Training: The significance of training "intent". (L. Camejo)
[B]Training: The significance of training "intent".[/B] - 8 Replies
From: L. Camejo on 6. Jan 2005, 02:37am
Lyle and Ian hit the nail on the head regarding how I am feeling about this as well. I believe that the foundations of effective technique and continuous readiness to apply technique should be inculcated from a very early stage and improved as one moves higher in rank. At shodan one should be already highly adept at this.
I have also met situations where lack of aggression is far more commonplace than knowing and practicing how to constructively apply and utilise aggression or intent rather. I've found that for many, especially female students, the desire to "not be aggressive" or not put the proper degree of martial intent behind a technique results in a poorly executed technique or a technique that has very good technical form (if done against a very very compliant Uke), but is not given that extra energy to have it work when Uke is resisting even lightly, even though the physical form of the technique is sound.
On the reverse side, when these same students apply correct intent, their technique takes on a sort of life of its own, enticing Uke to move in ways that cause the resulting technique to be even more effective, if sometimes lacking the technical precision. Of course as Yann indicated, it is important to practice at the intense and not so intense levels as well to gain from the different aspects of training.
As said before, safety is always paramount and any training methods employed should conform to the tenets of good safety practices first imo.
Lyle from his sword training example alludes to what I was referring to of Musashi's statement in the Book of Five Rings that I mentioned in my first post. In correctly utilising intent towards an objective (eg. applying effective technique or quickly resolving the conflict) every movemenet we make (physical, mental or otherwise) should be made with this objective in mind and achieving it. From the initial aspects of engagement before physical contact is made, right through to adapting and applying counters in the event the initial technique fails, to instinctively knowing when to disengage from the attacker when he has decided to give up on the attack (if one is seeking resolution and not to immobilise the other person), every move we make should give us some psychological advantage, better tactical position or put us in a place where attainment of our objective is that much closer - "Every movement must be made with the intent of cutting down the opponent" in Musashi's lingo.
This is what I was getting at in my initial post. Although we speak of Mushin in Aikido, imo it is not a "passive" state where we wait for the attacker to indicate what technique is best, but putting ourselves on a mental and physical footing where we are "actively" scanning, sensing and looking where these openings might be and via mu gamae moving instinctively and naturally in ways that bring the achievement of our objective closer with every step.
Is this making sense? It's late and I need some sleep.:) What do you think?
LC:ai::ki:
|
