First lesson last night. A great dojo with lovely teacher and students. They had a very special (and expensive) sprung, bouncy matted floor which made me feel like an Apollo astronaut, walking on the moon!
The teaching was excellent and I soon worked out the principles in terms I could comprehend. There was much talk of āexpanding Ki and āpushing energy upwardsā etc but it seemed to me to skilful manipulation of oneās opponentās centre of gravity (CoG), edging it out of their base and encouraging a rotational torque to flip them over. Forces were applied at a tangent to the opponent to initiate a torquing force whilst simultaneously manipulating their CoG again causing them to flip away! It was lovely to watch and attempt. It seemed the teacherās real skill was in the timing of application of torque/CoG perturbations to achieve whatever he wanted. Beautiful. It did remind me somewhat of the Wado Ryu Karate I practised (which incorporates Shinzo Yoshin Ryu Ju Jitsu) and the take home message of āget out of the wayā was familiar although in Wado Ryu this was often achieved with a twist of the body rather than stepping in and to the side. Thus, I was a little better at the moves than was expected thanks to the brilliant Ohyo Gumite throws we practised in Wado Ryu so it felt somewhat familiar.
The difference between the two arts was the Aikido didnāt work if one even slightly resisted. If you simply let go of the sleeve you were gripping the technique would abort on the spot. If one shuffled along rather than flip oneself over, you could easily remain on your feet to counter. I was told several times not to resist otherwise it would be a case of the strongest person winning ālike in Judoā! Yes, there are joint opposition grips that are more likely to compel you to cooperate and throw yourself, but getting to the stage of applying them was a real contrivance requiring you to not let go as the lock was being applied. It seemed more like a beautiful dance, where each person knows whatās coming and how to move accordingly. I certainly saw degrees of freedom, where the receiver could decide which direction he was going to go and the attacker could manipulate that too and it was very skilful indeed. From what I saw (and have seen elsewhere) Aikido did not fulfil the criteria of an effective fighting system, i.e. it would not consistently perform against an uncooperative , fully-resisting, aggressive opponent. This is probably why you donāt see Aikido-based MMA fighters! But I donāt think this is what itās about. It is more akin to freestyle dancing perhaps where beauty of technique is the physical aim. It
is very lovely.
I must point out these are only my limited observations with all my biases accrued through years of experience in other combat sports and in no way a criticism of this clearly wonderful art with dedicated, hard training practitioners.
On a slightly different note, I was very aware that the risk of injury to me, as a beginner, through hitting the ground awkwardly or an overly keen wrist lock, was high. I hit the ground once and saw stars and my neck was painful for a few minutes. Also, little allowance was given to a rotator cuff injury I have and at times I had to point-blank refuse to use the effected side with the teacher which he was
slightly reluctant to accept, but I am more than confident enough to stick to my refusal. Since Iām attempting a significant grading examination in my primary art in 7 months time, I feel I should probably wait until after that attempt before returning to Aikido and I will contact the dojo to say as much.
Looking at my expression, I was quickly informed by the shop assistant, that the word āRussianā was being replaced by āDarkā in the next batch. 
), and he said he was keen to maybe have a joint Aikido/Iaido dojo in the future.
). Itās so severe I cannot practise and havenāt for quite some time. Physiotherapy has been useless (āinsanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different resultsā) although Iām seeing another specialist physio next week 
