Newsgroups: rec.martial-arts
Subject: Re: Aikido, (effectiveness)
From: rakoczynskij@gtephx.UUCP (Jurek Rakoczynski)
Date: 25 Aug 92 23:34:44 GMT
Organization: AG Communication Systems, Phoenix, Arizona

In article <17932uINN1l1@moe.ksu.ksu.edu>, diverson@phys.ksu.edu (David Iverson) writes:
> 
> I'll throw in my two cents, why not.  I'm an Aikidoka of 4 years and I give
> up easy almost all of the time.  When I'm working with beginners it's to
> help them along, with advanced students working full power it's to avoid
> getting killed.  Every time I try to resist a kokyu-nage type thing I
> usually smack the mat harder than I would like (and I like to smack the mat
> hard to begin with).  I'm simply not going to jeprodize my wrist or elbow by
> fighting a full force lock or throw, it's not worth it.  The qualification
> is that I'll resist if the person is doing something that's totally
> ineffective.
> 
> Maybe I'm a wimpy uke, maybe I couldn't throw a wrestler to the ground.  I
> just hope that I never find myself in a situation where I throw my entire
> weight and speed behind a kotegaishi or nikyo and my uke (or maybe an
> attacker) stays firmly planted on the ground. They're going to get hurt, and
> hurt bad.  When I'm going fast I fall easy to protect myself.  My
> understanding of Judo is that they don't have all the neat little
> wrist-snaps, elbow-busts and shoulder-dislocations that Aikido has the
> potential for.
I kept your entire text because I'd like to comments on the various
items you mention throughout.  Consider my comments only as my
interpretation of the same situations you list above.  Maybe I just
like to ramble.  :-)

Rather than use the term "give up easy", I would say that as you
become an experienced Uke, you learn how much resistance to apply for
how long so that Nage does not get frustarted with constant failure. 
After you allow Nage to follow through with a move, you may help them
with the correct technical movement and flow so that it begins to fell
natural.  Resistance is slowly increase depending on how they can
learn best.  Some need more motivation than others.

Working with advanced levels presents a differant problem.  If Nage
does not give Uke the feel of control in applying a technique, of
course Uke will give up easy to prevent pain, agone, etc..  But if
Nage can take absolute control of Uke, and demonstrate total control
of Uke with minimal pain, you have the start of a trust that can only
improve the techniques.  Uke will than not be afraid and hold back or
give up.

Uke can still have total trust of Nage without Nage showing total
control of Uke.  Let's use Kote-gaeshi as a example; very easy to
break the wrist or splinter the forearm bone.  We practiced both
Tomiki and Classical Aikido.  I also had the pleasure of training
with several Ikkyu/Shodon ranks to prepare them for competion in
Japan.  At full speed, Kote-gaeshi may not be the flowery,
over_my_on_arm back fall that you practice, because Nage will
usually be too slow to get control of Uke before Uke tries to pull
back from a thrust with a tanto.  In this case, Nage can only follow
through using pain to force Uke to take a back fall to the side.  Even
at these speeds, we did not give into to anything short of reasonable
pain.  But it didn't just stop here.  Nage had to maintain
pressure/pain all the way through to take down and hold.  Otherwise we
could sometimes roll through and be on our feet faster than they would
apply pressure.  I was more limber/pain tollerent than many others,
and I could feel when Nage would follow through to a certain point,
and when they expected me to start giving in, they would slow down or
stop to let me "catch up" to my arm so as not to hurt me.  Well there
was NO WAY I was giving up and would do what ever I could to get out
... their mistake ... and they learned from it.   This is the only way
Nage can learn to pick out the subtleties in Uke's movements while
trying to maintain speed.  And inspite of all that, they need to learn
to apply only the speed/power require for control.  Nage has to earn
the trust of Uke.  I wouldn't say your a "wimpy uke", someone just
needs to earn your trust.

One last thing.  The best over_my_on_arm back falls I ever took for
Kote-gaeshi was when Nage had absolute control of me and the only
thing I could control was how much my knees were bent on which way my
free hand would face (and both of those where instictive move
anyways).  And all I did was a good attack.

Well enough rambling.
-- 
Jurek Rakoczynski, AG Communication Systems, POB 52179, Phoenix, AZ. 85072
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