Kosotogake is a curious thing for me. One of my most beloved judo instructors, Mac McNeese told me not to bother with kosotogake - that it was basically a waste of training time that I should be spending working on kosotogari. .
I never got the chance to ask him what he meant and why he'd said that because he has since passed away. .
There are certainly people who make the gake move work beautifully. Anyone have a guess what he was talking about?
Statistically, uchimata is the most frequently thrown tournament technique in most levels of competition. I'm not sure why. Is there something inherently magical about that technique, or has everyone bought into the uchimata-is-magic thinking so they perform better because they have more faith and try it more often? IDK. .
It is a majestically beautiful thing when done properly. In this compilation, there is a clear, obvious difference between #1 and all the rest - #1 is just THAT much more skilled (or lucky?) performance!
We've been talking about embu lately - how to do a good demo - a demo that does several things, including
shows that the student knows some things - "Wow! That guy is really good at this!"
shows that the student is improving - "Wow! That guy is a lot better than last time!"
creates social validity for the school - "Wow! Mokuren Dojo is really good at this!"
creates self-confidence in the student - "Wow! I'm really good at this!"
One way that you can do this is to clearly demonstrate longitudinal improvement. That is, the demo should contain at least some material that is repeated in all demos. That way, it is easy to see that you are better (or at least different) than you were 6 months ago when you demonstrated this same material. .
You don't want to repeat a LOT of material every time because that is a recipe for boring the joseki to sleep, but you should at least show some repeated material. .
What I'm thinking about for this is to have all rank embu start with koshiki kihon (a short, somewhat casual exercise where you demonstrate 21 falls in about 3 minutes) and the clock exercise (1-2 minutes where you demonstrate moving into and between various groundwork positions). .
By having everyone demonstrate these at every level, it provides a sort of baseline against which improvements will be obvious.
Here is a video of a guy doing a clock exercise in a little different way than we usually do - but you get the idea of what I'm talking about.
Our first positional control or hold in judo, ukigatame, is more than just a hold and it is more than just a near-universal transition between tachiwaza and newaza. Ukigatame is not just a tactic in which you crush uke with your knee on his belly or chest (or neck or back) - ukigatame is an example of a better way of doing all ground controls. .
What I mean is this - a common way of doing groundwork for beginners, especially physically powerful and mentally competitive beginners - is to get the other guy in a hold and use your size and power to lock and crush him into immobility. Problems with lock&crush groundwork include -
it is exhausting for tori
it is abusive toward uke
it makes standard escape actions (like bridge & roll) easier for uke to do
it makes transitions harder for tori to do
it makes submissions like chokes and armbars harder to get to
But ukigatame shows us a different way of doing all our groundwork - a way that dissolves all of these issues associated with lock&crush newaza.
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Ukigatame means "floating hold," and the name suggests hovering over uke close enough to suppress his movement but remaining loose and floaty enough to shift and move over an uncontrolled uke. Sort of like smothering uke with a heavy bag of shifting sand instead of crushing him with an iron bar. .
When I teach ukigatame it is not a specific position that I tell students to get into. Rather I tell them that as uke takes a fall, move to stand beside (preferably behind) uke and put a knee and two hands somewhere on uke's body. After just a little bit of nagekomi (throwing practice), tori finds that this is a great, balanced position to finish throws in, that it smothers uke's motion a little bit and provides tori an instant to get his bearings and decide how (and whether) to proceed to groundwork. .
As uke moves under tori, often the knee will slip off of uke's belly and will be replaced by a little more weight on tori's hands, or by tori's hip or butt, or by a body-surfing munegatame. Tori only holds ukigatame until uke shows an opportunity for a better holding position or submission technique. .
You could put a knee on uke's belly, take nice grips on uke's belt and lapel, and use your weight and power to crush the ooze out of both ends of him - but that would be missing the point of ukigatame. You can control uke more effectively with a floating feeling that is more in-line with judo's ideals.
Haraigoshi is such a versatile technique that you see it a LOT in judo and in MMA - and unlike some other techniques, it seems to mostly be thrown cleanly.
Killing field is a military science term describing an area through which an enemy is forced to move where they will be exposed to your power. Examples might include a fortified beach like Normandy or the mountain pass at Thermopylae. .
Basically a cattle chute. .
But the term applies in interpersonal conflict too, so where is the killing field in aikido, judo, and karate, for instance? .
I refer to the space in front of uke and within his reach (inside the boundary of ma-ai) as the killing field. So, if you are in front of the opponent and you are close enough for him to touch you then you are standing in the killing field. .
Occasionally I will refer to this as being "between his arms" or "toe-to-toe." Traditionally we called this, "within ma-ai" but that is sort of esoteric-sounding and does not have any of evocative connotations for western students. .
If you stand inside the killing field then it is likely that the opponent can do something to you before you can respond. But life happens, so you cannot avoid the killing field, so what is the best way to handle it?
You have to have your strategy defined and your tactics drilled before you get into a killing field because you cannot think and plan while under fire.
