Spotting the Lie

Last night was a beautiful night, and on all beautiful nights, Virginia Systema trains outdoors. There's a nice lush strip of grass perfect for a small group to roll around a punch each other on, and that's exactly what we did for an hour and a half. After checking the area for any sharp rocks or debris, we started rolling. Just walking at a slow and leisurely pace, tucking into a forward roll, and returning to standing and walking. The rolls happened whenever the students wanted them at first. No pressure.

The students there had each done hundreds of rolls before on mats. The lush grass and soft earth was almost as soft as a mat, and once their bodies realized that, the rolls came easier. Those first few rolls where the ground was an unknown were hesitant, but quickly smoothed out. The ground was bumpy and uneven, which added an interesting dynamic, but it was nothing people couldn't overcome.

But then I changed the rules. You couldn't roll whenever you liked anymore. You had to do it only when I clapped.

Fear. Tension. Stutter steps to get to that favorite leg (I was guilty of this one a few times when I had one of the students clap). Held breath. All just from losing the control over when the roll happened.

I continued to change rules. Now you had to walk backwards and roll. This caused a different, new tension, since now you couldn't see what was in your path. (ah, but you COULD once you realized you could watch the shadows of the setting sun... then you could at least be sure you weren't about to collide with another person. There are all kinds of clues about your surroundings you can find, but you'll have to try these drills on your own to discover them). Things got REALLY interesting once I took the group away from the soft grass and onto asphalt. Suddenly no one could roll anymore! Everyone had visions of their heads being dashed in by the hard, unyielding pavement and froze with both hands on the ground and their butts in the air. Norman Rockwell would have totally ran and grabbed his easel.

I circled my guys up and we talked about what had just happened. The point I made was that when you train, there is always a lie. Maybe lie is too strong of a word? It's a deviation from what would actually happen in reality. A technique - in this case, a forward roll - isn't the same when practiced in isolation as it is in the real world. We roll so that if we are tripped or knocked down, we can get up quickly without damaging ourselves. But in order for this to happen, we have to be able to do it from either leg. Without warning. Without maybe even knowing that a roll is coming up until our balance is already taken. That perfect, tactical, lifesaving roll is practiced slowly, in calm and sterile environments, and that is a lie. Or maybe it's a white lie - that slow, sterile roll is perfectly valid, but it is the practitioner's belief that he "has it down" that is the lie. "Aikido works fine; your Aikido doesn't."

It's a lie that people have to know and be able to spot on their own, so that they can adjust their training so that there's less of a lie. You'll never completely remove the lie - a sane and reasonable person will never train rolls by having people jump out of alley ways and slug them in the jaw so that they trip over a concrete curb - but it's important to know where your technique fails. And then to fix it.