Randori Advice
At the Saturday class we used the last fifteen minutes or so to do some randori. This was probably the most confusing thing for me so far since I started. What made it the most confusing was every person I worked with explained it and did it completely different. I left the class more confused about what exactly Randori was or even what I sould be doing.
Mostly I was told to feel for tension if I was Uke and try to reverse. If I was tori, I wasn't supposed to give any tension or it was reversed on me. That seems pretty simple. My paradox lies in if tori doesn't put any tension into the system and Uke never feels any tension, I suppose this could be considered perfect randori. But most times when this happened it seemed as if nothing happened and we just walked around for a while.
I am assuming the longer I take Aikido the more I will understand the excersise, I just thought I would throw this out there and see if anyone could expand on it.
Doug
Hi Doug- randori is by far the most confusing and frustrating form of our practice -- that said, it does get funner for most folks once they have been around say a year or so-- so my advice is dont worry about it much -- just get on with regular training and let randori take care of itself and when randori comes up in the schedule just try to relax and let it kinda wash over ya -- the facility for randori skill is directly related to the kihara drills you are just getting into -- give it time and keep the faith and youwill find the promised land before ya know it-- nick
I'd like to extend my previous post on randori--
As to what it is-- randori is literally "chaos practice" the roles of tori and uke fall away and we both become tori/uke-- the practice of randori asks us to examine our own actions and reactions and to become sensitive to the dynamics of the shared relationship-- sensitivity to our partner and honest awareness of our own internal reactions in the face of potential competition, aggression, dominance, and fear-- our natural reactions that drive us toward "winning" and away from "losing" -- our tendency to degrade play and practice into a fight/flight mode- all of this comes up and has the potential to be transformed/enlightened
randori at its best should be an interactive play that has no particular idea of "winning" -- like playing catch-- i throw you an off balance or positional problem, you catch it, and solve it and throw me a problem to solve -- i catch it and solve it and throw it back to you -- we are just keeping the "aikido activity ball" in the air and seeing where it winds up-- there is no particular end to the game-- as long as we keep our cool and the stress of catching and throwing dont overwhelm us --everything flows great-- we get to look for new and interesting problems to solve and it stays fun on both sides
--but sometimes while playing catch we lose our cool-- we get overwhelmed--we forget this nonending game and start playing dodge ball instead-- suddenly the aggression of the situation takes over and we start trying to tag each other "playing to see who can beat who" - looking for a end, a winner/loser--freeplay collapses into competition -- sadly often a defensive mindset takes over and just tries to "play for just not getting got" -- players get stuck in this self defeating strategy-- they cant remember how to play catch -- play bogs down and they lose out on the real refinement that randori offers --
randori asks us to learn to transcend victory and defeat and discover our own creative potential ,it offers us a powertful tool for free expression and completes the picture that begins with kata techniques and structured drills -- randori allows you to completely embody principle and make aikido your own thing--it opens you up to an amazing proving ground where you can clearly demonstrate to yourself the great physical potential that aikido allows you to embody--
randori -- when not subverted into a power trip or a lost in a defensive/reactive mindset-- bestows profound self-confidence and unleashes your own great aikido potential -- randori gives life to practice and practice is what it is all about
Thankyou, it makes sense now.
The sad thing is, it takes two to tango... Which means, if both people have the attitude of "playing catch", great, wonderful things are discovered and randori is fun and illuminating. But if just one person devolves into a "fight or flight", "win or loose" mindset, it kind of messes the whole thing up for both of them. In those situations, I do something that (I believe) Nick once talked about one Saturday, and that is to just sort of let go and be light and let yourself get "got". A lot.
That being said, I do find it's a hard transition for most folks to go from one end of the spectrum, kata (where everything is known, eg, who is attacking, what technique is coming next, etc.) all the way to the other end, randori (or chaos, where little to nothing is known). I find it help to create little "intermediate" exercises that gradually introduce unknown elements into the activity, but keeping some known elements. For example, maybe we'll start out where I am the uke, and I attack by grabbing. We know that I'm uke (and the other person is tore), and we know we're doing releases. What's unknown is which of tore's hands I'm going to grab, and which of my hands I'm going to grab with. Eventually, we might add a technique that come right after the initial release, which is also an unknown (maybe we get an oshi taoshi, or tore has to duck under the arm for a #7 release, etc.). Maybe we'll do the same exercise with a shomen ate attack. Perhaps we'll start off with just balance breaks and stepping off the line (maybe tore steps inside like #1 of the 23, maybe we get a regular balance break but who knows with which hand, maybe we get an inside grip like shiho nage, etc).
Anyway, sometimes it can take a little confusion and frustration (even fear) out of the situation if I start with a sort of "middle ground".
good points sean -- yes when things go off the rails , resolving into becoming uke for your partner gives you the greatest benefit from the training when otherwise it might become a complete bust -- its a great default strategy for when things devolve in randori --- also excellent advice on incrementally moving toward randori-- most of us who suffered through the early days of being tossed into the deep end and sort of sink or swim style of randori education could have really appreciated this approach