Do not stand still inside a killing field.
Attack the attacker in order to reduce his capacity (kuzushi upon contact)
Move as quickly and efficiently as possible (tai-sabaki) while in the killing field.
Move through the killing field to the opponent's flank (shikaku ) if possible, or retreat and regroup outside the killing field (push back past ma-ai)
There is an old aphorism about the difference between freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors. It is said that...
Freshmen are clueless and they don't know it.
Sophomores still don't know anything but they realize that they are ignorant.
Juniors know something but they don't realize what they know.
Seniors (hopefully) know and they know what they know.
I suppose what this is saying is that over time, knowledge increases and meta-knowledge (knowing what you know) increases. .
But that is not the end of the progression. New graduates may know their subject and they may have great self-awareness of their capabilities, but they have no job experience. Their education and knowledge still lacks social validity and they often find themselves in a Catch-22 situation in which they can't get a job without experience and they can't get experience without a job. .
Without street cred, noone will hire them because the public does not know if or what the graduate knows. It is similar to a recent quote by Elon Musk - He is apparently not interested in hiring you unless you can demonstrate clear evidence of exceptional ability. .
Perhaps you could add a couple more levels to the hierarchy above...
An novice practitioner knows that he knows but nobody else knows it.
A master or expert practitioner knows and he knows that he knows, and everyone around him can see that he knows.
You have to know. (knowledge, skills, abilities) .
You have to know what you know. (self-awareness) .
And you have to show what you know. (demonstrate clear evidence of exceptional ability) .
So, what does this have to do with martial arts? It's not like most of us are trying to learn martial arts in order to get hired based on those skills. .
Everything! You could replace Freshmen, Sophomore, etc. with white belt, green belt, etc.. .
The black belt is not an expert, partly because he knows that he does not know it all and partly because his skills have not had enough time and experience and seasoning. .
The shodan knows some stuff but nobody else understands or acknowledges it because the shodan has not had time to develop and demonstrate his skills. .
Often this will lead to an existential crisis soon after shodan. At this point, they are suddenly awarded the "coveted black belt" honor (because they know stuff) but the new shodan is acutely aware of his own deficiencies (they know what they don't know) and noone around them can see much difference in them (no social validity). This creates self-doubt. .
One possible solution is what Roy Dean has done - create rank demo embus that make it obvious to everyone that the student has knowledge, knows what he knows, and knows how to show what he knows. .
Who are you demonstrating to when you do a rank demo (embu)? You are demonstrating to others and to yourself in order to generate social validity (street cred) and to boost your own confidence and belief in self and system. .
Check out this demonstration (not a rank embu but still a demonstration) and watch how the it shows these three things about their knowledge/skills.
Folks are always moaning about how aikido doesn't work. Well, let me tell you a secret... Real aikido folks already know that! See, we know that aikido does not work, because nothing ever works. ...
I dare you to show me a move from karate or kravmaga or any other super-awesome martial science that always just works. It would be worth a lot of good money to study your one super-cool thing that has no pre-suppositions or assumptions, and just plain works regardless of the context! .
But saying "aikido doesn't work" is not the same thing as saying "aikido sucks." Aikido is amazingly practical and efficient as a self-defense (among other things). It just doesn't work - at least, not like you think it should. .
Nobody can make it work. You can't just go out and aikido someone to death. Even the greatest aikido masters can't just choose the cool technique that they want to use to exert their will upon the bad guy. Aikido does work, but in its own time and on its own terms. .
What really takes a while is learning to trust that the way that aikido works is okay. The first step on that path is realizing that there is no magical samurai technology that just plain works. There are no sure things.
Our judo and aikido teacher, Karl Geis, attributed a significant portion of his newaza doctrine to seemingly little-known judo sensei (at least in America) Seiichi Shirai. Geis even called part of his groundwork doctrine, "The Shirai System." .
But there is relatively little online about a Shirai-sensei, so who was this Shirai guy? It turns out that he was one of Kyuzo Mifune's uchideshi, favorite ukes, and later Mifune's nephew-in-law. That clue gives us some research leverage because there IS a lot online and in print about Mifune! .
We can get a glimpse into Shirai-sensei's thinking on judo from these quotes in Draeger's Training Methods book:
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...and from Draeger & Otaki's Judo Formal Techniques book: . .
...and from some lessons quoted from the Spring Park Judo Club at Garland TX: .
"...Another of judo’s first generation who trained under founder Jigoro Kano was Seiichi Shirai. He also trained with Mifune and eventually married Mifune's niece. ...a story that Shirai would tell about the importance of repeating a lesson:.The mind is like a tea cup. And if you fill it again and again with green tea, the cup will eventually turn green, absorbing the lesson. “And that’s the way,” Shirai would say, “I would repeat a story, over and over and over again.”...Another lesson ... from Shirai was about gaijyu and naiko. While the outside appearance of people in dealing with each other should be soft and gentle – gaijyu, the mind and the heart inside should be strong like steel – naiko."
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Shirai doing randori with Mifune begins at about 3 minutes into this video.
