I'm not a big fan of pain, typically I try to avoid it when I can. This is, I feel, a pretty standard approach given that pain could (in many cases) be thought of as the bodies way of communicating to your brain that you may need to adjust what you're doing to avoid injury or harm. If we consider this to be true it could be said that pain has a purpose; to help avoid injury.
It's not too controversial to say that in order to avoid injury in response to pain, there needs to be an opportunity to change the situation. For example, if I put my hand on a hot pan I need to be able to react and remove my hand before it burns. This is fairly straight-forward when I am in full control of what I do with my body, but could become more complicated if I was not. In aikido you are often not in full control of what happens to your body; your training partner(s) assume some responsibility for what is happening. It is this responsibility, and how it is managed, that I want to address.
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| "Is my wrist supposed to do that?" |
I think it would be naïve to argue that aikido (or indeed any martial art) should be an entirely pain-free experience, and everyone has different tolerance levels of what they consider to be acceptable.
Paired techniques ask us to perform compound (and complex) movements and there are a range of parameters that require constant adjustment from those involved. There will be opportunities both intentional and accidental to inflict pain but it is our responsibility to approach these situations with due consideration to our training partners.
Personally I aspire to avoid inflicting or receiving pain through making considerations in what I do and by communicating with my training partners. I like to think that there is always an easy and obvious route to escape and, if it isn't taken (for whatever reason), I much prefer to stop and discuss what went wrong rather than to persist and hope for the best. This is because I strongly believe in recognising the shared ruleset under which aikido training takes place in everything I do, and respecting the part that my training partners play in that arrangement. Without my partner, I can't train!
Aikido training is always conducted under an agreement between training partners. It is up to those involved to come to an accord on the specific terms of that agreement, but typically there are a set of rules (sometimes both written and unwritten) that dictate roles and the standards of behaviour. For example; aikido, like many Japanese martial arts, often employs the roles of "tori" and "uke" (the person performing the technique and the person receiving the technique). These roles, and the expectations or rules that apply to each, form the basis of the collaboration between training partners. Like any agreement, communication is key to ensuring everyone involved holds true to their commitments and behaves in a way that is consistent with the expectations the participants had when they first provided their consent (and so that they can remain comfortable to continue to do so).
I do not like to practice techniques where pain compliance is the primary (or only) method for successful execution. Instead I aim for my technique to always present a direction for my training partner to move through, ideally through disrupting their posture or structure. As with almost everything in a controlled and collaborative training environment this happens via the cooperation of my training partner. In contrast, pain compliance may be viewed as a shortcut to bypass this voluntary collaboration and instead attempt to enforce it.
That is not to say that one approach is better than the other, but simply to recognise the difference in applicable use cases. I have no intent on applying my aikido to unwilling participants and so I have no particular need to train my ability to apply pain compliance strategies.
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| "If I hit you enough times you'll become tougher..." |
Speaking of differences it should also be recognised that there is a distinction between pain compliance and pain inflicted as punishment for a perceived error. Pain compliance attempts to capitalise on the natural desire to avoid pain to produce a particular movement or disadvantageous position in a training partner (which can then be utilised to further the technique). Whereas pain that is intentionally inflicted for no other reason than to punish a perceived mistake, or as an attempt to frighten a training partner into behaving differently, serves no purpose other than to inflate the ego of the perpetrator.
In summary, my view is that pain should not be applied where there is no ability to adjust to avoid it; this is pain without a purpose. That said, ultimately how you view pain, what level of pain you find acceptable, and whether or not you wish to utilise pain compliance during your training is completely up to you and your individual goals. I hope that this perspective can add to your own and please feel free to share any thoughts it inspired in the comments.
Thanks for taking the time to read this post.
- Graeme
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