Proving the Obviously Untrue

For those not acquainted by martial arts. The title is a bit of a weak play on words, since "ukemi" means something like "receiving through the body". Uke is generally the receiver of a technique and thus the attacker in aikido, whereas the nage is the thrower to use one possible word.

Ukemi is important in Aikido. You will spend literally half your training time attacking and then "receiving" the technique, and all of these aspects can be lumped under the title of ukemi. It's a difficult balance to get right in aikido. It is learned in a very cooperative nature, and so the idea (for some) is be an "appropriate" attacker for each training partner, tailoring your attack to each. Thus, for a student on their first night, you might actually move the student's arms to help them learn the "throw".

Issues tend to arise more in pairings between non beginners. Some advocate that as an uke you can learn aikido by blending completely with the nage. I personally prefer an approach of attacking in a way I believe is probably appropriate for a "normal" attacker, and then protecting myself and blending in the aftermath. I'm probably slightly above average height, weight and strength and so a good model of an attacker, and perhaps somewhat harder to throw.

Having said that, I do not prevent people from throwing me. I just don't strive to throw myself, blending so completely that every throw seems to "work" perfectly no matter what.

Recently I received a fair amount of verbal and non verbal (expressions and so on) criticism from a student of about a year's experience about the "awkwardness" of my ukemi. I think in retrospect I should have indicated that unhelpful, non constructive criticism is as unpleasant and counterproductive for me as to anyone else. I did however, rather unhelpfully, suggest "you might want to consider that I am not the whole problem". I was exasperated at the fact that this person thought I was trying to stop her from throwing me, when in fact I was trying to help her explore where things were going well and where they were not. The exasperation was not helped by my conviction (rightly or wrongly) that if I really wanted to stop her from throwing me, I could have done so very easily.

The reality is, there are very, very few people to whom I would give concerted "awkwardness" to stop them throwing me, and those are among the people whose aikido I respect the very most, and it would be something I would do rarely, and as a gift to that person (and because it can be a great deal of fun once you are comfortable with another person!). If you're reading this, you know who you are! If I'm trying to be "awkward", you'll know about it.

When I hit 3rd Kyu (around the middle of the white belt grades), I took a decision I simply wasn't going to worry about awkward ukes any more. It's my problem to deal with the uke, not theirs. And now a good few years later (about nine) I find myself teaching Aikido, I emphasise this point to all the students in our club, and it's very much our philosophy. Nevertheless, there are times I am training with another when I don't "finish" a technique when I feel their ukemi doesn't allow it. Those are times when I feel I would have to be profoundly unkind to do so, or potentially injure someone, especially when the person is (in my opinion) unaware of their own danger. Mostly however, I believe in the importance of finishing, providing I'm not putting my ego above the uke's safety.

But I believe awkward (but realistic) ukemi is a gift to receive gratefully, that some people I train with, though I like them very much personally, are so intent on blending perfectly with everything I do before I do it, that I am deprived of a chance to learn from my mistakes. I suppose I should have, with humble sincerity, explained this to my training partner. Better luck next time.

Posted by Colin Turner

I hold Richard Feynman in huge regard. He was a fascinating human being, a Nobel laureate physicist, his research in physics was second to none. But he was also a legendary lecturer, in both the fields of physics, and perhaps surprisingly computer science. And even more, he was an exceptionally well rounded person, a gifted artist, an amateur safe cracker and more besides. I own a copy of his lectures on Physics, bought for me by my Mum who felt (probably correctly) that no-one else would buy an item that sounded so boring, though it was on my Amazon wish list. (Incidentally, I think some pages touch on issues like the paradox I presented on crashing cars, I haven't had the leisure to study this more closely).

Recently it was announced (and one of my students kindly wrote to tell me) that Bill Gates had bought up the rights to his lecturers and was making them available. I do praise Bill Gates for his philanthropy, and would have praised him for this, but regrettably, the lectures are only available with Silverlight, and so it's another of a long line of Trojan horses to ensure we buy into a new proprietary standard from Microsoft. A huge shame.

In my last, marathon article, I talked a little about models of reality. A point I didn't make is that we have trouble accepting that; no matter how much we dislike aspects of reality, they remain the same despite that. Feynman encapsulated this beautifully in this YouTube snippet of his QED lectures (which I had showed to my final year students). I have attempted a limited transcript below, but you should hear it in Feynman's excellent good humoured Brooklyn accent for full effect.

And then there's the ... kind of thing which you don't understand. Meaning "I don't believe it, it's crazy, it's the kind of thing I won't accept."

Eh. The other part well... this kind, I hope you'll come along with me and you'll have to accept it because it's the way nature works. If you want to know the way nature works, we looked at it, carefully, [...unsure of this bit...] that's the way it works.

You don't like it..., go somewhere else!

To another universe! Where the rules are simpler, philosophically more pleasing, more psychologically easy. I can't help it! OK! If I'm going to tell you honestly what the world looks like to the... human beings who have struggled as hard as they can to understand it, I can only tell you what it looks like.

And I cannot make it any simpler, I'm not going to do this, I'm not going to simplify it, and I'm not going to fake it. I'm not going to tell you it's something like a ball bearing inside a spring, it isn't.

So I'm going to tell you what it really is like, and if you don't like it, that's too bad.

If you'd like to hear more from this fascinating man, can I suggest more YouTube videos showing an old BBC interview with him:

1. Part One
2. Part Two
3. Part Three
4. Part Four
5. Part Five
6. Part Six

Posted by Colin Turner