Principles and 3 ways to think about them.

I'm getting close to the Nidan level, and its time to look at principle.  Principle is a learning tool.  It isnt a way to kick someones ass.  But in order to get better, they have to be my principles and not someone elses, because we are dealing with me and my environment, not a samurai, or a Kodokan Judo player, or a Shinto Mystic.

There are two broad classes of principle.  There are principles that allow you to move and think in isolation.  And there are principles that allow you to move and think in relation to someone else.  That's all that I can  honestly say.  They may be two separate ideas, or the same ideas. 

People talk principle, but they dont talk about where to apply it.  One type of aikido training comes with different principles than another.    I think that folks will have a great deal of technical and tactical frustration if they don't understand what their focus is. I can think of three areas where principles may be different.

Go Big

This is the area of kata training.  I like kata training because when you work it in  whole units and you try to hit the mat and sweat.    It trains intangibles.   What one guy gets from it another guy doesn't.   Some people get intellectual stimulation out of it.  I have noticed that students who do Jodo, or Iaido approach Aikido in much the same fashion.  They are comfortable with the kata approach but don't understand it as a vehicle for fitness or as a springboard to explore variation.  Put a guy who likes kata for the sweat, with a guy who is a classicist in training then you have a recipe for frustration.  But the classicist can often times help you figure things out. They help maintain a standard model from which variation and insight are possible.  They do the heavy thinking so you dont have to.  They are a necessary part of the dojo ecosystem.


Go Small

This is a Toshu Randori guy.  The master of light touch.   The thing I've noticed is that these guys operate off of ideas that may not be kata based.  No one to my knowledge has exactly looked at our aikido to really label and identify what is going on here.  I've said it before but the way we randori has a lot of similarities to what the Tai Chi and Wing Chun guys do.  I randoried with a guy who had a background in both and he was every bit as tricky and frustrating and enlighening as Randoring with a Judo player.   I have crossed hands with a High Level Tomiki guy(JW Bode) and he feels very similar to a Tai Chi guy.  How do they get there?  

The randori game we play is let another guy walk into something.  You have the feeling that a guy is beating the shit out of you, suffocating you like a constrictor and you are essentially doing it to yourself.   Its talked about but not explicitly taught.

Right now, I'm of the opinion that you can't get here from kata although kata is an initial entry point for it.   You start out trying to put a gedan ate kata style on people and then you discover that there is a smaller animal that exists that is related to gedan ate in a " hey that's kinda like Gedan Ate."  but it aint kind of way.   There are numerous techniques that exist in a "kinda like" fashion.  They aren't explicitly trained because they don't look like the damn kata. They are labeled after the fact in relation to the kata. It's something a guy does that works every damn time.

Their are the things that some people really want to learn but aren't taught.  A guy is put in a situation of figuring it out for himself and hoping like hell he has 15 years worth of good Randori partners. 


 Go Open

My definition of an open aikido system is reflected in individuals I have met. It's model based.  Aikido was originally model based.  Here is a model that I see in more than one person I know.  

A) Kata training(both aikido and weapons) that serves as entry level work that helps relate things to non kata ideas.  Randori, restraint, conflict.  Perfection isnt the key here. understanding and insight is. 
B)  "Kinda like" techniques from Toshu Randori  that represent a non-kata reality.
C) Judo techniques that frustrate an Aikido player, that capitalize on muddy maai.  
D) "Let the other guy walk into it tactics" explictly taught.
E)  The  open ended model has a mind set that powers the techniques.  

 Some martial arts schools are probably not developed by a founder.  They are developed by  students that are trying to figure out how one guy(or three) does what he does.   Martial arts like this don't have explicit teachers, they have models.   There are some people so good at what they do they are never figured out.   Aikido is one of those model driven martial arts.  Our branch is  model driven because of our hard headed "figure it out for yourself" Toshu Randori practice. You can hope for 15 years of good randori practice or you can find a "open" model to study.  Or you can get lucky and get both.



Like I said, learning principles will be different for each area of focus. Is it a kata, randori, or model based focus?