Posts by BenWilson
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Hard News: Floating the idea, in reply to Rich Lock,
I was always really put off by the whole 'bow to the mat to show appropriate respect' aspect of it
Me too, I discontinued partially because of their grading system, in the end, despite being only a few months from black belt. The belt means nothing to me, never did, and it got in the way of what I actually wanted to learn. But I think belts are quite good for people in their first martial art, they give milestones, and something to aim for. Good for kids.
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So envious. I've always wanted to go to Tokyo, but never found an excuse. The epitome of modernity dropped square in the middle of a very ancient culture strikes me as post...well...post-everything.
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Hard News: Floating the idea, in reply to Jackie Clark,
Martial arts can be good, but pretty much any sport that you do a lot of gives improvements to physical coordination. It's mostly a matter of finding something that inspires. After a few years of training, even if you haven't kept up with the pack, you're still way ahead of people who haven't done any of it. Swimming's definitely like that. If you trained frequently, then even if you never win any events for your age group, you'll still find you're head and shoulders better than the average person at swimming.
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Crispin has to work hard and is often the last kid to grasp a new move but he gets there and is so proud when he does
That's great. It's the instructor that makes a great dojo, not the art.
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Up Front: Giving Me Grief, in reply to Jacqui Dunn,
There's no reason the mind can't cause us to see things during extreme grief and stress. It's probably a good thing, even, so long as it doesn't keep happening, it could help relieve the strain. I had two independent people approach me after my last funeral oration, saying they saw my Grandmother standing beside me, when I turned and spoke to the coffin directly. I got the idea to do this from a tangi I went to many years ago, it had a really strong impact on me, helping me remember the old guy as he was when alive. Clearly it had a similar impact on other people, perhaps startling their perceptions. Either way, it felt good, speaking to the dead directly. Emma has done this here, and it's much less dry and detached than an enumeration of one's memories of the person, much more involving to an audience.
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You've cured my dry eyes and blocked nose, Emma, thank you. You've also been missed, during this break, and there was me thinking you were probably sunning it up.
Sorry for your loss.
RIP Audrey.
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In particular, Ben, who didn't want to be drawn into thinking about all this stuff - sorry, Ben - it must be a bit tedious.
Nah, it's fine, I like hearing what other people think on the subject. But I've found dwelling on it to have been a very unproductive habit for myself. Perhaps writing it down will stop me doing it. I'm glad to see Steve Parks and Jack Elder hovering too, as people who've studied Philosophy more recently than me, and (I expect) more diligently and longer. Maybe there are (although I don't hold out much hope) actually some new idea from philosophers (as opposed to scientists who eventually eat up all of philosophy) on the subject.
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Hard News: Floating the idea, in reply to Rich Lock,
Ben, do you mean Gozo Shioda? Have you read 'Angry white pyjamas'? If not, then I recommend it.
No, I meant Morihei Ueshiba, also known as O Sensei, under whom Shioda learned Aikido in the very early days of the school. It was considerably rougher in the early period, since Ueshiba invented and developed it across his life, adapting it from the arts he was trained in, particularly Aikijutsu, a very bone-crunching art.
It does rather sound like the Japanese are pretty old-school even now in their Aikido training, that injuries in training are quite common. I don't admire that at all. It's much less like that in NZ, possibly because, for starters, people don't just accept the right of someone in authority to hurt you.
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@Tamara,
Makes me sound like a hot-house Mum but honestly, I'm not!!
Quite the opposite, from my understanding of the term. A hot-house Mum would protect their child from ever needing to crawl, in just the way hot-house flowers are protected from pests and plant competition
@Jackie, it was interesting to hear what they do at Avondale Primary, where my boy is going next month. Every morning they do an exercise routine first thing, most of which sounds like it's based around sound principles of encouraging those brain connections. They said it has an amazing calming effect on the children, and is a good way to get them ready for classes - the body and the mind are fully awake by the end of it, and some excess energy has been burned off. I don't know how widespread this is in primary schools.
@Isabel, a lucky lad, by the sounds of it. I'm curious about his Aikido, being the belt before black belt myself. For most children the martial art I'd have recommended is Judo, but Aikido could very well suit a child with less physical ability than most - in Judo classes they'd end up being thrown around by anyone their size during randori (sparring) and it could be very discouraging immediately.
Aikido actively discourages crossing the midline for nage (the person doing the throwing), but uke (the person being thrown) is forced to challenge every aspect of their body's natural position. Everyone has to be nage and uke half the time each, except instructors.
The idea is that nage's aim is to remain in the most stable, balanced, strong position possible, and take uke immediately to the opposite of that. That is what makes Aikido throws look so effortless - nage does not need to be the least bit athletic. The way they move is sometimes compared to a "Thunderbirds puppet" in that their arms simply refuse to move outside of quite a restricted range, the upper torso doesn't twist much, the legs don't splay. There are a lot of very, very old people who can still be very competent nage s. The founder of Aikido is in a lot of old films doing his thing in his 80s.
Uke is the opposite, they are spun around, twisted, hit, rolled, tied in knots, stretched, slammed. In a controlled and cooperative way. This is where the physical training of Aikido comes in, being uke means you become agile and supple, and very good at protecting yourself from damage when put in an awkward situation.
This could be very good for your son. We had a teenager with Asperger's syndrome in my club, and whilst he was not especially good at Aikido, he did continue to:
A: Attend
B: Improve
both of these are quite major accomplishments in a contact sport for a condition that often manifests in a total aversion to physical human contact. -
Hard News: Floating the idea, in reply to Isabel Hitchings,
Well, the ACC physios who have worked with my son (also a bum shuffler) were determined to teach him to crawl, they claimed that not doing so had a long term detrimental affect on physical motor development. I never researched the claim, trusting them, and simply seeing the value of crawling as something to master, and a good way to build up his shoulders. But he's not fast - it's almost like he has to think about where to move each limb, rather than it being deeply built in that "right knee going back pushes left hand forward, left knee going back pushes right hand forward", simultaneous with "right hand coming back pulls left knee forward, left hand coming back pulls right knee forward".
We do it instinctively now, and the same thing happens during walking and particularly running, it's a simultaneous push and pull, alternating sides. I think I do it when I'm cycling too, and it's definitely there in treading water, although the motion is circular, the same diagonal balancing act happens. Overarm swimming is similar, but the push back is in the hips as the arm goes forward, with the overall visible impression being that the body remains straight.
It's so fundamental to human movement that it's plausible to think that we might have specific neuron groupings that are apt to the task, and failing to stimulate them at a young age means that they're recruited elsewhere, or that we recruit less appropriate groups to the task, with less built in functionality. Which doesn't mean a task can't be learned, but it might be a much harder job for some.
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