aikido

Damn the blogger and eating my post! It was going pretty good! So, if when reading this you feel that I have written a disaster, remember that the good version was lost by the evil computer. Hold on a second while I save this one.
Well save didn't work. You can't see it, but right now I'm typing with one hand because the other is poking myself in the eye. Get your mind out of the gutter.
ANYWAY...
Pat made a point a while back the class size always works in cycles. I have no idea why this is true, but gosh darn it if it ain't. We haven't had a new white belt in months and on Monday three new ones walked in the door. One of them was a judo guy looking for some sweet cross training but three new guys is three new guys!
Its great to have some new blood in the club. Its been close to four months since I've worked with someone that wasn't rocking a black belt. While that's good, its also good to teach the basics and work with an uke thats not as cooperative. Or at least, one that's moving in unexpected ways.
So, from this experience I have two points.
First, eventually all of us learn to move in very similar ways. Taking into account size and age and such things, we've learned the efficent way to get around. White belts move in seemingly random ways. I'm almost always suprised at how an untrained individual gets from point A to point B. Their body movement is different as well. How they move and where they move is different from what you're expecting. It really highlights which parts I'm doing by rote and which parts I'm doing by feel.
This really brings me to my second point. When I first got my black belt I dreaded working with the white belts. Not because they weren't fun people or because I didn't enjoy teaching but because in all honestly, I feared the white belt. I assume we've all gone through this phase where everything feels like its working but then when you work with a white belt the wheels fall off and nothing works. I did/do. I could do the 23 (our main set of techniques) like a pro when I was working with other black belts. But, hell was cold and satan was wearing a parka before I could get it to go on damn white belt. I've had that argument where I'm near tears pleading with the newbie to "just attack right!" It's a moment that lives on in shame.
The point is, for a long while (longer then we think) we've only learned the techniques by rote, or as Karl would say, we've learned the choreography. There's plenty of folks that never get beyond that. And, most of the time, I would say that's fine. At "full speed" or on the street, many of the varriables that occur in practice are lost and the choreography is close enough to be effective.
But, back to my point. When I finally learned the priniple of the techniques, everything started to work more often. I wasn't really doing a technique anymore I was following prinicple and following uke and that was causing a techinque. One that looked remarkably similar to the choreographed techinque. In fact I might be bold enought to say that only uke and I knew it was any different.
I guess that's why it's hard to tell good martial artist from bad by just watching a demo.

anyway, be good folks.

been out of town

Sorry I haven't updated in a while, I've been back home in Ca. Man is it pretty.
Least ways, the big MMA fight happened while I was home and one of the dudes I was hanging out with was a big fan. I'm not much of a fan. I haven't seen very much either. From what I have seen I'm left with a question.
Why would anyone use the guard if the other guy isn't wearing a shirt. Now, I love the guard. It's my primary ground position. But, I don't get how often I've seen it used in the mma fights I've seen.
One of the main elements to how I understand the guard is the need to keep your body close to your opponents for it to be effective. I always lose when my buddies can push away and get space. They get free or they climb over a knee. In the mma stuff they just punch the guy from inside the guard. Are they effective punches? Not most, but some. They can only punch because of the space between them.
My point is that without a shirt or gi hang onto to keep everything close, the guard is very vulnerable. I almost always have a least one hand (mostly two) on the collar of the gi pulling me to him so that there isn't any space. There is nothing that is as effective at staying close that can be replicated on a shirtless duder. So, in every fight I've seen on the tv there is tons of space.
I just wonder why it seems to be the primary position fighters are looking for when it so ineffective without something to hang onto.
Thoughts?

The Walk

First off, let me be honest, for the most part I hate the walk. You might know it as Tegatana. In general if find it to be boring. I believe that it has great value, I just don't like doing it all that much.
It's why I stay away from Jyodo.
Pat has a whole bit on how to do better walking on his site. I have no doubt that working dilligently on the walk will better my aikido.
Anyway, my point is something else. The man was a little fired up in class last night and pointed out that we were completely out of synic with one another while doing the walk. His point was that while the walk trains how to do the steps, its greater value is in that it teaches you to be in rhythm from the inital step of the bad guy.
With this in mind, I payed more attention to the walk then usual (that is to say I paid attention at all). What I noticed was that the walk teaches more then just being in time with someone else, it forces you to be in time without changing the length of your step. Its something unique to the kata. Well hello new intrest for me.
When you walk with someone, girlfriend, boyfriend, marching troop, to get in step, you agree to walk with the same leg velocity and to take the same size step.
So, when we work on the chain or releases, I've noticed that I end up taking the same size step as uke. Its a hard habbit to break. It feels ok because most everyone in the club is about the same height and we're going slow.
However, in life, sometimes your "working" with some one who has a drastically longer or shorter step. There's no way to take the same size step, and they're not going to try and meet you in the middle, like an occomidating uke in practice. So, you have to get in rythem with the man by having a different velocity of step so that you have the same footfalls (which is what I think the important part is).
We have to break somewhat the training of life. The key to breaking it, perhaps, is dedicated tegatana work with a partner. Crazy pete! Because you're not linked to the man, you feel less pressure to modulate step size. This frees you to emphasize hitting the footfalls while forcing yourself to take your normal step size. You walk at the pace of the counter not the speed of the counter. Way hard. It's make the walk fun again.

