Self-development

Now it's time to talk about the last self-defence principle. I'd like to start with an example from a movie. You might remember a film called Road house, or - in case you are too young to have seen it - it's recommended. Apart from the action scenes and some questionnable momentums in the film, there are some interesting things in it as well, such as the following: 

As there was no training in the afternoon on Saturday, the last technical training of the camp was in the morning of the 6th day. This training was slightly longer than the previous technical traininings. Elsner sensei left quite a number of things for this training, but as he had explained the basics throughout the week, and we had understood the teachings, everyone could follow what they heard and saw on Saturday, and the tempo was also quite good. The real, long-lasting training will happen during the regular trainings anyway.

So what we had in the last training:

As I wrote in the previous post, the 5th technical training planned to be about ushiro waza. So according to the plans, Sensei explained how to grab and hold the defender, what positions are appropriate. The attacker's arm should form tegatana, i.e. it should not be bent too much at the elbow because then the defendar can easily attack the attacker's head. So we practiced the appropriate positions and how to grab both wrists of the defender from a static position from the back.

The aikidoka start to look a bit worn due to the intense heat and the tiring nights in the second dojo (pub). We keep going though with not much less enthusiasm.

This training was my favourite so far. Although we always practiced these things in Fujita Shihan's seminars, I wasn't at a level then that would have allowed me to understand his teachings. As Elsner sensei explained, though, some of the information arrived at my head as some kind of enlightment. He showed and explained the same principles so clearly. But let's see what the techniques were:

The evening training on day 3 of the camp went as usual: it was built upon what we had learned in previous trainings in the camp. The training was mainly about katame waza: ikkyo, nikyo and sankyo.

We did a couple of different techniques to warm up: kokyuho, gyaku kotegaeshi, kokyunage. We paid particular attention to the soto irimi and uchi irimi steps.

The second day of the training camp included trainings both in the morning and in the afternoon. The session in the morning started with a weapons trainining, it was followed by a thorough warm-up, and then there was a higher-speed training. Unfortunately, I had to work so I could not attend this session on Tuesday. The other reason for allowing myself to skip this training was that the morning trainings are usually stamina and fitness-building trainings, so I will probably stick with reporting what happens during the afternoon trainings which tend to be more technical and analytical.

In this post I am going to discuss the relationship between aikido techniques and the concept of self defence, and – finally – I will also touch upon the effectiveness of techniques.

I have been getting questions recently about the applicability of aikido in self defence situations. How effective are the techniques of aikido as self defence techniques?

Before going into the details of the techniques and their effectiveness, however, let us examine the ways self defence can manifest itself.

Let's consider a simple aikido movement, taisabaki, and someone with little aikido or conscious body movement experience/expertise. Taisabaki is something that looks very easy from the outside. You step forward, turn with hips, and step backward. This is at least the description by which everyone can start doing it. If I give someone this instruction and tell them to do taisabaki for 20 minutes they will get bored in one minute and I will never see them again. However, if I tell them a couple of points to look at, observe, and correct, they might say that 20 days might not be enough to perfect taisabaki, and through that, themselves. The following are a couple of points with respect to taisabaki. These are all going to be questions, so I don't really want to tell anyone what's good and not, just what they think and feel is better and more useful.

Before the questions, a bit of advanced taisabaki demonstration with a partner:

After attending two very interesting events in Brighton (Riding the Storm and Presence) last Saturday I realised something important that concerns the phenomena of learning, and being present. This post is the first one inspired by the above events (there will probably be at least a couple of them that have direct relevance to aikido).