Posted by: Joe Jutsu
Honesty in Training: My Humbling Experience - 11/14/03 10:21 AM
Finally, after weeks of anticipation, the new gym opened at my university and my aikido club has started practicing outside of our "mother" dojo.
The two instructors for club are two students, one a shodan, the other ikkyu, with oversight from two of the head instructors from our dojo, who are more like "advisors."
The senior club members have all come to a consensus that we want to change the way we train. In comparison, the dojo is made up of a bunch of older people, and the training, at least during Friday night's "advanced" class, is not very rigorous. On top of that, we see that alot of people's ukemi in our dojo is weak, from breakfalls to attacking. This is one area that we are going to work on extensively.
Another thing that we are trying to work out his to find a real knowledge of what we can and cannot do. We have serious questions about the ablities of some of the shodan at our dojo, and maybe a nidan or two, to actually be able to pull of the techniques that they think they know how to do, particularly a couple of women who seem to be in aikido for ki more than martial competency (this is in no means to be an indictment on women in the martial arts, but an indictment of training methods). That's cool if ki development is what you're in it for I guess, but if your aikido is not effective than are you really doing aikido?
So we've been sort of left to our own devices. The attacks have become harder, and more real, and if uke is experienced enough, which is pretty much all of the old timer club members, then uke's balance is not compromised by the attack. We have nothing to prove to each other, we are really trying to help each other out as well as we can. What we've found, is that we cannot throw NEARLY as well as we thought we could. We're really only a week into our new system, and I had to sit out last night because of a shoulder injury, but Tuesday we worked on munatsuki koteoroshi. It was as if we had never done the technique before.
I've come to realise just how important, and difficult, the lead is. I don't think I threw anyone all night. We did find that for us it was actually easier to throw into a breakfall than to just drop uke, but we're still getting pretty stuck on the lead.
Ikkyo, Nikyo, Sankyo, Yonkyo, and Shihonage are all still working just fine. I shudder to think about when we get to kokyunage's though.
But anyway, we're trying to organise a seminar to break in our new space sometime early next year, and I want to bring in someone more "practicle (in a martial sense)" than not, and was wondering if anyone out there in cyberland has any suggestions of someone we could bring in who is reasonably affordable. Although I personally would not care what style the instructor came from, if you've heard of teachers within Ki Society that would be better, or at least would keep Sensei from killing us.
Thanks ahead of time for any replies.
Joe
[This message has been edited by Joe Jutsu (edited 11-14-2003).]
The two instructors for club are two students, one a shodan, the other ikkyu, with oversight from two of the head instructors from our dojo, who are more like "advisors."
The senior club members have all come to a consensus that we want to change the way we train. In comparison, the dojo is made up of a bunch of older people, and the training, at least during Friday night's "advanced" class, is not very rigorous. On top of that, we see that alot of people's ukemi in our dojo is weak, from breakfalls to attacking. This is one area that we are going to work on extensively.
Another thing that we are trying to work out his to find a real knowledge of what we can and cannot do. We have serious questions about the ablities of some of the shodan at our dojo, and maybe a nidan or two, to actually be able to pull of the techniques that they think they know how to do, particularly a couple of women who seem to be in aikido for ki more than martial competency (this is in no means to be an indictment on women in the martial arts, but an indictment of training methods). That's cool if ki development is what you're in it for I guess, but if your aikido is not effective than are you really doing aikido?
So we've been sort of left to our own devices. The attacks have become harder, and more real, and if uke is experienced enough, which is pretty much all of the old timer club members, then uke's balance is not compromised by the attack. We have nothing to prove to each other, we are really trying to help each other out as well as we can. What we've found, is that we cannot throw NEARLY as well as we thought we could. We're really only a week into our new system, and I had to sit out last night because of a shoulder injury, but Tuesday we worked on munatsuki koteoroshi. It was as if we had never done the technique before.
I've come to realise just how important, and difficult, the lead is. I don't think I threw anyone all night. We did find that for us it was actually easier to throw into a breakfall than to just drop uke, but we're still getting pretty stuck on the lead.
Ikkyo, Nikyo, Sankyo, Yonkyo, and Shihonage are all still working just fine. I shudder to think about when we get to kokyunage's though.
But anyway, we're trying to organise a seminar to break in our new space sometime early next year, and I want to bring in someone more "practicle (in a martial sense)" than not, and was wondering if anyone out there in cyberland has any suggestions of someone we could bring in who is reasonably affordable. Although I personally would not care what style the instructor came from, if you've heard of teachers within Ki Society that would be better, or at least would keep Sensei from killing us.
Thanks ahead of time for any replies.
Joe
[This message has been edited by Joe Jutsu (edited 11-14-2003).]