Dancing and aikido

[blue]

I searched this board for aikido and found quite a few aikido people, more than I expected. It is great to hear so many people saying that aikido has been a great advantage in their dance, that is what I hope. I have replaced my aikido training with a less "dancy" martial art, and when I missed those aspects of training I went into real dancing instead.

From an aikido point of view, who are you? What connections have you found between aikido and dancing? Is there anything in your aikido background that had to be de-learned?

Who am I: well, I trained for 10 years before I stopped. I spent my aikido time mainly in some different Aikikai variants, although my first brief taste of aikido was a summer in Ki-aikido. I had a brief exposure to Iwama style, but did not stay there. Got my nidan less than a year before I quit. Spent my last aikido years in the Endo/Tissier line of aikido - the danciest type of aikido I can possibly imagine.

I was introduced to dancing by a guy who has done ballroom since he was a teenager. He taught a "dance class" without dancing; it was all lead/follow, balance, transferring weight from one foot to the other. So many things he did was like, I have done this before. I know what it is he is teaching. I want to have that.

I started doing lindy a few months ago, and has been terribly frustrated when the teaching has been concentrating on steps and routines. I want to work on connection... I know it's there. Just hope I don't have to wait until I fit in the advanced class before someone will teach me frame, connection and all the other good stuff... so currently I am not really happy about my dancing. I am just hoping it will get better.

[huey]

I started doing lindy a few months ago, and has been terribly frustrated when the teaching has been concentrating on steps and routines. I want to work on connection... I know it's there. Just hope I don't have to wait until I fit in the advanced class before someone will teach me frame, connection and all the other good stuff... .

Have you thought about getting a different teacher?

[blue]

A bit blunt, are we. OK, I admit I exaggerated a bit.

I have done most of my beginner's classes in a seminar/camp setting. The teachers I was disappointed at for teaching patterns but not really instructing the leaders in how to lead them, or the development of frame (the concept was mentioned, not much more) were top class teachers, really. All but two teacher couples focussed on patterns. Actually, it seems more or less like a concensus that beginner's classes in general focus a lot on moves and patterns "because that's what beginners want" (!) while more advanced classes focus on technical details. That is a piece of information that I partly picked up partly from this forum, and it left me stunned although it fits well with my experience. I have not yet decided on where to go for classes in my home town. Be certain I will choose with care...! However, I would be surprised if the group I will be put if focussed exactly on what I want. I don't suppose "dance classes for aikido yudansha, designed to let them use their prior experience from scratch" is a common type of class.

I'd love a class focussing on leading/following and connection from scratch, but am not so sure that is available. I know of a place where this is how they teach beginners or near-beginners, but it's in another city. I have been working on connection and how to change a body's direction in a movement with minimum force for ten years; it is not possible to fool me into believing that one leads with hand pressure here and there... but still, it seems a common way of instructing beginners since teachers believe that more technical instruction would be way above what beginners can comprehend. Most beginners seem happy with it, but it leaves me terribly frustrated. Possibly I would be less frustrated if I was leading than as a follower; I could probably figure out one or two of the details of leading myself, and I would love to do that.

So, you shold see my critique of the teaching I recieved so far as the criticism of someone skilled in the finer details of one way of leading a body around and how to make yourself leadable, treated as a beginner student who can not be expected to have any degree of body awareness. I hope it will be better when I find an environment to settle in, where the teachers will have the time to find out who I am, what I know and what I don't.

[huey]

...Possibly I would be less frustrated if I was leading than as a follower; I could probably figure out one or two of the details of leading myself, and I would love to do that.

Hi blue,

So, you could try leading. See if that helps give you what you want. If you need encouragement in this area, talk to other followers who lead. I'm sure you can find some.

[jon]

I don't do martial arts, but I really enjoyed the Ang Lee movie Pushing Hands (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105652/plotsummary), in particular for its insight into the relationship between martial arts and lead-follow connection in dance.