brutal

I couldn't throw for a rats ass tonight.
My work all week has been pretty wonky. As in, pretty much terrible.
Robert and I were working on sumi-otoshi in aikido. The throw was going ok, we were really trying to hit the back otoshi motion. (rear throw action)
Least ways as class wore on we were getting closer. Karl commented that we were almost right, then came out and demonstrated so we'd have a better idea.
That lead to a round of working on the back fall where you don't turn your foot. That is, not a pivot front fall.
Well, I spent the rest of the night crashing my head into the blue crash pad. It was like, elbow, head, elbow, knee, cry.

Disaster! Robert of course got it on the first try!
It wouldn't be a strugglefest without the struggle.

Why it's a strugglefest!

Freaking Pat and being so smart. The man pointed out that I was full of lies. Well at least that I was making a guess and presenting it as fact.
So, in reference to my earlier post where I make a guess that the reason that aikido seemed to have so much more mechanical advantage was distance... it was only that, a guess. To be honest I have no idea why most of what we do works. Ki?
The point I was trying to make before I decided to invent physical explinations that I had no backing for was that the collection of aikido techniques require on average less sense of muscle power for the same amount of effect.
Why?
I'm going to make another bold claim! That's really what americans do best, when proven wrong make an even more outragious statement.
Leastway, the reason that less power is needed is...
Uke sets the kuzushi! What what! Struggler in da house!
In aikido the assumption is that at mii uke attacks. We use this attack to set the inital kuzushi and techniques follow. No power from you is required to set this initial off-balance.
However, in judo both players are already connected and "attacking." So, to set kuzushi, some of tori's power must be spent to get the bad guy off balance.
So, before the throw occures, judo has expended more energy then aikido.
Further, since you're setting the off-balance instead of following uke's motion (like in aikido), uke as a better feel for what is coming. Both a sense that a throw is emenent and which one that is. So, the throw, in general, is going to less effective because uke knows its about to hit him.
However, after this initial deal, aikido and judo feel a lot alike to me. In particular "the first releace chain" and "the circle of throws."
That is, if you think about chaining throws in Judo, where you keep attempting throw after throw after throw. It feels (to me) like i'm using the current throw as kuzushi's for next throw. That's why its important to know a sort of order of throws and which leads to which. This is exactly what "the chain" does in aikido. It's all about how to use the current throw as kuzushi for the next. So really i guess, aikido and judo have more in common then i first thought.
Ok! Have a good one folks.

On being Gross.

Pat’s article, is that the right word, article? I guess I should say, post, Gross is just fine, got me thinking.
It got me thinking because I practice with an attempt, (and it really is mostly just an attempt) at a high level of precision, and think that has value, but at the same time, it like totally agree with Pat. That is, when things go fast and precision is lost, everything seems ok. How can this be?
I look to O-soto for the answer. In particular, the main o-soto drill that we work in class. Each time we step off the line, it is important to place the “down foot” at exactly 90 deg to the line of the ankles of the guy we’re about to toss about. We practice to hit that placement exactly.
Is there some degree of variance where the technique will still work? Of course there is, but that variance is of finite. The closer to perfect we practice the more room we give ourselves to be “gross” in our approximation during a high stress situation. By practicing with precision, we give ourselves the muscle memory that while not be as good when stressed, will be seeking the previously practiced perfection and ending up, close enough. It seems that practicing with precision 95% of the time enables us to do things grossly the other 5%.

