Learning from loosing

Pushing hands in the park

Glad to be back in the park grappling with the guys after being out of action for about a month.

September was indeed a busy month for me. Illness, injury, rain, wedding dinners, outstation trips and attending to social functions and obligations that took up all the Saturdays and Sundays of last month kept me away from the sport.

Although I lost all the matches this morning to my more younger, heavier, experienced and stronger opponents nevertheless I was quite happy with the results. I felt that gradually I was giving them a harder time to pushing, uprooting and taking me down than before, probably because as time goes bye I gain more and more experience in handling the opposition with more "Yi" rather than reliance on muscular strength.

Thanks to wearing knee guards, other than general fatigue of the body and hands and some soreness and stiffness of my legs my weak knees were holding up well against all the power pushings and shovings.

Pushing Hands in the Park

This was what happened to me at few times when my training partners came to know about my Aikido background.

With all inhibitions off I soon became the recipient of some no holds barred throws and pulls that sent me crashing to the hard pavement a few times.

Unbeknown to my training partners to Aikido people the floor is their most natural and friendly environment because they spend a good deal of their training time interacting with it, rolling and breaking fall, much like water is to the fish. I took all the throws good-naturedly and bounced back by rolling myself up to standup position from the pavement.

I don't think that they deliberately wanted to injure me. On the other hand confident that I would know how to take care of myself on the ground without getting hurt my presence gave my push hand partners the opportunity to try out how far they can go to unleash power.

A good training session indeed.