How to test your balance

If you know me then you know that I am always playing balance games, standing on one foot, walking on curbs, doing judo rolls as slowly as possible backwards and forwards.
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But you might have missed a really good balance game that Tomiki gave us as part of our aikido.  We know it as tegatana, or simply, "the walk," but some other practitioners call it unsoku and tandoku undo (footwork and solo exercises).
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There are several movements in which the practitioner waves a hand in front of himself, turns around, and then puts the hand above his head.  These moves look a little bit like a ballet pirouette.  It turns out that these aiki-pirouettes challenge your balance in several ways.

• Taking the step creates horizontal momentum, which you then have to control.
• Turning 180 degrees creates rotational momentum and suddenly changes the muscles that you have to use to control your momentum and balance.
• Raising your arm above your head raises your center of balance and makes you less stable.
• Some groups even finish this movement on tiptoes, which raises your balance further.

So, not only is this movement pattern functional, mimicking some motions that you will see later in techniques, but it is a fantastic balance test and balance-building exercise.


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Patrick Parker
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Nothing ever works

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.
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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!
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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.
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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.
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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.

  

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Thoughts on the ordering of Tomiki's techniques

Somewhat stream-of-consciousness thoughts on the order that we teach things in...
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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.
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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.
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But who ever said we had to teach the 17 techniques in order? 1 then 2 then 3 then 4...
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Who declared it and made it so that...
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"...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..."
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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).
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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.
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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...




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Why is shomen-ate taught first?

In the first Tomiki aikido technique, shomenate, tori enters directly in front of uke and projects uke straight backwards by pressing on his face and stepping through him.
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But except for shomenate, aikidoka vastly prefer to be outside of uke's arms or behind his shoulder (shikaku).  In fact, it is not until techniques #13 (tenkai kotehineri) and #14 (shihonage) that we encounter the other two basic solutions to the problem of being caught directly in front of uke.
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So, why is shomenate taught first when it seems so contrary to the aikidoka's primary tactic of getting into the dead angle behind uke's arm?
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Because as Jagger-sensei says, "You can't always get what you want."
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Almost 100% of the time, an attacker will have desires contrary to your standing behind them ;-) so (especially while you are learning) you will often find that uke can easily spoil your techniques by turning to face you.
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Tomiki's teaching system places the main backup plan first because it solves so many problems.
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Basically, Tomiki's system is set up as if to say, "Always try to get behind uke, but if you find yourself toe-to-toe inside uke's arms and too close, your simplest, most effective solution is to push uke's face and stride directly through him. That is, whenever an attacker spoils your technique by turning to face you, do shomenate.
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Isn't it kind of neat that Tomiki-sensei gave us the answer to most problems first!?


P.S. incidentally, isn't it also neat that kumi-judo gives us another great back-up plan for aikido techniques that go bad because virtually everything in judo is done from toe-to-toe, between uke's arms, and close!?

P.P.S. isn't it also interesting that pressing the face as in shomenate is disallowed in judo competition?  Ostensibly this is for safety, but shomenate also spoils most of the conditions that are required for most judo techniques to work - that is, toe-to-toe, between uke's arms, and close.

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Ukewaza and ukemi - most valuable skill or useless time-waster?

In karate, we were often exhorted not to get into the block-counterattack game because it is a never-ending, un-productive loop.  He attacks, I block, I attack, he blocks, he attacks, I block...
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We were told that "blocks are not just blocks," that it was possible to destroy an opponent with a block. but we never got much instruction beyond, "Don't just block."
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This can be interpreted several ways, including...

• Blocks are actually strikes to the attacking limb.  I never personally got a ton of mileage from this paradigm, but I know people who did.
• Blocks are actually odd-looking strikes, like using a rising block as an uppercut to the corner of the opponent's jaw.  I got more mileage from this idea than from crushing an incoming strike with a block - but it's still kinda limited.
• Blocks can unbalance the opponent and eliminate their ability to continue to attack.  (kuzushi). This one made the most intuitive sense to me, but how do you learn to use blocks as kuzushi other than just practicing for years until you happen to transcend?

I think Kenji Tomiki had a good answer to this puzzle.  It is found in an exercise that some folks call shichihon no kuzushi and other groups call wrist releases.  