[Nicodarius]

One of the instructors at the studio I go to told me that he went to do Akido after many years of not doing any martial art and only doing dancing. The instructor of the Akido school he started going to asked him if he'd done Akido before and how high up he'd gotten before coming to that school. The dance instructor from the studio I go to had never done Akido before.

Nico

[Sarah]

I started doing lindy a few months ago, and has been terribly frustrated when the teaching has been concentrating on steps and routines. I want to work on connection... I know it's there. Just hope I don't have to wait until I fit in the advanced class before someone will teach me frame, connection and all the other good stuff... so currently I am not really happy about my dancing. I am just hoping it will get better.

Any paticular reason for doing lindy? Sounds to me like Argentine Tango would have more of what you're looking for.

Cheers
Sarah

[Porfirio Landeros]

The Sensei I first took Aikido from is also a ballroom dance teacher with his wife. If you google Ken Ota, or Kenji Ota, you'll see that he has an Aikido (Ki-Aikido) video series through Panther Productions.

After my first summer of Aikido, Mr. Ota recruited boys for his ballroom cotillion (jr. high-schoolers) and soon I was doing Aikido 4 days a week and ballroom cotillion every Friday.

He talked about the same principles in both classes: Moving from your center; staying grounded; using your partner's energy, etc.

I got my black belt, and eventually moved away. I don't practice Aikido anymore, but I am an active ballroom dance competitor.

In my technique sessions, coaches use very familiar terms that my Sensei used, just re-worded, like, use the stored potential energy to power the turn; stay low, and bend the knees more, etc. etc.

Since [Ki] Aikido is non-violent, I guess it could be considered a cross-over art from Martial Arts to Dance, as could Tai Chi or Capueta.

Anyway, I hope to dabble more with Aikido again some day, but I've got the ballroom US championships on my mind, and dancing is something my girlfriend and I do together.

8)

[blue]

Any paticular reason for doing lindy? Sounds to me like Argentine Tango would have more of what you're looking for.
Coincidence, and the music... tango seems so... controlled.

Anyway, you might have a point. If I don't get my lindy going in a way that I like, maybe I'll try tango.

[blue]

In addition to Porfirio who posted in this thread, I've had some private conversation with two of the aikido/ex-aikido people here. One of the instructors in the place where I will be going for lessons in near future says two of her ex-partners did aikido before. Well, it seems I was right - there is a connection. :)

[squirrel]

I first discovered Salsa and then ki aikido (during a very hard period of my life...). At present I am doing both, but am more interested in dancing.
Actually when I started ki aikido I discovered some of the things I did in dancing (i.e. hook turns) made me use wrong moves in aikido... I found it hard to change the habits that I had... and I am still striving to!
Ki aikido helps me as a person, makes me calmer and readier to accept certain things that cannot be changed. It improves my self-esteem and self-confidence...
I have to tell you my Sensei is always making dance-related comments to help me better understand what he wants (he is also a Salsa dancer)...

[Pacion]

He talked about the same principles in both classes: Moving from your center; staying grounded; using your partner's energy, etc.

That sounds interesting "using your partner's energy". Can you explain some more please :D

[DWise1]

Sorry it's taken me so long to post to this thread.

First, blue, I have just come back from Camp Hollywood, a swing camp held over the weekend in Los Angeles. Hasse and Marie were there teaching for the first time in the USA. They taught a class on connection and then in their other classes (including Double Bug) kept returning to and emphasizing the importance of maintaining connection with your partner. They are from Stockholm and their web site is http://www.hasseandmarie.com/ ; it is very much under construction still and right now offers little more than an email address and a video clip. I don't know if you've encountered them before, but it looks like they might offer some of what you are looking for.

At camp, I overheard a comment by a long-time friend from class (well, going back 1.5 years, which is a long time in my dance years and "since forever" in my Lindy years) so I asked her and she confirmed that she had studied Aikido before. So we briefly talked about what we had brought into dancing and mainly agreed that it was balance and moving from our center -- since she has always been a follow (to my knowledge) she didn't think of using it for leading as I had.

