Monday, December 8, 2008

Newton Sensei

I was thinking about something Pat demonstrated in our last Aikido lesson. We were drilling our 2nd motion template, and I was having trouble getting behind Nathan's arm (he's around 6'4"). Pat said to use a "bump" to help "bounce" myself into the spot I needed to be in. This is tough to describe in words. In essence, I bump uke's arm in the direction of his step, and use some of that energy to help propel me in the opposite direction. I asked Pat if it was the same idea he showed me in osotogari, where you use the pulling motion on uke's chest to propel your leg into position for the sweep.

Both of these ideas reminded me of Newton's 3rd Law of Motion: "To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." I guess it's just a matter of eating or using (directing/redirecting)the energy from that original action, in such a way that it improves my situation, or worsens my attacker's situation.

Funny how you can work on something for weeks, and all of a sudden, you see it used in a different context and think it's something new, until it dawns on you: "Wait...he's been saying that all along."

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