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Typically these exercises are done with uke grabbing tori's wrist and tori doing the off-balance or release but our instructors assured us that they could be done just as easily with tori grabbing (or striking) uke.

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So, if you are a karate guy looking for a way to make your blocking techniques all that they can be, check out the interwebs for "shichihon no kuzushi" or "tomiki aikido releases" (and watch with an open mind because it will not look like the karate you are used to.).

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P.S. One last tidbit to blow your mind.  The Japanese term for what we call "blocking techniques" is ukewaza, meaning "receiving techniques."  That is the same uke (receiving) as in ukemi (receiving with or through the body).  Think about that one for a minute.  Karate guys consider receiving techniques to be useless, while in many judo and aikido groups, ukemi is considered to be the most important skill and the most valuable self-defense.

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What is 6-jo kata good for anyway?

You thought I'd completely shifted my focus to judo, didn't you?  Not so!  Here's some of the other stuff I've been thinking about and playing around with lately.
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For jo folks that are not used to this sort of practice, watch with fresh eyes and think about it as similar to the foot sweep to control exercise that Nick demonstrates here - that is, simple set of paired techniques that repeats infinitely and provides a basis from which to riff and expound - a basic framework to insert other techniques, jodori, jo no tsukai, etc... And a framework to begin varying toward something like randori.

Or think about it as similar to a hubud drill - as this instructor calls it, "a generator." That is, a basic sequence that spawns all sorts of opportunity to delve into other techniques or aspects of the art.

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Scouts and the Martial Arts

Since the beginning of the Scouting Movement in the late 1800s, Scouting has had an association with Martial Arts.  Scouting began as a sort of paramilitary organization intended to prepare, well, military scouts.  It makes sense that there would be a martial arts or combatives component to Scouting.
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People all over the world rapidly saw the benefits of Scouting for youth development apart from the military and over the years the association between Scouting and martial arts has become largely obscured.

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One of the original 14 Badges of Merit in the BSA was the Master at Arms award.  Master at Arms had only one requirement (albeit a rather stout one) - "Master (or attain proficiency in) at least two (some pamphlets said three) of the following subjects"

• single stick (fencing),
• quarterstaff,
• fencing,
• boxing,
• ju jitsu,
• gymnastics, and
• wrestling

The quarterstaff, or scout staff was a standard piece of gear for all Scouts until well into the 20th century and now it is still an optional piece.  Single stick was an exceptionally useful Scout martial art because Scouts are always near sticks.
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The BSA's current Guide to Safe Scouting states,

• Boxing, karate, and related martial arts—except judo, aikido, and tai chi—are not authorized activities.

Some years ago I communicated with some of the BSA upper ups and it seems that the original idea of whoever came up with that rule was that boxing and karate were "against the spirit of Scouting" because they were offensive, attacking arts and the common perception of aikido and judo was that they were defensive arts.  IKR, stupid, but that's how I try to understand what they were thinking.  Now I think that the martial arts prohibition in BSA is almost certainly an insurance thing.

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Even with the explicit exclusion of boxing and karate, the Master at Arms curriculum could easily be implemented for individual Scouts, Patrols, Troops, or Crews that wished to make martial arts or self-defense a Program Focus.
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All of the activities in the Master atArms list (except boxing) could reasonably be used in partial completion of Sports Merit Badge, and the quarterstaff activity can be used in partial completion of the Scouting Heritage Merit Badge.
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A Troop or Patrol or Crew would not be able to re-issue the Master at Arms as a Merit Badge, but there is nothing keeping them from issuing it as an Activity Badge based on a Master at Arms program feature.
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So, are there any local Scouts or Venturers up for a Master at Arms program feature involving judo, aikido, quarterstaff, and/or single stick fencing - because I might happen to know a Scouter around here that could make that a reality.

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Patrick Parker

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Divide releases into 3 steps to help beginners get started

There are a lot of different modes that you can do most martial arts exercises in.  They seem to be made to be played in different ways under various conditions.

Aikido Ground Fighting by Walther G. Von Krenner

A relatively new addition to the body of literature about aikido is Walther G. Von Krenner's, Aikido Ground Fighting.  This is a really interesting book in a couple of ways.

Shomenate by the numbers

Per my last post, we've started working Junana in more of a kihon mode.  That is, static uke and explicit emphasis on making each phase of the technique (kuzushi, tsukuri, and kake) as distinct as possible.  This past week we worked shomenate and we've already seen some interesting aspects crop up in our practice.

