Teaching: Learning How to Learn Aikido (MaryKaye) 

Teaching: Learning How to Learn Aikido (MaryKaye)

[B]Teaching: Learning How to Learn Aikido[/B] - 50 Replies
From: MaryKaye on 5. Jan 2005, 04:17pm
We worked on kata tori nikyo last Monday with a fairly junior instructor. I was failing almost every time to throw him: what I was doing looked good to me, but it didn't move him at all.

We traded places, and he said "Here is how your nikyo feels to me." It was a revelation: he managed to show me physically what it felt like if nage was not attached to uke's center. Of course I wasn't throwing him: he wasn't throwing me either, doing that. And then he switched to doing it right....

So for me, I think there' s a lot of value in being shown how something is done wrong, if I was already doing it wrong. I agree with the comment that "Here's a common way this can be done wrong" is not a wise teaching technique unless the students in front of you are doing it here and now.

Mary Kaye