My wrist is still messed up, so I'm resting at home. To be honest, it's my fault so I feel a little stupid. Yeah, mistakes can be painful ne? So I will compensate by posting about our Friday morning practice.
We are still practicing the multiple opponent style. Sensei varies the wazas every week. This week we practiced sumiotoshi and sankyo quite a bit. Having sankyo performed on me was tough with my bum wrist, but I endured.
Much of sumiotoshi's final stage involves moving past or through the opponent in order to throw them. Actually many of the techniques utilize this psychological concept. It is natural to think of two bodies being completely separate, law of physics and all.
I always consider the other person's physical presence too much when doing a waza. Honestly, I tend to overthink everything. But we have to project ourselves past that idea, get ourselves to move into and beyond the other person. The word irimi (入り身）literally means to enter the opponent or their space. With sumiotoshi, entering their space disrupts their balance and weight distribution. This makes it quite easy to throw them. If the waza is done properly, the opponent is merely teetering on a cliff.
On a related note, I started teaching some new kids recently. The smallest girl in the class was terrified to be away from her mother. She was balling her eyes out, so the Japanese staff came in to calm her down. As soon as they left the room, she stared crying again. The little girl wouldn't respond to anything I did. So I took a chance and put her on my lap. Totally worked. She stopped crying and started helping me turn the pages to the storybook. I completely entered her space, breaking the ma-ai (間合い）and she calmed down. I went from being scary man to warm chair.
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1 comment:
Fine observation tradersteve, I think the real value in aikido lies in how we relate to others in our daily lives not just in the dojo, or in a street fight.
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