Kuzushi, tsukuri, and kake in kihon no kata

Every teacher and organization and group and subgroup has its own distinctive practices.  Things they do because of the way they interact or the particular way that they happen to think about the art we are doing. It is easy to look at other artists doing this thing that you thought that you had the exclusive truth about and think, "That guy sucks."  If you're looking for videos of people sucking at aikido - they are super easy to find!  Heck, I guarantee I could show you a video of Tomiki Sensei and your response would be, That dude is a white belt!

Without this, they drop like they're shot

In my previous post I posed a question. Does aikido possess a technique or skill that would allow the aikidoka to reliably make a violent opponent stop their misdeeds immediately without necessarily causing them grievous injury?  I think I've left y'all in suspense long enough so I'll let you in on what I was thinking.

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Kuzushi is what I was thinking of.  The ability to rob someone of their balance.  Balance has been called the Mother Attribute, because without balance you cannot apply speed or power.

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So, kuzushi is not only a facilitator of technique, but it is also a great equalizer, and if it can be developed both skillfully and reliably, then it could potentially become the entirety of the art.  If you have the opponent's balance, you don't need anything else.

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To see more of what I've written on kuzushi, see this.

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Make them STOP RIGHT NOW

I've had some discussion recently with some buddies about the effectiveness of aikido at making a real life bad guy stop what he is doing right now.  That is, when a situation is critical and imminent and you have to force someone to cease their misdeeds immediately.  Some practitioners suggest  that in such a critical situation, the typical tools of aikido might not be sufficient, and a better way to make the attacker stop right now is by causing massive physical trauma (broken finger or arm or knee, gouged eye, broken neck, etc...).

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And this is a pretty reasonable suggestion on the surface, but how much trauma is enough?  Here are a couple of recent examples of guys that functioned just fine after massive physical trauma.  One of them survived a bear attack that laid open his scalp and broke his arm - not only survived, but was clear-headed enough to hike miles to his vehicle then drive to get medical help AND make a video!  The other one managed to survive days of pain and dehydration before amputating his own arm, climbing out of a ravine one-armed, and then hiking for miles until he got help.  Point is, massive physical trauma did not make these guys stop.

How many of y'all think you can do as good as a Grizzly bear at the massive physical trauma paradigm?

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Also, the massive trauma paradigm is not scaleable.  It's not possible, especially in the heat of the moment, to figure out how to apply just enough trauma to make the bad guy stop - so you are left with the desperate strategy of applying as much (literal) overkill as possible.  Taking the massive physical damage to the logical extreme of maximum overkill may not be legally or ethically defensible.

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Now, I've heard all the "tried by 12 or carried by 6" talk, and I've heard all the "go home to your family at the end of the night no matter what" stuff, and I don't have any particular problem with those sentiments, but what if we were able to keep all those trauma skills (jutsu) in the back of our mind as a sort of a safety net or backup plan while we develop some other equally or even more reliable way to make attackers stop right now? 

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What could that skill be that is just as reliable as destroying the attacker but is also scaleable and probably more legally and ethically defensible??

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Real-time aikido

Here is another excellent demonstration of Koryu Dai Yon kata.  I like this one even better than the previous one that I posted.  Although that previous kata was perhaps more polished, this one feels more real to me.  The previous one had a rushed feeling, but this demonstration is more reasonably paced.
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There used to be an ideal in judo (it may still exist, though I've long had a sinking suspicion that it is not actually ideal) that for a throw to be perfect ("ippon") it has to happen fast, uke has to hit the mat hard, and tori must be in control. - Hard, Fast, and Control was the recipe for an ippon.  Now I think for a throwing-type technique to be good enough, uke must descend to the ground and tori must remain in control throughout and after.  I don't care about hard and fast because hard is arbitrary and abusive and fast is irrelevant (acceleration due to gravity is a constant 32 feet per second per second or about 22mph per second.)
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I suspect that pushing down on uke as he falls does not increase his speed much - it just increases his effective mass so it hurts more.
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When I see a demonstration of aikido or judo, and it looks super-fast, that does not make me think, "That is super-realistic."  It makes me think, "Something is wrong with that demo." Just about the only way to make an un-realistically fast technique work is to have a overly-compliant uke.
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So anyway, When you're demonstrating something in "real time" or at "real speed," that is not arbitrarily fast.  That's part of why I like this demo so much.  It is real-time.



