Question for the other Aikidoka

[vigilus]

In this method certain attacks and defenses are organized in a set way into Katas. Is this the way the Yoshinkan does things?

I'm still lost my friend :) Yoshinkan is apparently more "hard" (compared to soft, not difficulty) and movements are broken down more. As it was just explained to me, we go through steps one, two, three, four and work on being in the right place at the right time. As we progress we speed it up and make it more fluid. I'm told (but can't say for certain) that some other schools are the oppisite? They perform the movement over and over and later on more attention is given to fixing the little mistakes.
Again I'm still not sure I'm understanding your question.

I understand what you mean, for the first year of my training I was quite lost. We would practice a movement and before I even understood why we were doing it we would move on to something else.

I think it's a case of always moving forwrd in training. Your exposed to a new technique and practice it then move on to
A. a new technique and
B. an old technique you need to pass your test with.

Later on you may come back to that new technique you practiced and say to yourself HEY i've seen this before, then you practice it a little more, after which you go back to your old technique or something different.

Over and over again you'll come across that "new" technique and pretty soon you find it being commited to muscle memory and you learn it. Aikido takes a long time. Another reason I would guess is that students need to feel progression and success. You would quickly loose interest by doing the same thing over and over without being exposed to something new, hell I'm the same way if we practice somethign too long I find myself anxious to learn something new. I think it's a balance between what you need to test, maintaining your old techniques and being exposed to new techniques.

We do loose a lot of younger students to TKD or kung-fun, styles that offer a more instant gratification compared to learning how to sit stand or do your basic stance for a month :)

On a side note I think judo makes an awesome partner to aikido and i fully plan on taking it up the first chance I get.

[RaiNnyX4]

I'm still lost my friend :) Yoshinkan is apparently more "hard" (compared to soft, not difficulty) and movements are broken down more. As it was just explained to me, we go through steps one, two, three, four and work on being in the right place at the right time. As we progress we speed it up and make it more fluid. I'm told (but can't say for certain) that some other schools are the oppisite? They perform the movement over and over and later on more attention is given to fixing the little mistakes.
Again I'm still not sure I'm understanding your question.

If you look at the link I provided for Judo you'll see that there are 8 throws for every set. The throws are organized according to difficulty so a beginner typically learns throws from the first set before learning those of the second and so on. I was wondering if this was the same type of organization for the Yoshinkan. As in you had groupings of techniques organized into sets, i.e. the first set might contain something like Katatetori Ikkyo, Katatori Nikkyo, Kosatori Kote-gaeshi, Ryotedori Tenchi-nage, Ushiro Tekubidori Sankyo, etc. The second set would contain slightly more difficult techniques and so on. And in this way you would practice only techniques from the sets you know. I was under the belief that the Yoshinkan was organized this way but I guess I was mistaken.

[DCS]

I found something that Saito said in the second friendship demo very interesting. He said that he used to get yelled at by Ueshiba for doing "Ki-flow" techniques before he was ready. I take this to mean that Ueshiba didn't want people doing all the fancy movement stuff before they had grasped the essential basics where someone grabs you tightly and you have to perform the technique. Which then of course Saito goes on to say that he always makes sure people can do the basics even when gripped tightly before moving on to more flowing techniques.

The basics are always trained with strong grips. If tori hand is not purple, tori is not wristgrabbed properly.

Basic techniques (kihon waza) are usually teached step by step (like counting), in a strong static manner (not flowing), the idea is developing kokyu power, kuzushi and proper posture without counting on the inertia of the attack. Uke must give resistance (not countering but opposing the technique)

This is much different than the classes I've always seen. For instance we take Shiho-nage as an example. We start off with a basic Katatetori (same side) grab and teach the beginner Shiho-nage and after they work on it for 10-15 minutes they begin to understand the very rudimentary aspect of it. Then all of a sudden we begin doing this same technique but instead from a grab we switch to Yokomenuchi as an attack. This attack is much more complicated to deal with. Now the beginner has to deal with the difficult footwork, the task of off-balancing the attacker, and applying the technique.

I think this is overload and inefficient for the beginner who instead of working on the Yokomenuchi attack could go back to some sort of grabbing technique and defense which is less complicated.

This system is all the opposite to iwama methodology; a grab is a grab, a strike is a strike, even if you are going to do the same technique, for instance like you said Shiho-nage, the setting is different and should be trained as a new and different technique: step by step, witht strenght and with opposition from uke.

Maybe the system you describe can lead to good aikido technique, but it needs more cooperation from uke because the subtleties of the technique are not ingrained, this lead to take free falls for avoiding frustration on partners and soft aikido at the long term.

[RaiNnyX4]

This system is all the opposite to iwama methodology; a grab is a grab, a strike is a strike, even if you are going to do the same technique, for instance like you said Shiho-nage, the setting is different and should be trained as a new and different technique: step by step, witht strenght and with opposition from uke.

Maybe the system you describe can lead to good aikido technique, but it needs more cooperation from uke because the subtleties of the technique are not ingrained, this lead to take free falls for avoiding frustration on partners and soft aikido at the long term.

This is actually how I feel as well. But in Iwama-styled schools are beginners only trained in grabbing defenses or do they also do striking defenses? The reason I ask is because I always felt that anything involving striking is inherently more intimidating and more difficult to deal with than a grab. So I feel that beginners in general should stick to just the grabbing defenses until they are able to do these with some level of competency.

[Mr. Jones]

i find grabs harder than strikes

[Mr. Jones]

This is actually how I feel as well. But in Iwama-styled schools are beginners only trained in grabbing defenses or do they also do striking defenses? The reason I ask is because I always felt that anything involving striking is inherently more intimidating and more difficult to deal with than a grab. So I feel that beginners in general should stick to just the grabbing defenses until they are able to do these with some level of competency.

DCS can answer the first part better than I can. But IMHO grabs are more complicated than strikes. My teacher emphasizes strikes more and grabs are only focused alot more on testing.

[Fearless Ukemi]

At my dojo when we do grabs, we are encouraged to throw a punch also making it even harder. I think that's mainly because the sensei gets pissed off when he sees people thinking instead of moving.

[Mr. Jones]

The person grabs and punches at the same time?

[RaiNnyX4]

The person grabs and punches at the same time?

We have techniques like this as part of our regular syllabus.

Katatori Menuchi - Lapel grab with shomenuchi or yokomenuchi to head.

Katatori Ganmenuchi - Lapel grab with straight punch to face.

etc.

[Mr. Jones]

I forgot what Katadori Menuchi was that's all.