The class I now sit out of is the
Friday class. There are a few white belts at this class which is always
good to see but I've never truly taken the time to watch them because I've been
too busy working on my own technique. The past few weeks I've been
watching and learning from the White Belts. Two valuable lessons have stood
out for me:
1. The
importance of the Uke
2.
Practice makes (almost) perfect
On Tuesdays, sensei has sometimes been pairing me up with white belts to give me the opportunity to practice teaching. Another two lessons from this!:
3. Sometimes
you need to stand back
4. Keep
it simple
1. The importance of the uke
Sensei
has often spoken to us about Uke's role in helping Nage to learn. If Uke
is resistant while Nage is learning the technique then it won't work and Nage
will become disheartened (not to mention the fact that this type of practice
can result in injury). Yes, sometimes the students in my class have
a mischievous glint in their eye and purposefully make
the technique difficult for the Nage but this is usually
once the technique has been learned and the Nage is comfortable with it.
Taking the technique to the next level is a progression of learning
and expands Nage's understanding but they have to know what they're doing first.
Watching White Belts uke for each other is fascinating. Some of them understand that they need to respond to the technique and "do what they're supposed to do" for now even if Nage's Ki isn't that strong. Some others, however, resist the technique and appear quite robotic and/or unenthusiastic. The technique therefore doesn't work and both are left wondering what the point is!
Having said all that, I reflect on my own abilities as a Uke when I was a White Belt and remember that my fear of getting hit in the face prevented me from attacking properly. I'm still bad for that and I really need to do something about it! Sensei has always praised my husband Michael for his Ukeing abilities and I have to try my best not be jealous! I look at how Michael attacks and reacts to the Nage and he looks relaxed which means Nage is confident in doing the technique and it allows Michael to easily respond to what Nage is doing, therefore he keeps himself out of danger naturally. My mistake is that I'm always trying to guess the next move. There's a fine line between reacting in a certain way because "that's what you're supposed to do" and reacting in a certain way because that's what you have to do to avoid a smack in the face or whatever Nage decides! It's often a split second decision but if you're relaxed, your body reacts naturally and the brain doesn't try to over-ride it.
Watching Sensei's Uke is remarkable. He takes everything that Sensei throws his way and just keeps coming back for more, attacking properly and responding to Sensei's moves. I don't believe that Sensei's Uke is prepped in advance, it seems that he is able to attack and react each and every time with those vital split second decisions that now come to him naturally. I don't think I'll ever be able to Uke as well as that but, having watched the White Belts, I now understand the importance of relaxing and reacting properly to allow a technique to work the way it's supposed to even if it's a slow step-by-step process in the beginning.
2. Practice makes (almost) perfect
I say
"almost" perfect because I don't think anyone can perfect aikido.
I read somewhere about the reasons for having different coloured belts
and it's because the more experienced you are, the darker the colour of your
belt. Some martial arts only have white or black belts - the idea
being that by the time you have the skill, wisdom and experience to become a
black belt, your white belt will black anyway. The opposite being true
for black belts. The more skill, wisdom and experience they have, the
black belt turns white; demonstrating that you never stop learning - you will
never be perfect. But that's ok! O-Sensei himself said
"failure is the key to success; each mistake teaches us something."
We all make mistakes no matter how old and experienced we are.
I watch the White Belts learn a new technique and sometimes find myself cringing at how awkward they look! I want to stop them and tell them to "just relax, don't worry about it, you'll be doing this technique many times from now on so you'll get it eventually!"
Or being hypocritical while watching, with a tinge of frustration, a White Belt being taught the exact same technique that I taught him or her the week before!
Then I mentally get myself into trouble. Despite only having to learn one form, being a White Belt isn't easy! You have to overcome your fears of being attacked, of looking silly, of making a Dan Grade angry, not to mention fitting yourself into a group of people who have to be extremely comfortable with each other. Also, I'm one to talk about being shown things more than once! My memory is terrible and sometimes I know the highest Dan Grade (we'll call him Dan from now on as I'll be reflecting on a lot of things that he teaches) has taught me something already but is having to explain it all again.
