night I goofed irimi nage and was promptly thrown by my uke.
This is a form of randori, not kata practice.

Best.

LC

Last edited by L. Camejo : 01-02-2009 at 09:44 PM.

--Mushin Mugamae - No Mind No Posture. He who is possessed by nothing possesses everything.--
http://www.tntaikido.org
http://www.mushinkan.ca
  Reply With Quote
Old 01-02-2009, 09:56 PM   #119
L. Camejo
 
L. Camejo's Avatar
Dojo: Ontario Martial Arts
Location: Mississauga, Ontario
Join Date: Aug 2001
Posts: 1,423
Canada
Offline
Re: Integration and Awareness!

Quote:
Alex Lawrence wrote: View Post
They can't stop you half way through shiho nage and then say "That's an interesting technique, could we go through this a couple of times until I work out how to resist it?"
Funny that you mention Shi ho nage, which is a technique that I have seen many beginners "dance" out of on their first day of training in many dojos. They instinctively felt the hole that most people leave when pivoting behind to finish the technique and simply keep turning until they are back where the waza started.

To resist waza does not require much training if any. To counter it with something effective enough to end or resolve the situation, that takes study.

Best.
LC

--Mushin Mugamae - No Mind No Posture. He who is possessed by nothing possesses everything.--
http://www.tntaikido.org
http://www.mushinkan.ca
  Reply With Quote
Old 01-02-2009, 10:24 PM   #120
Ketsan
Dojo: Zanshin Kai
Location: Birmingham
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 865
United Kingdom
Offline
Re: Integration and Awareness!

Quote:
Larry Camejo wrote: View Post
Funny that you mention Shi ho nage, which is a technique that I have seen many beginners "dance" out of on their first day of training in many dojos. They instinctively felt the hole that most people leave when pivoting behind to finish the technique and simply keep turning until they are back where the waza started.

To resist waza does not require much training if any. To counter it with something effective enough to end or resolve the situation, that takes study.

Best.
LC
Weapons training, weapons training, weapons training. Sorts out all that kind of stuff.
  Reply With Quote

Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Full Speed Randori and Self Defense smithid General 40 12-27-2009 11:24 PM
Resistance training overview: the four basic levels G DiPierro Training 17 11-04-2007 03:18 PM
The tool of resistance in teaching Aikido Marc Abrams Training 18 10-26-2007 09:52 AM
Past Nage Waza In Aikido Dennis Hooker General 3 10-12-2004 02:24 PM
Full contact, full speed, full power. DGLinden General 24 09-19-2003 06:22 PM


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 12:33 AM.



vBulletin Copyright © 2000-2024 Jelsoft Enterprises Limited
----------
Copyright 1997-2024 AikiWeb and its Authors, All Rights Reserved.
----------
For questions and comments about this website:
Send E-mail
plainlaid-picaresque outchasing-protistan explicantia-altarage seaford-stellionate