In one of the classes, the teachers emphasized that the main way the leader has of moving the follow is through her hips and her shoulders -- because we have hold of her hands, then mostly it will be through the shoulders. As I had also learned in Aikido.

However, upon reflection I realized that there's a very big difference between leading in dance and leading in Aikido (which is what we are doing; we never throw anybody, rather lead them into falling). In Aikido (at least the style I learned) we would blend with the attacker's motion and then move the both of us together as one, but around our OWN center. That means that you are completely balanced and have total control over how the both of you move, whereas the attacker is off-balance and has lost control of his motion. And when done right, the attacker can't even feel what you're doing -- in beginning class, we would ask Sensei to show us the move again so he'd demonstrate it on one of us and, even though Sensei would do it in slow motion, that student would end up on floor and he still had no idea how he got there.

But in dance (where for sake of comparison the follow is in the same role as the attacker), part of the idea is that the follow will always be on-balance and most of the moves depend very much on her keeping her balance, so in contrast you have to be more concerned with helping her keep her balance than to deprive her of it (as in Aikido). And the idea of using the connection is not to completely control her but rather to communicate to her what you want her to do. So in dance she needs to feel the lead, to feel that connection, whereas in Aikido she normally would not and even should not (in the case of an actual attacker; in training the "attacker" should be practicing control over himself and to feel what the "defender" is doing). Another difference is that in Aikido, the attacker has initiated the motion which the defender then blends with and redirects; in dance, it's the leader who initiates the motion, or continues the motion from the previous move, which he then directs. Ideally, in dance the lead is an invitation and should not force compliance, whereas in Aikido the attacker has no choice in the matter (having made his first and final decision when he attacked).

And in both dance and Aikido, one of the most powerful movements you can make, if not the most powerful, is to simply turn your body.

So in summary, while there are many important fundamental concepts and principles that carry over from Aikido to dance, there are also many differences, especially in terms of objectives, that would make it a mistake to take those similarities too far.

[Sarah]

So in summary, while there are many important fundamental concepts and principles that carry over from Aikido to dance, there are also many differences, especially in terms of objectives, that would make it a mistake to take those similarities too far.

I disagree. Sort of. It takes two people to make a dance, as it takes two people to practice Aikido. The role of uke[1] is generally to provide a good, comitted attack so nage has something halfway decent to practice with. Part of that is that uke should not voluntarily give up their balance, and, if their balance is disrupted, they should attempt to regain it, if they can do so without being damaged. Similarly, while dancing, it is the follower's responsibility to maintain a firmish sort of frame, stay in time with the music, and maintain her balance[2]. Without these inputs from follower or uke, it's practically impossible for leader or nage to perform to the best of their ability.


But in dance (where for sake of comparison the follow is in the same role as the attacker), part of the idea is that the follow will always be on-balance and most of the moves depend very much on her keeping her balance, so in contrast you have to be more concerned with helping her keep her balance than to deprive her of it (as in Aikido).

No, to lead her you are disrupting her balance, a tiny bit, causing not in this case a fall, but a step a bit longer, shorter or in a different direction to what she would otherwise have done. Her maintaining a connection allows you to do this.

And the idea of using the connection is not to completely control her but rather to communicate to her what you want her to do.

Again I disagree. My maintainence of a good connection is tacit permission, and indeed a request, to take direct control of where my feet are going. Any communication that has to go via my concious brain will arrive too late.....

So in dance she needs to feel the lead, to feel that connection, whereas in Aikido she normally would not and even should not (in the case of an actual attacker; in training the "attacker" should be practicing control over himself and to feel what the "defender" is doing).

I find that in both dance and aikido the best leads/nage are able to get me from -there- to -here- without me being totally certain what actually happened in between. The feeling is practically indistinguishable to me, only the end positions differ.

