by Nick Lowry
- Don’t take a step you don’t have to take.
- Don’t put pressure in your hands unintentionally.
- Once you do have to step, try to keep at least one foot pointed at your target at all times.
- Invest in loss…repeat the pattern that is causing you a problem so many times that your subconscious is stimulated to respond and solve it for you ….it should surprise you.
- Invest in lightness…in whatever technique you are doing try to reduce how much pressure you use by half, then again by half, again and again all the way down to minimal pressure….a good bench mark to look for is getting down to one finger.
- Use mirroring in weight shift, posture, and timing.
- Deflect and redirect on contact.
- Use proactive tactics of pre-loading and already being a flywheel in motion on contact.
- Beware of over commitment and over determination to a given outcome.
- Beware of defensive mind and continual evasion….eventually you will run out of options and space.
Randori, in each and every case, turns out to be what we decide to make it be. It is a do it yourself nonverbal discussion that can range from a playful, graceful, nurturing dance to a soul draining fight for dominance or survival. So much of what it turns into revolves around what we think we are supposed to do and with whom. If we think we are supposed to control the other guy and manipulate him as we will, power and speed ramp up and triggers get pulled and there results an inevitable fight. If we decide the real game is not controlling them, but rather to manipulate ourself, our own body and reactions and to primarily be sensitive to them then it often goes the sweet way… When you put your hands on someone in randori, it’s not like a musician grasping an instrument to play it , because here the instrument is yourself, your own body, your own reactions and emotions, it’s like the musician tuning himself in to the audience he is playing to and interacting with it.