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| Beauty and Aikido © |
The question I am formulating came up in my mind watching the picture which I picked also as illustrative for the blog post and also from the pain I am having in my muscles and the bruises I geathered after a training that was a bit heavier than the usual ones. I usually train with our group's most flowy and nicely moving shomen. She is a female aikidoka also. At some rare occasions I also train with men who are a lot bigger and stronger than me. Sometimes I feel there is harmony in our movements also, but not at the same level as I can experience with the other female shomen. It could also be a question of gettin used to someone and not being used to others. However, when I see heavy and cramped throws and movements that are anything else but flowy, it hurts my eyes and all my perceptions altogether. I cannot find the natural flow of movements and cannot see the principles of aikido in them. Is it me who is too soft? Trying to win with brute force or trying to win at all is just not in the spirit of aikido. What is your perception of this martial art? I am adding a video here with a demonstration that represents the possibilities and the beauty I see in aikido. For many of you, it might also answer the question this blog post is rasing. I especially like the proposal at the end: Let's be free! (in our movements, technique, mindset)
Great post! Suffering from the same thing as a male aikidoka.
ReplyDeleteShodan here. In short, I think yes it does, at least a little bit. Nikkyo hurts. Learning to breakfall hurts. Exercise causes sort muscles.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't have to hurt a whole lot, but it does have to hurt a little bit.
As far as flowy technique goes, it doesn't come naturally to most people. Lots of people you see banging into each other are trying to learn not to.
Thanks for the comments of both of you! Hope we can reach a level close to the one demonstrated in the video at some point and have such beautiful and flowy movements!
ReplyDelete