Secondly, and in aikido in particular, we’re searching for such a vast mechanical advantage that close enough really is close enough. That is, aikido has something like scalable precision.
When you write, to use Pat’s specific example, if you lose any of the precision, the whole thing is lost. We’ve all experienced writing a note written in haste that was impossible to read later. It’s almost binary, ether you take the time to write it out or it’s a total loss. There’s rarely an almost unreadable sentence.
With aikido on the other hand, there is a sense of scalability. If you get the timing almost right, but the hands wrong and the feet wrong, odds are high that the throw still works. Perhaps not as well as when everything is right, but the bad guy still grows some wings. This is beyond the judo sense of getting everything within a certain tolerance, like I was talking about above.
In aikido with even a gesture at attempting off-balance before a throw you gain such a ridiculous amount of mechanical advantage that you have the “power” to make it go even if everything is busted to hell and back.
This has something I think to do with distances. In judo you’re close and don’t have lever action to multiply force with. Most of the arm throws in aikido take advantage of this with great effect.
This is sort of odd to think about. The “daintier” art is really the more ass busting one because it brings a bigger physics hammer. I guess it’s kind of obvious, if I’m not putting in any power (which I’m not supposed to in aikido) and you’re falling as big as when I do put in power (like I’m supposed to in judo) physics must be doing the work I’m not in aikido.

Who shows the new guys.

A true martial art is dependent upon those who are not physically gifted to procreate the art. Boom!
Now, am I saying this because I am one of those who is not physically gifted? Perhaps. But, like any crazed internet blogger, I have a twisted logic to my bold and enflaming claim.

Proof of claim!
Well first off, let me define a “true martial art.” Here I’m going to have to show my judo bias and say simply one that uses minimal effort to obtain maximum efficiency. If you have a different definition of a martial art (and I’ll admit that mine is very limited) then you can bail out of my argument now and it won’t hurt my feelings.
Anyway, if you are physically gifted, strong fast flexible, all those things that make you genetically superior, what the hell do you care about maximum efficiency? 999 times out of 1000 you have enough power and speed to make your version of whatever it is you do work.
I’ve watched some judo guys explain a technique; demonstrate the steps doing it one way and then when doing the technique do it completely different. In their minds, they’re doing it the same. But, it is clear that it is not. They are feeling or something the proper thing to do even though they believe they are doing something else. This is another determent to the genetic monster.
But, if your busted and you can make something work, then something else is going on. It can’t be speed or power, you ain’t got none. Instead, it has to be the thing itself. You must understand the technical details of the movement else you’d be doomed.
Further, if you’re average, to compete with the giants in the art, or even demonstrate your proficiency in a believable fashion, you have to learn how to train to gain technical perfection in your art.
So you have to know the details properly in a technique and you have to know how to train so that you can increase your proficiency in those details.
These are the things that enable the next generation to be capable to doing the art as well as the previous generation.

why is it we do what we do?

Why is it we do what we do? I mean if you’re bothering to look up my obscure blog on aikido then I’m going to guess that you spend at least four hours a week in a dojo, but odds are high that it’s actually much greater then that.

So why is it that we spend so much time doing the thing?

The most obvious answer is self-defense. But, what a ridiculous diminishing return we get on our time if our only goal is self-defense.

Using aikido (specifically the type that I do), in the first I don’t know 8 months, it seems you learn enough to keep yourself safe from a fair percentage of the population. You can handle angry mothers, grandmothers, old guys and a good chunk of the skinny white guy posers. In 8 months you’ve got the get off the line and punch the face (shomen-ate) down pretty pat.

After two years-ish, around shodan you’ve got enough of the intricacies to all of the "not so scary folks" and you've started to enter into the I can take some of the scary dudes land.

On the Real street brawls guy's page he points out that most scary dudes have one trick. A single trick that they use to win almost all their fights. According to Karl, thats how most of the dudes in Japan rolled, back in the day (what a good saying). They would learn one technique very well and they could wipe out pert near anyone with it. How long does it take to learn that one good technique. Two years? Anyway this is my point. After two years your capable to self-defense from almost everyone.

That last bit of dudes are the super powerful guys and the guys with even greater training then you. If he’s bigger/stronger/faster you have to maintain all of the principles of your art, without error. The more superhuman they are the more error costs you. Error free is hard.

Or, doda’s got more training then you. If he (or she) can do his thing better then you can do yours, its pain time.

So, it’s the rest of your life to get that last collection of folks. Not a good investment on your money. Since you can never get to 100 (that one guy who can kick everyone’s ass is too busy training to read this) if you’re in it for self-defense alone, you’re wasting your time.

My point is that there has to be something more to keep us coming back. I know that folks in our dojo come back cause I’m so much fun to hang out with, but there has to be more the just my pretty face.

Seriously, the same amount of time spent doing some sort of partners dancing would net a return a hell of a lot more tail.

Since I don’t believe much in Ki, I don’t think I’m getting any benefit there.

So it’s not the women and it’s not the force, what is it?