As a side note, Dan's favourite question is "how many forms start with Nage offering their right side?" The answer is only two forms; first and fifth. I made myself learn that as I'm always getting confused about what wrist or shoulder to offer to the Uke. One of the other green belts came up with the idea of doing a Pop Aikido Quiz with questions like that! I might do it on this blog one day...
Anyway, new information has to be repeated to me more than once for it to sink in and thankfully, so far, Sensei and the Dan Grades have been very patient with me! The point is, I'll get it eventually - I just have to practice - and the same goes for the White Belts. I can see the difference between the White Belts that are ready to move on and the ones that need to work on it a bit more. Usually the White Belts who have been there longer have a better understanding of what they've been taught... the result of plenty of practice! But White Belts who don't commit to the lessons are overtaken by other White Belts and Sensei is not one to put someone forward for grading if he doesn't think they've put in the time and effort required.
3. Sometimes you need to stand back
I was
watching Dan teach a group of White Belts a couple of weeks ago and couldn't
understand why he just stood back and let them do it wrong. Once one
member of the group got it wrong, the others followed! So I had a think
about this and my conclusions are that 1. Dan didn't want to overload
the White Belts with information - sometimes bad habits creep in that have
to be nipped in the bud but there will be times when whatever's happening can
be fixed later because people can only take on so much information; 2. I've
noticed that sometimes Sensei and the Dan Grades will stand back and let us figure
out what's going wrong by ourselves - part of the learning curve.
Then the penny dropped! A while back I had been placed with a group of White Belts and was told to teach - not do. Not quite understanding the instruction, I took my turn with the White Belts to do the technique - the idea being to show them how to do it "properly" and then a brown belt was sent over to "do the doing" so I could do the teaching. I still didn't quite get the point! However, having watched from the sidelines, I now understand that, in order for the White Belts to get the practice in, you have to let them do it. You have to let them make the mistakes in order to learn how to do it correctly - constantly butting in and doing it yourself is not really helping. They can see how it's supposed to be done, now let them try it out for themselves. O-Sensei's words ringing true again "each mistake teaches us something". I've always said that, when Sensei demonstrates something, he makes it look so easy. But when we have to do it ourselves it takes a wee while to work it out. We know what we're supposed to do, but we have to be given the time and opportunity to get it right.
So, while one to one teaching has it's place, sometimes it's better to take a step back and let it come together by itself.
On that
note, next time I'm in a group and Sensei or Dan is standing back to watch, I
mustn't follow the person in front of me if I don't think they did the
technique correctly. I should be brave enough to do what I think is right
and ok it might turn out to be wrong but that's the point I'm making!
4. Keep it Simple
A few weeks ago, Sensei's Uke (Sensei uses two guys as regular ukes; Dan and one other - we'll call him uke1) had been instructed to uke for a White Belt while I practiced my teaching skills. I enjoyed this session very much because, unlike my practice with the Brown Belt (through no fault of the Brown Belt at all), I understood what I was supposed to be doing and what I should be learning. The White Belt is fairly new so there was a lot of things he didn't know while some techniques, such as Shionhage just needed practice and polish. I concentrated for a while on Tenchinage mainly because it's the technique I'm most uncomfortable with so it was good for me to be able to study it from scratch and good for the White Belt to learn something new. Later, Uke1 commented that he had learned something from me. He said that when he was teaching, he often went into a lot of detail and the student would get confused whereas I keep my instructions and explanations very simple and to the point which makes it easier for the white belt to understand. I thanked him for his feedback as it's always good to hear nice things but even better when you didn't realise you were doing something worth noting! A 1st Dan learning from a Green Belt... Aside from my point from above having been made, positive feedback does wonders for self-confidence.
