Hello, I am Sugawara, your instructor.

We have previously discussed the four steps that speed up progress in Aikido, and we would like to deepen our understanding of a similar topic from a different perspective.

main point

The ability to memorize techniques can be divided into comprehension and expression.

If we try to verbalize the ability to learn a skill...

If you do aikido with adults and children, you will notice that there are differences in the way they learn techniques. Also, among adults, there are those who learn quickly and those who do not. What are the differences between them?

There are two abilities required to learn a technique. One is "comprehension," the ability to systematically grasp and memorize techniques, and the other is "expression," the ability to execute what you have learned with your body.

I will explain a little more about each of these forces.

The "power of understanding" required in Aikido is the ability to systematically understand how to move one's body by looking at a model of how to move.

With comprehension, you can translate the steps "first hands and feet diagonally forward at the same time, then - " into your own words and replay them in your brain.

In my experience, adults have better comprehension skills than children. At about upper elementary school age, they seem to come closer to adult ability.

Expression" is the ability to accurately express with one's body what one has seen and understood. For example, when a person moves his/her arms and legs diagonally forward at the same time, his/her arms and legs inevitably move apart. There is no great difference in expressive ability between adults and children.

Expression" determines how fast you learn.

We talked about comprehension and expression, but it is expression that determines how fast you learn.

Before the screening, in particular, we hear many problems such as, "I know it in my head, but I just can't do it," or "I always make mistakes in the same places.

So there is a difference between the head and the body.

People often refer to those who learn quickly in sports as having "good sense" or "athleticism," but it is more appropriate to say that there is "little gap between the head and the body" rather than that the body is superior.

It is more important to "supplement" expressive ability than to train it.

So how can we develop our ability to express ourselves?

There is no clear answer to this. It should not be easy to train.

Do we have to give up?

It is not. The ability to express oneself can be compensated. The best way to compensate is through repetitive practice. Do the same movements over and over again, and let your body soak up the movements.

Repetitive practice is anyway repeated and packaged.

Rarely, there are those who, once they succeed, say, "Yes, yes, you do it this way, I get it," and stop practicing repetitively. For such people, when it comes time to judge, their minds are empty and they do the same motions they did before they succeeded.

The important thing is to practice many repetitions so that you can do it even when your mind is empty. By doing so, you can package the movements into a single movement that moves multiple parts simultaneously, which is particularly common in Aikido. This is especially effective when done when you are tired.

The packaged version uses less brain resources, so you can express yourself without problems even if your mind is empty during the judging. Also, when learning another movement, if it is packaged, you do not have to learn it from scratch, and the speed at which you learn aikido increases.

summary

We have discussed learning the techniques of Aikido, but the point is,

The ability to memorize techniques can be divided into comprehension and expression.

It can be said that

You can speed up your progress in aikido by practicing repetitively with an empty head, which is why you practice with your friends, because you can't do it alone.