It’s the coolness of the thing. It’s the most interesting, mind boggling puzzle with the neatest rewards ever. I don’t think that I could keep doing just any old martial art. (and to each their own) But, the never ending complexity that often reveals itself to be simplicity that I just didn’t grasp before makes this one worth while. How cool is an effortless throw?

Cool enough to keep me showing up for practice 8 hours a week.

just like sensi

A question for those of you wiser then I. Is it that we find instructors that we agree with or that they give us our point of view?
Of course I'm sure that the answer is somewhere in the middle, but none the less, most of us, especially those who feel the need to share our opinions, have an almost rabid agreement with sensei in all things. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, I often wonder if we realize how much is our own opinion and how much we've just purloined from our teacher.
For me I've noticed that I have a general skepticism towards styles or dojos that put an inordinate amount of importance on ritual. (by the way I would say in my opinion for that, but then it’s my blog so I’m going assume that you catch that this is of course in my opinion and not a statement of fact obvious to all peoples in the world)
Least ways, ritual. Mr. Geis (For the most part, I call him Karl, or “the man”, or boss dude or coach, or of course, Mr. Geis, but rarely sensei) has before voiced his own skepticism towards teachers that enforce a great deal of ritual. So I wonder, did I agree before and that's why I ended up where I did or did my opinion come later. I guess it doesn't really matter.
For me, I am skeptical of the over ritualistic dojo for two reason.
1. It would drive me nuts. Keeping track of how to fold up my gi when I’m done with class... or even worse having a special way to fold up the hakima plus the belt. That doesn't interest me. Now, I want to be clear, these are not bad things, if ever there're (is that a word?) visitors that do care, I'm not bagging your way sweet reader, just saying it ain't for me.
I saw a dojo where they cared which foot you placed on the mat first. This would take a lot of the fun out of the act of doing the thing for me. I love the relaxed feel of our club. We don't bow much and almost everything’s in English. Most of us wad up our gi's after class. After judo I try to spread my out in the trunk of my car so it'll dry out. I can get an extra day of use in this manner, since I hate laundry, this is a huge bonus.

The aikido club and the judo group take turns keeping the mat vacuumed but this is an exercise in futility. Those damn judo Neanderthals are just so damn hairy there’s always hair somewhere.

There’s dust all over the place, but if you’re bold enough to suggest that it needs cleaning the boss “suggests” that you’re focused on the wrong thing.

2. My bigger “worry” is that the instructor is hiding bad technique/knowledge behind the guise of ritual. If you can’t ask any questions or you’re not allowed to have an opinion because ritual says that new guys don’t have opinions its harder to figure out if what you’re learning is bull.

I’ve seen, on the sweet internet, stories of lower ranked dudes knowing that their “sempi” was working to hard and going to hurt them, but unwilling to speak up, of course they end up on the sidelines with bustedness. To me (again I guess an unnecessary qualifier because this is MY blog) this is insane.

To be honest, I’m not really sure what folding my pants has to do with aikido, but then, it doesn’t seem to be all that important to coach, so I guess I’m in the right place.

I’m sure good martial arts goes on in places where the nature of the environment would preclude me from enjoying the process and thus participating. But, I guess I think it’s less likely then in a place without the accruements of ritual.

First Post

Whoop de whoop!
Hello folks, this is the first post. Not really sure why I'm doing this, other then I've become somewhat addicted to reading these over the weekend and want to share in the fun.
So, here we go.
A quick overview. I'm a student of Karl Geis here in wonderful (or perhaps not so much) Houston which I moved to specifically to study from the man. Though, if my parents ask its the wonderful math program offered by the Univ. of Houston.
I guess this blog (I hate this word by the by) is going to be the goings on that occur at the dojo. Why anyone would care I'm unsure of. But hell, I did spend a weekend of my life reading about what others do at theirs so why the hell not.
I try to hit class 4 days a week, mon and wend just aikido and on tues both aikido and judo. That leaves thur. for just judo to give everything the semblence of balance. I used to did do go on fridays as well, but for the most part now I have to pass on that night, the girlfriend did put-ith down the foot (and a pretty foot at that).
I guess maybe I'll post when something interesting occurs in class, or also when I have a thought that I want to share, because obviously my opinion on matters should matter to you!

I'd tell you my rank but then, if you aren't in Fugakukai, my aikido organization, it won't mean anything. Instead let me say that I have like 900ish hours of mat time in aikido. Which makes me pert near the lowest ranked dude on the mat most nights, well, that's a lie, i'm more like at the bottom of the middle. Karl has been around a long time and accumulated a "few" high ranked dudes.
I guess that's all you really need to know about me other then the fact that I'm super pretty and all the ladies love me.
Now to post and conqure the internets!