Boring Training

So -- what bores you during training?

-- Jun

Hello all this is my first post, i'm yet another lurker comming into the fold.

I have only been prcticing for 5 months & i'm still wide eyed with fascination for Aikido, so as yet i find every little boring. Though there is one thing that does start to drain me during class & that is when sensei go's on a long winded explination of a technique & then starts to go off the tracks.
Though i realize that comes from his passion for Aikido .

My attitude on that day.
So I practice anyway.
I'm already there.
Why sit and stare?
No point in emotional delay.

Hi Jun!

Most of the time when I feel bored during training, it's because I know I do something wrong but I cannot execute the technique as I think what's right. So with every more repetition it starts to bore me, because I may never get it right.

But sometimes I discover something new somewhere (most of the time with the help of my teacher and fellow Aikido students) which makes my Aikido better, I forget everything about the times I found training boring......

Simone

I get bored when I train with someone who is a really bad uke, no matter how many times you tell them. Or indeed, training with people who perform dire technique and make up for it by trying to suddenly snap your wrist in a nikkyo. There are people who just never seem to learn...
andrew

Doing one thousand ukemi bores me, doing a thousand tenkan bores me we could go on. Repetition bores me yet it is a very valuable tool. When I start getting bored I try to stay focused to keep my mind busy with what is going on and where my faults are, boredum only ever creeps up on me if my mind is idle. Zanshin is my key.



Regards Paul

I'll join in with Andrew on one of them. An uke who is not present is frankly a waste of time.

I also get incredibly bored with technique lacking substance. That's not what it sounds like. It's the continual practice of technique over and over without depth. Better one present sword cut than a 1000 non present cuts. I swear some people think that if they just do one more ikkyo they'll get it. Not that the other way gets it either but you get the idea.

Lastly, not a practice related one, but watching tests bores me. Virtually, every freakin' one of them have the same unimaginative answers to the same unimaginative questions. I liken them to interviewing on college campuses where every student gives the same snappy comeback to your prepared interview questions. Yawn!

I sense a new thread coming on.

Exactly, aikido video's are so boring, watching a seminar on video is not a fun night. Even instructional video's are boring unless you have a few friends round (who do aikido) have a few beers, interupting the silence with that's cool once in a while.


Regards Paul

To agree with Kueijin, long-winded sensei is really dull--along with one who demonstrates a technique for many minutes. Better to plant a seed and see what sprouts rather than put on a show...
Joan

yep, endless chatter bores me too.

I actually enjoy hundreds of boken cuts and I would do ukemis all the time if I had a mat to practise on at home. I actually find the level of excercise is enough to make you tired but not exhausted and it slowly comes over me like some type of meditation exercise (a bit like rolling mediatation instead of walking meditation). But then I have to turn my brain back on and realise that while I'e been doing hundreds of boken cuts down the dojo everyone else has left.

I'd challange anyone to find a martial art that is less boring than Aikido. Why else are people still doing it for 30+ years (I've done it for 12 and I'm still chomping at the bit, trying to learn new stuff).

Every breath we take is ONE LESS...

As long as we realize this and focus, how can anyone be bored?

That attitude is a sure sign of either enlightenment or middle age, Chuck.

Mikey,

Since I have no idea where one end of this experience in aging is...
then I have no concept of where the middle is.

As for "enlightenment," I stopped chasing that rabbit long ago. As a long time Zen Buddhist, I just chop wood and carry water... nothing can be any different than it is ... just now.

I can honestly say, though, that I can't ever remember being "bored" with anything. There's absolutely too much of interest going on all the time.

reptition can be tedious. Anything can be tedious and therefor boring if it is not what we want to be doing at the moment. The key to not being bored lies in wanting to do what is going on instead of something else. How do you accomplish that?

A couple suggestions:

no one is so good that they can't get better. instead of just making those cuts over and over, really think about what you are doing on each one and see if you can't find ways to improve on the next.

Really think about the words of sensei's lecture, and at the same time think about yourself. how does what he is saying apply to you personaly.

Never pass up a chance to learn something. Even if you are positive you know it all and dont need the knowledge that's being imparted to you. Maybe you dont, but just maybe there will be one little point that suddenly makes a different kind of sense and helps you improve something.

__________
Kelly

perhaps this entitles a new thread but, if you become bored with training, than why do you still train?

You train through boredom for the same reason you train through the flu, headaches, stress in your life, a bad day, a good day, your kids pissing you off or whatever.

Training is what I do. The other stuff is transitory. I may not be able to train today cause I'm too busy, but I don't stop training, I just put it on the back burner till I can readjust my priorities. Life must go on despite training, but training goes on throughout all of life, too.

Balance is the goal on a whole lot of levels.

I think I have to agree with chuck, for a different reason though hehe....I don't get bored! But that's because I spent the last 3 months doing nothing....after that everything is interesting!!!
As for training, I'm much too new to get bored, although I do get frustrated, there is occassionally the class when I just want it to end because my technique feels so bad, I take bad ukemi and just overall am bad! But I think that's because I am climbing the next hill in my training........2 weeks earlier the same class would have probably been excellent....anyways I'm just babbling here

peace

damien

we all have bad days, especially only 3 months in. 3 months in for me I still didn't know what tenkan was (ok Nick, now turn this way with your left foot... Nick, that's not your left foot).

Etc. Etc.

Keep with it,