Another difference is that in aikido, the attacker has initiated the motion which the defender then blends with and redirects; in dance, it's the leader who initiates the motion, or continues the motion from the previous move, which he then directs.

Oh? I don't think it's quite that cut and dried. In aikido, nage may pre-empt uke's attack, disrupting their timing as well as their balance
In dance, there has to be some movement or shift of balance on the follower's part, - she has to give you something - before any leading can take place.
It's what my supervisor would call a highly coupled system :lol:

Ideally, in dance the lead is an invitation and should not force compliance, whereas in Aikido the attacker has no choice in the matter (having made his first and final decision when he attacked).

Ideally, in both dance and aikido, the leader/nage should provide one and only one possible way for the follower to move that makes physical sense within the framework of the art they are practicing. If anybody is forcing anything, something is going wrong.
For me, personally there is a very, very short step between lead-follow and nage-uke when it comes to changing another person's movement. I understand a lot of dance 'stuff' from an aikido perspective.

Cheers
Sarah


[1] Note to non-Aikidoka reading. Uke is the initial attacker, or the reciever of the technique. Nage is the person practicing the technique. Uke usually ends up on the ground. There's more to it than that, and I suggest that if you're really interested you take a look at the articles at www.aikiweb.com/ . There have been many millions of words poured forth on the role of uke in Aikido practice. There's also a glossary ;).

[2] Maintain her balance, whatever that means in the context of the current dance. Salsa is different to AT is different to assorted ballroom.....

[blue]

You're walking. And you don't always realize it,
but you're always falling.
With each step you fall forward slightly.
And then catch yourself from falling.
Over and over, you're falling.
And then catching yourself from falling.
And this is how you can be walking and falling
at the same time.

Laurie Andersen

Aikido can be practised in quite different ways. If one does aikido with very strong balance breaking, then it is less dance-like. The way I did it my last aikido years, we played with uke's balance on the limit, so to speak. Long techniques, where uke was constantly fooled to believe that if I take this step, then I will regain my balance and be able to attack again... different thinking behind it, but the result is not so far from dancing. Tori leading one step, uke back in balance, tori leading one bit more, uke back in balance.

These teachers did not like talking about "taking uke's balance" or "breaking his balance". They liked to talk about "giving uke a new balance" - an approach which seems to me more dance-like. I agree that much of aikido is about being able to move around your own center, and I have experienced one or two beginner leaders who did that which was not so nice :) but I have also trained with teachers who liked the concept of both parties moving around a third center, inbetween uke and tori. We used the concept in suwariwasa kokyoho among other techniques, and it made technique both stronger and smoother. We worked with very light contact, imitating the movement that would result from doing technique fast even when we did technique slowly, which was most of the time.

One difference betwwen my aikido and dancing that I come to think of is, that uke should not necessarily be as "light" as possible - even if you accept technique and do not resist it it is better to have some weight, a bit of elasticity in the body - kind of a rubber band effect. In dancing so far it seems better to follow as lightly as possible - or am I misunderstanding something here?

So in summary, while there are many important fundamental concepts and principles that carry over from Aikido to dance, there are also many differences, especially in terms of objectives, that would make it a mistake to take those similarities too far.
Thinking about your follower as an attacker might be a novel experience for'ya all. ;) Well, I don't suppose that one really fits in so snugly. :mrgreen:

[Porfirio Landeros]

Sarah's the bomb... I agree with her entirely.

My past few years have been entirely dedicated to dance, and Aikido is in my memories (for the moment), but I think some of the points that I would amplify are the following...

Although Aikido is defensive, you CAN lead your attacker, and direct his/her movement even before a punch/kick has been thrown. This can be done by how you shape your body and position your stance (much like American style ballroom ;-)).

Also, as pointed out, a connection has to be consistent throughout a dance lead or an Aikido throw, similar to a championship golfer's follow through or a homerun hitters swing.

Very interesting discussion, and I'm impressed with the amount of depth on all the opinions on this thread. :-)