Another gap in posting, sorry folks. Long story short, my job for the past four years or so has gone straight into the toilet. Shady stock deals, delayed wages, eminent bankruptcy. Good times indeed. I was reminded of a book on stock investing which said that one can not control the market, only how we react to the market. True indeed. Do we panic when attacked in the dojo? No, we perform a waza and throw the attacker. Same thing here.
Back to aikido. Friday morning. Sensei was working with us two new black belts on katatedori nikkyo and sankyo. We spent just over an hour going over every little detail of two basic wazas. Shed a new light on techniques I have been practicing for years.
The key here is to follow the contours and movements of the opponent. If we fight the m, we lose control. One of my mistakes is that I twist the aite's wrist too much when doing sankyo. It hurts them and they move out of my path and it becomes more difficult to complete the waza. Like overreacting to a minor fluctuation in the stock market, I try too hard and focus on the wrong thing. Instead of twisting their wrist, thus forcing them to spin out of range, we should tenkan and control them as we bring them down to the mat. Matching our knee to their shoulder, we gain total control over them.
Another issue was how we treat other students. With less experienced partners we should do the waza properly, but also keep in mind that a new student is not accustomed to being twisted like that. Second key point was varying our reaction to different body types. I have found that some people's arms are difficult to twist in nikkyo. Some will twist harder, but that is a sloppy technique. Painful and dangerous for the aite. Instead we can simply raise their arm away from their shoulder to achieve the same result.
Again there is no need to fight. We simply need to control and vary our reactions. This latest practice came at a turbulent time in my life outside of the dojo. Perfect timing.
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3 comments:
Hi Steve,
Maybe in life as well as in Aikido, one has to be careful to engage too much. My feeling when attacking Sensei was always that I attacked/reached into a ball. He doesn't get out and reach for me, but I go in and shouldn't be there. If you watch Sensei's ways outside Aikido, you can see that he hardly ever is opiniated, yet has a strong presence. I think it is some kind of phylosophy, that one should take care and clean his own 'ball' and that reaching out into other 'balls' is disrespectful. Once we came out of an isakaya, and someone had made skretches all around his car. But he stayed completely calm. Really not a flinch, or even the flinch of controlling a flinch. If you watch him, you can see that he also respects small (?) things as food. Well, I don't have the same lifestyle, but I do realize that when things get rowdy, such as loosing a job, one has to rely, go back and concentrate on ones own core. And then you have a lot of power and freedom.
Hans
Hi Steve,
Forgot what I wanted to say about the nikyo. If you have the tendency to concentrate on the wrist, probably you have to redefine 'pain'. You can break one's finger, and that will hurt, but it is not the kind of pain that will stop a fighter or whatever panicked person from thinking or fighting. You have to direct the sensation of 'pain' to his entire center (for my feeling entire backbone and the connected skull)so he can't think at all and not move at all. These two types of 'pain' are not the same. You probably know what I mean, do you have any better words for the two types? There must be some words in budo. Anyway, to do pain wazas with blackbelts is much more difficult than with white belts, because they do not let you direct the pain to their center. They cut the electricity cables between, or redirect your energy to some less important part of your body.
Hans
Thanks for your comments, nice to keep in touch with you. The idea of a personal ball stuck in my head. In aikido, we let someone enter our space. They leave a comfortable position and then we can take control.
Now I am actively recruiting for private students. Emails, advertising, etc. I am reaching out to other people, but in the end I'm letting them come into my sphere. My classroom, my life.
In some cases, students are talking to their friends and giving out my email info. People are working for me. Time will tell how all this works out for me and Hitomi.
In the midst of all this anger, stress and uncertainity, I want to keep aikido in my life. It gives me a certain focus or something to focus on. Plus Sensei seemed happy to see us at the dojo.
Take care, stay in touch.
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