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Do you think the way you learn aikido is suitable to make it automatic? Do you respond naturally or do you think there are specific techniques you think you would autmoatically use - if so, is this bad?

e.g. do you repeat the techniques enough each night that they fall into place easily. What do you think could be done to improve the automatic response (and Erik - don't saw training!). I'm thinking along the lines of maybe even specific exercises that condition your nervous system.

Quick story. A law enforcement officer I trained with told me this. Once upon a time, if the officer's weapon jammed, students were taught to: rack (manually work the action to eject any current round, tap (ensure the clip was seated properly in the handgun) and fire.

This was changed to: rack, tap and evaluate when the instructors realized they were conditioning officers to fire an additional round!

That's interesting, as the only way I've been taught has been the opposite; tap, then rack, then "bang." As it was explained to me, this is due to the fact that the majority of failures to feed or cycle in a properly maintained firearm are due to an improperly seated mag, and if the slide is racked over an improperly seated mag, the problem won't improve and sometimes will worsen (double feeds, etc.). Two of the drills we constantly do are "tap-rack-bang" and "strip-rack-tap-rack-bang," in which a gun has already double-fed and the user is required to rip the mag out, cycle the slide with no mag, then re-insert the mag, rack the slide, and go. These drills are agony when working against the clock, and I imagine a thousand times more so when working against a serious threat. I suppose, like aikido, the world of defensive pistolcraft has as many different styles of drills and techniques as there are instructors.

But weren't they trying to fire an additional round in the first place.?

Yes, and at the time the officer evaulated that doing so was necessary. But as Brett pointed out, it may take a bit of time to perform the clear sequence, and the threat may no longer be present negating the need to fire another round.

As I understood the point of the story, firing a handgun without a conscious decision to do is a very bad habit to have --- and it was feared the "old" method was ingraining that very habit.

Back to the thread (as here in the UK not many of us play with bang bangs)- sounds obvious but it depends how you train as to whether it will develop automatic reactions. Muscle memory will undoubtedly be achieved simply thru doing the same technique time and time again. This could be good and bad (based on your philosopical view), for a defensive reaction.

I went back into the martial arts after training in Ju jitsu for some time - I chose Aikido because I worked in psychiatry at the time, and lumping a patient when they go for you isn't the greatest response!! Avoiding and blending with their attack, and having a menu of increasingly painful or aggressive responses is better for me. We train in speed drills avoiding - blending - looking for and creating openings. What you do with the opening depends on the evaluation at that point - just like in law enforcement.

Training a technique badly will also mean it is bad in my view, as you may rely on a weapon that will be less useful than a jammed firearm. Similarly training a lot of the 'dojo' techniques in the belief that they are all wholly effective is bad, as many are training tools - not necessarily weapons.

Misinterpretation of kata in many arts has detrimentally impacted on the rigour of the techniques taught - belief in an inappropriate or poorly executed technique, is worse for automatic defense than not using a technique and just running away.

I have found that my training has lead to automatic reactions, but not automatic techniques. In other words, the fundamentals become automatic, and the resulting technique is a spontaneous development resulting from the fundamental action/reaction.

I haven't counted, but all of our techniques come from the same sub-set of basic movements. We have entering (irimi), turning (tenkan), and fading back (tenshin) as the basic body movements. We have a bunch of different things we can do with our arms while performing one of those body movements. At that point, we have five types of pins and five types of throws as kihon waza (basic techniques).

So then you do this stuff for a while and you get a chance to work against unknown attacks, or unconventional attacks, or you change techniques halfway through, or you are uke and you reverse technique on nage, or you work against multiple attackers -- eventually its all of the above.

You begin to find that some resonses are automatic, some techniques just seem to happen without conscious thought. That's how it happens in real life (i.e. outside the dojo) too.