09mar2003

Photo credits, Scott Johnson and Brian Osserman.

14dec2006

1.

Here's where this fits: The whole category of activities that are sort of like flying but where one also engages with the terrain - aikido ukemi, biking no-hands, tall-biking, chopper derby, kite fooboarding.

You get to throw yourself at the ground and you don't have to miss! You can go back and try those cartwheels you could never bring yourself to in grade school and SO WHAT if it doesn't work.

2.

You know how in a kung fu movie fight sequence, the two characters are beating on each other, all hit/block, hit/block? And then all of a sudden one of them ducks and the other misses and they're like WHUH? and the audience is like YEAH!! - that part? That part is aikido.

Aikido is probably the most legal martial art. It's all about measured response. The typical first step is getting to a position of such great advantage that you can take a moment to choose from the options. It's not really an ask-questions-later kind of thing.

For that reason, you can practice it "for real." You don't have to stop your punches short or wear padding or just do a gesture of a joint break. All the important Step One parts you learn to do authentically - accurate, strong, and fast. Translating the gentle takedown at the end into a wrenching one or the feint into a strike to the face isn't something that's going to take a lot of skill and reflex. ("Don't need aikido - just kill." --BK) The holding-back version wouldn't be convincing even in class if your partner didn't sense that you had the full strength of the alternatives in reserve.

For the same reason, you can be particularly punishing - and particularly precise - about the finishes. If you don't step in for a leg-sweep until you've gained an unshakeable position of advantage - in your partner's blind spot with him off-balance - you are not begging to be getting counter-swept. And you can use more of your resources to tune the finish than you could if you were still using effort to maintain your position. So you can practice nearer to your partner's limits.

13mar2007

The bad-guy attacker is supposed to be honest, straightforward, brave, dedicated, athletic, hard-working, and true. The good-guy defender using aikido technique is supposed to be misleading, sneaky, cheating, lazy, and manipulative.