Aikido for 02/07/2009, Platonic Aikido, and Open Simulator

Today at the Gunnison Community Center Jake, Shay, and I started practice at 2:00 p.m. with a warm-up and then after dedicating a larger portion of class on forward and backward ukemi. After katatetori tenkan and irmi exercises, we practiced the following techniques:

• katatedori shiho-nage (omote and ura)
• shomenuchi irminage (gyaku-hanmi)
• shomenuchi irminage (ai-hanmi)

We then did a three-person exercise where two uke grab with both hands on the respective arms of nage and try to pull nage apart. Nage needs to step back and then I showed them how to do an omote shiho-nage that throws both ukes.

The final part of class was a three minute randori with both Shay and Jake attacking me with katatedori or shomenuchi. I had a couple of distracting moments and lost my focus where Jake almost did a reverse sankkyo, I also had to slow down when throwing Shay because she is still learning her rolls. After kokyu-ho exercise, we finished up at 3:15.

I recently finished one of the best books, Anathem, by one of my favorite authors, Neal Stephenson. I am still mentally digesting this monograph and I will write more blog posts dedicated to the novel. Anyway, a major theme of the book is about Platonic idealism and while I consider myself more of an Aristotelian, I was thinking about the ideal Aikido forms. In my own practice, I rarely think about anyone other than the other people on and off the mat. My Aikido practice is changing now that I am teaching three times a week and preparing for my shodan test. A common answer to the question of what are the ideal Aikido forms and a defensible answer would be the Aikido of the founder, Morihei Ueshiba.
O'Sensei's Aikido, to me, was the beginning of all of us moving towards realizing the ideal forms that each of us conceptualizes. All of the instructors I have practiced with, have had their own variation of main themes of movement and interpretation of their ideal Aikido forms. I have had the great honor to attend classes taught by direct students of O'Sensei, including Aikira Tohei Sensei, Yamanda Sensei, Saotome Sensei, and more recently, I believe both Doran Sensei and Tissier Sensei practiced in Japan with O'Sensei. When teaching, I am forced to refer my own beliefs of the ideal form at that moment. Later in the class, I may have a very different conception of the same technique. The perfect form may be many instances but as I realized and told Shay in class today, you can feel when you are not doing the technique right. Reality is self-enforcing, adapting our techniques as we practice into something we are groping towards.

The start of the Aristotelian response, is to describe all of the fundamental and basic techniques in a manner that we can describe the basic physics and physiology of uke and nage. We record and use technology like videos, books, and photographs but this weekend I started working on a Second Life based open-technology called Open Simulator. My first project (whenever I learn a new technology, I like building a project based on something I am interested in) is building a virtual Aikido dojo OpenSim server. Here are some of the uses I believe we build using OpenSim:

• Record the basic techniques in YouTube compatible video using scripted action of two human avatars.
• Build "games" where students can create a beginner avatar and practice through the techniques as uke and nage. These games could be customized to specific dojos and sensei and be included as a learning tool and training log tool for students of the dojo.
• Record variations of techniques and provide a teaching log for instructors. These teaching logs could easily be turned into YouTube video and as a level in the game. These teaching logs could also be used as a reference tool for other students. As Linden Labs has already built an economy, monetizing these instructor teaching logs could be a source of income for instructors and dojos.
  
• Run massive parallel simulations of various uke and nage avatar preforming scripted (with limited random variation, basically Monte Carlo simulations) combinations of techniques. I believe these simulations will show new specific ways and movements that may not be always apparent. Of course the real test will be moving and testing these simulations on the practice mat. Aikido OpenSim will not replace Aikido Practice.
• And finally, we can build a full simulation of previous Aikido video from such past events as seminars and demonstrations. Such conversations would contribute the ecology and economy of the Aikido OpenSim community.

Cool stuff and to bring everything back to the starting point of this blog post, if you haven't read Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, do it and the you'll see why I am really excited by the Aikido OpenSim project.