And here's Mifune-sensei demonstrating kata with Shirai-sensei
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So, what parts of our judo doctrine at Mokuren Dojo appear to have come down through the years from Shirai?
Throw into ground control. Throws should transition directly, immediately, and naturally to ground control.
2-hands on a point and shrimp-bridge - Tear holes in the opponent's ground control and balance by getting 2-hands on 1 point on the opponent and blindly shrimping and bridging.
Use pointy elbows and knees to fill the holes created by shrimping and bridging. Also use pointy elbows and knees as part of udeosae-type hold-downs
Meatgrinder - our basic lessons about turning turtles and taking backs that we call "The Meatgrinder" have been attributed to Shirai.
Here's a fun-looking tidbit that I stumbled upon. Since we start our choking instruction with katatejime from ukigatame, this looks like it would fit right in. Maybe a class on attacking either this or katagatame from ukigatame.
For the past several months I've been posting technique compilation videos on Saturdays and I've been following the order of the Gokyo no waza. This week we are halfway through the 2nd kyo and the technique is okuriashibarai. Problem with compiling video of ashiwaza ippons is when conditions are imperfect (i.e. tournament) all the ashiwaza sorta look alike so it's hard to distinguish okuriashibarai from deashibarai from kosotogari. .
So, here's an ashiwaza compilation that is bound to have an okuriashibarai in there if you look hard enough.
For some years now (Wow! has it really been 6 years!?) we at Mokuren Dojo have been using a peculiar form of Koshiki no kata as a sort of a sport-specific warmup and contextualized ukemi exercise. .
We will take 1-2 of these techniques per class, and after doing some rocking and slapping type warmup and basic ukemi drills, we'll spend the rest of our ukemi time on these rich techniques. Students of all ages generally love this practice for the variety it provides in an otherwise same-old-same-old warmup and ukemi practice. .
I keep coming back to these videos as a basic reference for this practice. I find these guys' demonstration mezmerizing and I think it's charming that these two obviously advanced players are wearing white belts!
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BTW, These guy's YouTube channel has a lot of cool, semi-random martial content related to their weekly meet-up, which their website says is still active. .
Anyway, I was thinking about our use of Koshikinokata. It seems peculiar to our dojo but it seems to work well for us and I intend to continue using this form of Koshiki for these purposes. .
That led me to think about the other facet of modern Judo - that is, ancient Tenjin Shinyo Jujutsu, and it occurred to me that their representative kata in Judo would also make a great advanced contextualized ukemi warmup. Check out Itsutsunokata - you might wind up seeing more of it!
Somewhat stream-of-consciousness thoughts on the order that we teach things in... .
Tomiki sensei gave us a set of a couple dozen techniques (sometimes 15, sometimes 17. Some students added 5-10 more) that were representative of a large chunk of the aikido universe, but which were few enough that you could get good at them and get started with randori asap. .
Tomiki's randori-no-kata eventually got canonized (fossilized?) into Junana Hon Kata, a set of 17 fundamental techniques divided into sections of 5 atemiwaza, 5 hijiwaza, 4 tekubiwaza, and 3 ukiwaza. .
But who ever said we had to teach the 17 techniques in order? 1 then 2 then 3 then 4... .
Who declared it and made it so that... . "...thou shalt first teach Shomenate and then having taught Shomenate thou shall proceed to Aigamaeate. Thou shalt not proceed to Gyakugamae except having first taught Shomenate and then Aigamaeate..." .
Of course, shomenate is a good place to start. We've spent a lot of time defending the primacy of shomenate. It is, in some ways, the basis of everything else in Junana, and it is a very good answer whenever anything goes wrong with most any other technique. Some old dead wise guy even allegedly said that nothing else in aikido will work unless preceded by atemi (like shomenate). .
But why does it have to be first? Other teachers started things out different ways, and our insistence on #1 then #2 then #3 and so on puts us at odds with them and makes interchange of ideas clumsy.
Aikikai schools often begin with iriminage (aigamaeate) and then ikkyo (oshitaoshi).
What little I know of Merritt Stevens, he taught oshitaoshi first, followed by iriminage.
What I've seen of J.W. Bode, he likes to begin with gyakugamae, ushiroate, and hadakajime.
What if Junana, instead of being taught in technique-order were taught in set-order. That is, introduce any atemiwaza first followed by any hijiwaza then any tekubiwaza and so on. .
That would largely encompass the self-defense ideas of
Feldenkrais
Gracie Jiujitsu
J.W. Bode
Merritt Stevens
Aikikai
...and it would free us to teach things in a potentially more practical order, all without diminishing Tomiki-sensei's life of work and contribution to the aiki-space.
P.S. While we're killing out sacred cows, who decided that release#1 was first? I've often thought that the set of releases feels like it should go #3, #1, #4, #2...
Tsurikomigoshi, and particularly the "sode" or sleeve-ends version, is one of the throws that mezmerizes me the most. For me watching competitors perform this throw (especially in slow motion) is like staring into a fire.
