Living in a World Where Nobody Kicks You in the Nuts)

RANDORI

Tommy Key Aikido dudes do randori.   Randori means "taking Chaos."  In my branch of the Tommy Key family tree  its a free exercise where you try out your techniques. one guy usually plays a little aggressive and see where that gets him.  the other guy plays a little soft and sees where that gets him.  Its a yin yang thing.  The soft guy usually "wins."     


I think randori should be slow enough to be safe, but should allow enough speed to allow each participant to feel a change of pace. people need to learn how to deal with a little speed. Predators use speed.   Cheetahs can go 70 MPH.  But in this clip one burst of speed did it.  The rest of the time the cheetah is relaxing and slowing down, letting the gazelle put itself in trouble.  But you notice the pattern slow, slow, fast enough, slower, slower, slow.




The 17 kata  was a kata that contained techniques for folks to go at it for PE credit.  The problem is that post war Japanese PE credit often hurt like hell. When something hurts you try to avoid it.   So Randori outside of PE credit/shodokan became sensitivity training so nobody gets hurt and people keep coming back to class. 

Imagine a universe where the releases and 17 were taught within 6 months. Just like the walking kata you just do them  They are "warm ups" and seen as a holistic exercise.  Not something to be detailed out and analyzed, you just do it, do it, do it. With the instructor making small corrections here and there with little explanation.  

Then you study principles through the koryu kata.  Starting with ICHI.   the first 4 suwari waza.  Here's the first lesson about Aikido.

 The first principle discussed is provoke a response if you can, any softness has to do with not losing your balance by falling forward and losing your advantage.   Like the cheetah, the provocation doesnt have to be fast, just fast enough.

I think we get hung up on the slow, like its the be all end all.  slow is so you wont get hurt. so you can get more reps, so your mind can collect the parts without verbal explanation.  you go slow so you can feel it in your body instead of see it with your mind. you also go slow so your teacher can see where to help you.

I also think that we mix up slow with sticky.  Sticky means you are in touch with a weapon so you can track it, you are relaxed enough to be able to feel what it is trying to do.  I've shown this clip before but this is what slow randori does, it trains stickiness and the ability to follow. 


The other day in class we did randori all class long.  I matched up with a  higher ranked sensitivity guy from another dojo who definitely knew his stuff, but seemed to try to deescalate me into slowing down to feel what he was doing.   I really didnt need to, I had a safe position and I was tracking his hands.  I was also looking for nut shots, head shots, and collar bone shomen ates,.  Technically he was right, but for some reason looking for body shots still makes sense.  I dont know where I ever got that notion from, oh well, I'm just an ignorant OKIE.  If anybody can tell me who filled my head with these ignorant ass notions about aikido please e-mail me.  And also get a hold of this  dipshit, he's evidently screwing up, too. 

 


  

  I think we mix up slow with non-competitive.  Non-competitive keeps us in a safe state of mind .  We dont over extend and fall on our face trying to win, but at the same time we purposely put ourselves in a state to lose.   Thats the second lesson of ICHI kata.      

  

 

Now imagine randori practice with the first two moves of ichi kata as the central principles.  Randori has become  a model to over analyze the 17 to slow down and talk something through. slow down and be sensitive and forget you can be kicked in the nuts.  Here is a proponent of the sensitivityschool.  Sensei Furious, he'll clear up the debate.