Linear vs Spiral training in Aikido

[MBuzzy]

So my first question is, how does your dojo train? And more importantly is one way "standard" or more common in Aikido?

When I trained in Aikido, we did strictly spiral training....which is a hard paradigm shift for me....but is a great way to learn.

If you're not familiar with what I'm talking about (and I'm not sure if these are the right terms for you teacher types)....

Linear training is what I've seen in Korean Styles (Tang Soo Do, Tae Kwon Do, Haidong Gumdo). This is where you have a set curriculum, with a set number of techniques for each belt. You learn this set of techniques, test, then move on to another defined set of techniques. You continue this way, very seldom reaching out of your range of techniques until much higher belts.

Spiral training is when you have several "lines" of basic ideas, such as attacks, and each class, you may learn a way to defend one or more of these attacks. The next class you may learn something different (such as a defense for a different attack), but you probably won't revisit the technique that you learned in class 1 for weeks or months, but when you do come back, you've learned other things, making it easier to revisit this technique. In this way, you have a set of techniques required for testing, but you don't focus on only them, you learn a great deal of things and through your training, gradually refine these techniques. Kind of hard to explain....graphically, you would have a center point with a number of lines extending away from it like spokes. Then a spiral radiating out from the center. Each of the lines represents an idea and the spiral represents your learning. As you proceed around the spiral, you hit each of these ideas, eventually circling back around to the first idea that you hit, but you're further along on that "idea line," so you have a better understanding. The techniques along that idea line are all related to that concept and get increasingly more difficult and complex as you radiate from the center.

 

[Laus]

Well, a little of both where I train. There is a set curriculum in that there are specifc things you must be able to do at each test. But the training itself is "spiral." (I haven't heard that term, but Aikido is new for me so perhaps it just hasn't come up). I am about to do my first test and of all the things I've done in the last 10 months maybe 2 or 3 are actually part of the exam (the rest I guess is etiquette and that sort of thing...my Sensei has not been terribly specific).

We train a range of techniques every class, starting with a simple one and building up to more complicated ones - generally, the attack is the same every time (maybe a slight variation), but we progress through the class from simpler to more complex counters. Alternatively we may repeat the same base counter against a variety of attacks. So when students test, they may have done things above their rank but they are only tested on those on the list of requirements for the next rank.

We are part of the USAF so the testing requirements come from them. As for how the classes go, I have no idea if this is standard or not.

I also find the paradigm shift difficult at times. My primary art is karate, so I am used to being for the most part denied access to things above my pay grade, as it were. But I find it helpful in Aikido to see where a technique can go. That may be because I am already a reasonably experienced martial artist though...I might have found it very confusing earlier on.

Still, this sprial concept isn't totally foreign to my training - where I trained up to Shodan we were encouraged to attend seminars where they taught things (dan katas, totally foreign forms, weapons, whatever) that we have never done, will not do again for years if at all, and are not going to understand or be very good at. They called it "sowing the seeds." You may pick up on something, or not, at the time, but down the road something you learned back then will mean something or make sense somehow (you're right, this is hard to explain clearly...).

I don't think its quite the same as deliberately cycling through specific ideas with the intent of advancing a specific understanding, but similar in that you are taught things outside your normal experince with the intent that it will have some enhacing effect down the road. The time line is a little more vague however, and the goal less specific, as the result might vary from person to person and isn't deliberatley planned for. Something will (presumably) click, but what and when are not decided ahead of time.