Posted by: wristtwister
Real techniques versus dojo techniques - 03/09/06 07:19 PM
I've listened to thousands of arguments about "dojo" techniques versus "real" techniques over the years, and what is usually misunderstood is the difference in doing a technique as a "training application" and a "self defense application".
First of all, both techniques should be the same, but executed with a difference in intent and force application. Most of the injuries we see in aikido is with people doing shiho nage and either ripping someone's shoulder out or slamming them into the mats for a concussion.
If you're training with anyone in any dojo, you need to be cognizant of the fact that both of you probably have to go to work tomorrow, so slamming and recklessly injuring your training partners isn't going to be well received. That doesn't mean that you have to "go soft" on the techniques, only exercise the kind of caution that allows your uke to protect themselves using either ukemi or by tapping out.
Shiho nage is the perfect technique to see if your students respect each other, because if you teach it correctly, they will execute the technique toward the spine in the dojo, which allows the uke to arch over and fall without injuring themselves. If they take the technique toward the outside of the hip, it can rip out the shoulder joint and cause problems from now on. (A careless technique at a seminar is how I acquired a torn rotator cuff... admininsterd by a high ranking teacher that didn't have a clue about how to train safely).
While you have to have your mind right in order to execute techniques for self defense, you can't go "all out" without considering your partner's ability in the dojo and keep them in one piece. When people are paying to learn martial arts, some bozos think that they signed up to let you hurt them intentionally, and there's more than enough of that to go around in "good training", much less being subjected to abuse because someone thinks they need to kill you in order to see if their technique works.
I have no problem in conducting a match under those circumstances, but most of the time, it's someone that gets ambushed by another student or teacher that just tees off on them without warning that gets injured, simply because they assume that safety is the rule of the dojo. As long as both of us are playing under the same rules, you can't complain if you go home on a stretcher, but most injuries I've seen over the years were "ambushes" to an unsuspecting uke.
When I started in karate, we had training in "control"... and it wasn't just an instruction. It was a learned skill.
Today, with hand and foot pads and headgear, people train like that 1" piece of foam is going to stop my 900 pound front punch from hurting you. It doesn't work.
When you're training in aikido, you can't drop your weight on the uke's arm after you get them into proper application posture. You have to "let them down" with an appropriate amount of force. On the street, for self defense, you can rip their arm off and beat them with the bloody stump...
but you should always learn when and how to do both. 
First of all, both techniques should be the same, but executed with a difference in intent and force application. Most of the injuries we see in aikido is with people doing shiho nage and either ripping someone's shoulder out or slamming them into the mats for a concussion.
If you're training with anyone in any dojo, you need to be cognizant of the fact that both of you probably have to go to work tomorrow, so slamming and recklessly injuring your training partners isn't going to be well received. That doesn't mean that you have to "go soft" on the techniques, only exercise the kind of caution that allows your uke to protect themselves using either ukemi or by tapping out.
Shiho nage is the perfect technique to see if your students respect each other, because if you teach it correctly, they will execute the technique toward the spine in the dojo, which allows the uke to arch over and fall without injuring themselves. If they take the technique toward the outside of the hip, it can rip out the shoulder joint and cause problems from now on. (A careless technique at a seminar is how I acquired a torn rotator cuff... admininsterd by a high ranking teacher that didn't have a clue about how to train safely).
While you have to have your mind right in order to execute techniques for self defense, you can't go "all out" without considering your partner's ability in the dojo and keep them in one piece. When people are paying to learn martial arts, some bozos think that they signed up to let you hurt them intentionally, and there's more than enough of that to go around in "good training", much less being subjected to abuse because someone thinks they need to kill you in order to see if their technique works.
I have no problem in conducting a match under those circumstances, but most of the time, it's someone that gets ambushed by another student or teacher that just tees off on them without warning that gets injured, simply because they assume that safety is the rule of the dojo. As long as both of us are playing under the same rules, you can't complain if you go home on a stretcher, but most injuries I've seen over the years were "ambushes" to an unsuspecting uke.
When I started in karate, we had training in "control"... and it wasn't just an instruction. It was a learned skill.
Today, with hand and foot pads and headgear, people train like that 1" piece of foam is going to stop my 900 pound front punch from hurting you. It doesn't work.
When you're training in aikido, you can't drop your weight on the uke's arm after you get them into proper application posture. You have to "let them down" with an appropriate amount of force. On the street, for self defense, you can rip their arm off and beat them with the bloody stump...
but you should always learn when and how to do both.
)—functions either to help me escape or to put my would-be attacker down. If my opponent changes his mind about attacking me—great! But to make that my primary objective would be like reaching directly for a hand holding a knife, thinking that I could disarm it directly without first getting out of the way and controlling the movement of the whole arm. I sure wouldn't want to count on my ability to do that!
Still, I’ve found from my own experience that the capacity to accept and even care for people as they are depends on a certain toughness of mind and a full appreciation of human nature’s dark side as well as hopes for the light. Otherwise, that all-important tender heart can get pulped like fruit in a blender …
I've read your words several times and been.... amused... and saddened by the dismissive (deragatory?) tone you appear to have taken towards the gist of many of my sentiments. Yet as I say often (and rightly), I could easily be mistaken... 
In community nursing, especially—but even on the hospital floor—you have to be very savvy about working in the face of competing interests and highly stressed, difficult personalities in order to advocate effectively for your patients, and for yourself as well. It's all about the art of the possible, and learning how to set up your opportunities within the interpersonal and institutional frameworks surrounding you.)
Ueshiba himself certainly wasn't!
--not that anyone's been outrightly accusing me of that. It's actually kind of an insult where I come from, especially in view of the fact that the whole consumerist New Age movement has appropriated all kinds of traditions to itself, watering them down to promote an ethos of social and cultural entitlement couched in a lot of touchie-feelie BS. I could go into a long polemic about it, but I don't consider these forums to be the place for it.
)The more i explore the essence of aikido. Less fights (I should stop hanging around redfern and kingsX in Sydney) I get into. It is almost a bliss to get positive Ki from training to better one's wellbeing than training so you can do shiho nage/kumi nage on someone that annoys you.