How to Learn( The real principle of Aikido)

“That is the way to learn the most, that when you are doing something with such enjoyment that you don’t notice that the time passes.”

-- Albert Einstein   


  When you hang out with a lot of guys who know what the hell they are doing you tend to learn a lot of good stuff.  That may be a yogi berraism.  But people tend to forget  that.   I'm a poster boy for anti-intellectualism.  Writing shit down is just another practice. It's mind jogging. I don't like talking about Aikido in a sense that I don't want to attack, defend, justify what I'm doing or what anybody else is doing.  I don't want to judge or evaluate anybody.  I like seeing what other people do, more than what they say.   I just want to do it, see it, and feel it.   I think we set people back when we don't work from a large pool of movements(koryu kata).  Large pools of movements that exist side by side with the basics only serve to strengthen the basics.  Basically, you should always suck at something.  You should always have something to  mildly frustrate you and to make you think.  You need problems.  

They did a study once on what makes people practice.  They did an experiment with free throw shooting.  They found that people who could get to 80% are the ones who practice the most.  They can get 8 shots out of 10.  They see thier goal as just two away, instead of 10 away.   They see goals as two weeks away rather than two years.    A teacher has to set the enviroment to get to 8 out of 10.    

I read a book by this Tai chi/aikido dude(Ralston) where he writes down five principles. 

• being calm
• relaxing 
• centering
• grounding
• being whole and total  

The man lays down the notion that these aren't so much principles as things that happen when you have aligned yourself with a principle and that principle may be labeled a thousand ways by a thousand folks.  When you say that same hand same foot is a principle, you are saying that opposite hand and foot isnt.  I'd say that just as much Aikido triggers from opposite hand and foot as it does same and same.  It's bound to effing happen in a mat transaction.  If I were to use the tai chi dudes alignment frame work, that we are talking about grounding and centering.  Getting a guy in a hipswitch is just as gnarly as a perfect shomenate power delivery.  But you can't teach from the general.  So same hand/foot is a lot easier to teach than centering and grounding.  Whole helluva a lot easier to demonstrate, too.  

Principles are there to help people learn.  Not to allow us to kick someones ass.

We give folks principles that help them learn.   Principles should also do what Einstein said.  Allow folks to have more fun/engagement, and lose track of time.

It's taken me four years to realize what I'm missing, what I'm effing up on.  My personal overriding principle right now is, "its all about the feet you ignorant dumbass."   I'm going to spend the next few weeks/months investing in loss so i can figure out feet: the other guys and mine.  I don't know if I'm 2 a way or 10 away.  but I need to find techniques that I can get to 80% on, no matter how simple.  Then I hope I'l have the opportunity to lose track of time.
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Fear is the big thing that keeps us out of the learning zone.  Fear of falling, fear of hurting the other guy(sometimes folks get hurt because someone trys to not hurt the other guy. usually they underpower a throw and don't allow a good fall)   Its also the desire for an imagined state that keeps us from learning. That everybody should be able to do it like a 30 year veteran. New people need to feel a little force, need to see bigger motions.  You can't learn the light and small very easy because they can't see it or are too frozen to feel it.  

The best lesson I've learned lately is that I need to quit seeing folks as objects that need to be moved, and seeing them as humans with a nervous system.  But sometimes folks need to relax into being a human with a nervous system.  Not an object frozen with fear or desire( desire being:  fixation on how things should be, instead of how things are).  Realistically, we all go through being an object and a human.  

folks rattle out into five types of Uke, by my limited estimation:  and learning is really a matter of being an uke.  

1. A two legged Object that doesn't want to move. He doesn't want to hit the mat. This can be a guy who resists the entry to the technique so you have to wobble him somewhere else, where he's resists but later, so you wobble him again, where he resists only later still.  What you have is a ratcheting transaction to the mat, that has no resemblance to the technique you are supposed to be working on.  Its fear based.  I become this way with judo players.  shime waza is a bitch, and so are those two legged sweeps.   
2.  A  two legged object that doesnt want to move and squeaks.  It's the same as the first, but wants to critique your ratcheting as wrong.   so they lecture you, or at least try to save face by talking physics or some shit.  its still fear based, but they have to talk and explain things to save face.  
3.  A  two legged object that will only move if it feels right.  They'll fall if you can get the first touch right.  It's like programming a VCR.  I resisted the curling function of the hand in the releases because I thought it was a subjective thing that people were looking for.  They'd move if I did my wrist right, and not move if I didn't.  The curl helps with concrete stuff, but this type of uke couldn't tell you what for to save his life.   this guy makes aikido seem fake. 
4. A two legged object that will only move if it feels right and squeaks.  If you are told to do 8 releases with this guy you'll never get past #3.  makes you want to join a tae kwon do mcdojo. 
5.  a human with a nervous system.  This guy knows how to fall, gives you a strong attack. and allows himself to be bounced like a ball.  he understands the system enough to know that you may eff up and have to go another direction.  He/she can help you learn.  He give's you reps and good advice about how to move Him/her around.  not how to theoretically move a two legged object around, but how to move a person of his or her size and shape.   He likes to get "got."  he wont give it to you, but wont fight it either.  He makes you lose track of time and enjoy doing aikido.