question?

At a dojo where uke will never fall for nage ever unless perfectly thrown, how do you teach new students?
Mary

Mary Eastland wrote: At a dojo where uke will never fall for nage ever unless perfectly thrown, how do you teach new students? Mary

I don't think such dojos exist -- even if they claim to -- since very few ukes are good enough to enforce such a demand, and only a few senior instructors can produce perfect technique anyway.

I don't train in such a dojo, but the way I think of it is as an asymptotic approach. For a complete beginner, I'll accept anything in the general vicinity of the right shape, and as uke I'll try to lead nage toward that shape. For someone my senior, I'll give the most effective attack that I can, and leave it up to them to deal with it (or not). In between, I'll try to adjust my level of difficulty (intensity of attack, willingness to follow, etc.) so that they succeed often, but not every time.

Katherine

Yep.
In terms of beginners: My late teacher, a natural athlete, strongly emphasized teaching/learning "in the body" versus my preferred verbal mode, and so I've really worked on developing that skill as uke w/ beginners.

Mary Eastland wrote: At a dojo where uke will never fall for nage ever unless perfectly thrown, how do you teach new students? Mary

Hi Mary,
The question sounds a bit loaded but if it's for real then I say firstly that it should be the norm rather than an oddity.

Secondly I teach that all students learn from day one to be both student and teacher so that they can't hide behind the irresponsibility of just being a clever barrier or problem. In other words it is their responsibility to both demonstrate their stability and to help their partner overcome it or rather harmonize with it and perform the technique according to those principles which then leave uke with no choice.

Thus a beginner feels comfortable that he or she will be shown they can get into a situation where it seems impossible and then be shown the way through.

Happy new year. G.

At a dojo where uke will never fall for nage ever unless perfectly thrown, how do you teach new students? Mary

How is this possible...can you please elaborate further?

Mary Eastland wrote: At a dojo where uke will never fall for nage ever unless perfectly thrown, how do you teach new students? Mary

Properly.

Sorry, couldn't resist. No pun intended.

I use my body to show the results of what they're doing and then I correct accordingly usually by physically putting their hands where they need to be so that I can say "Look what happens when you do this compared to what you were doing."
Also what I do is I break the kata up so, for instance, if we're doing gakyu hamni ikkyo I'll not co-operate on the first bit. Instead I'll work on it until they've got it while co-operating with the rest. So gradually I co-operate less and less as we work through the kata.
I'm hard on them on the sections we've done and the section we're doing but soft on the rest.
So the student learns by looking at my body and seeing what's going on and they know what they see has a direct relationship to what they're doing.

Teaching ikkyo as a single complete unit with a co-operative uke takes years. Teaching the four or five biomechanical steps in ikkyo with and uke who responds naturally takes weeks/months because it cuts out the process of trial and error.

Mary Eastland wrote: At a dojo where uke will never fall for nage ever unless perfectly thrown, how do you teach new students? Mary

You teach them Kuzushi , how to unbalance uke before applying technique.

" The balance breaking function takes place in the first moment of engagement typically." ( From the third link)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp-Gxzb25iA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWfUV...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nO9a...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E8Su...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N3Tf...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH0go...eature=related

David

Mary Eastland wrote: At a dojo where uke will never fall for nage ever unless perfectly thrown, how do you teach new students? Mary

Assuming I understand you correctly, I don't think you can. "Perfect" is a tough word to use, but in order for a newish nage to throw a more highly experienced uke, the uke has to not seize the initiative (i.e. make allowances for lack of skill). Am I understanding you correctly?

IMHO, the question sounds more about teaching the old student who will not take the fall at a level of proficiency appropriate to the new student's level.

teach the nage better

as senior students they should be ab;e to guide the beginners with their body

when i am dealing with beginner i work with a large grey area of what the techniques hsould be. i will take the fall but will give pointers as well, if they don;t listen or don;t get what i mean then i won;t go down, but that is just to illustrate a point

if some one joins a dojo and can't do anything they will probably soon leave

IMHO, while they may seek the perfect throw, they miss the chance to train the perfect character. They miss Aikido. Very sad.

The fine art of blending, adjusting to the different levels of skill. Senior students will let us beginners throw them, once in a while they won't budge just to remind us we have a long way to go I'm just under a year in my training and am only now starting to get confident in my abilites.I have sometimes anticipated the coming technique and pretty much thrown myself, but I am learning to attack more and more with intent so my partner has something to work with. It all comes down to blending so the student can get an idea of the technique and then really start to get into the finer points. What's a perfect throw anyway?

Andrew Macdonald wrote: teach the nage better as senior students they should be ab;e to guide the beginners with their body when i am dealing with beginner i work with a large grey area of what the techniques hsould be. i will take the fall but will give pointers as well, if they don;t listen or don;t get what i mean then i won;t go down, but that is just to illustrate a point if some one joins a dojo and can't do anything they will probably soon leave

Thing is they're not actually doing anything and usually they know it and they conclude that no Aikidoka is ever doing anything. Hence we have such a bad rep.
If you start teaching them kuzushi from the beginning they quickly get a feel for Aikido and they tend to stay.

Well, I'd say you just fall when nage does the technique correctly - on their level. No matter how much you help them or teach them kuzushi, a complete beginner will never be able to move a (much) more experienced training partner. The better people get, the harder you can make it for them (and I don't mean blocking...)

There's still a lot of people that I'd never be able to move if they didn't want to - but when I do "correctly", when they feel it's the right direction, they move. Otherwise, they don't...