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.