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The aikidoka and the light bulb

How many aikidoka does it take to screw in a light bulb?  A dozen - one to screw the thing up and eleven to tell him, "That's not how we do it at our dojo."

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When I was preparing for my recent gig at Windsong Dojo teaching Yon kata, I perused the videos online of various folks doing the thing and some of them I posted with commentary because I thought they illustrated a point that I might want to make when I taught the thing. I did not post the above video because, even though the aikidoka are obviously talented and precise, it just didn't look like what I was going to talk about.  I didn't think they were doing the Yon kata that I was thinking about.

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Well, after I recuperated from my epic roadtrip and whirlwind teaching gig at Windsong, I did a YouTube search for Koryu Dai Yon again, and this was the first video that popped up, so I watched it again, and WOW! It looks just like what we were working on and talking about at OKC last weekend!

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I think if you put the "We don't do it that way" part of your brain on hold and watch this thing again, you'll see a lot of similarities between what we were doing and what Fielding sensei is doing here.  In fact, I think the only major difference I see is Fielding is using a more dynamic uke, whereas we were working with more static ukes.

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I have vastly benefited from the opportunity to lead an exploration of Koryu Dai Yon at Oklahoma last weekend!  This exercise has been my least favorite, most frustrating part of aikido for the past 25 some-odd years - my worst enemy!  But this past weekend has turned it into such a fascinating exploration of kuzushi that I think I could probably spend a LOT of time playing in and around this thing profitably!
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Thanks, Nick and Windsong guys for teaching me this thing that y'all claimed I was teaching you!



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The Spirit of Yon Kata

Each of the Koryu kata seems to have a spirit or theme that makes it distinct and unique.  This is done as a challenge to growth - sort of a, “now that you know most all the aikido techniques that can be done, try working them this way,” sort of thing. I've written about this some here.

These Koryu kata also present us with a challenge to not only master their theme within the context of their subset of techniques, but also to take that theme into all of your aikido - each Koryu kata should transform all of the rest of your aikido.

So, what are the characteristics of the Spirit of Yon Kata?

• Emphasis on kuzushi - kuzushi is anytime uke has to take an unintended step.  When held in a state of asymmetry, the body eventually crumbles.
• Flowing instead of Throwing -  the epitome of flow cannot be achieved when tori is thinking about throwing and uke is thinking about figuring out how to survive being thrown.  Tori is not Nage ("The Thrower"), because that presupposes figuring out the time and place to stop moving and apply intent.  Tori is more like a spotter for a weightlifter or a gymnast.
• Big motion
• Feather-light - In the first part if the kata, uke wants to be so light and responsive that tori can throw with just a hint - just a breath of intent in a certain direction at the right time.  When doing the second part, the throws happen because uke refuses to take the hint so the second hint is not stronger, just perhaps more obvious a hint
• Short/fast releases as compared to hanasu (which gives tori more time to stand around waiting)

How can it be big motion but short/fast at the same time?

• One of those could be a false characterization, or
• Part of each technique is short/fast (the kuzushi) and part is big motion and flowing-not-throwing (lot of following steps after the kuzushi until uke inevitably crumbles.)

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Kuzushi can be done right or wrong

One can think about kuzushi in a lot of different ways, including -

• A pre-requisite or set-ups for doing a technique.  The first step in executing a technique.  (Classical judo thinking)
• Slowing/weakening uke so that tori/nage has more than enough power to effect his will upon uke. (IIRC, The Book of Martial Power calls this "shortening uke’s line."  One of my favorite instructors of all time use to hammer us with the idea that the purpose of kuzushi is to make uke slower and weaker than yourself - that is, kuzushi forces uke to work at however slow a speed you want him to.)
• Crumbling structure - if you become expert at kuzushi, you can do it so well that you do not need any of your own power to effect the kake part of the throw. Sort of like expert demolitions men that can disrupt the structure of a building so precisely that they can drop it wherever they want to, or an expert woodcutter that can fell a tree exactly where he wants to.

Watch the video above.  They're not putting external force on the tree (or at least not much - they appear to be adding wedges to keep the saw blade free.)  They just disrupt the tree's structure so precisely that it falls where they want it.  If this is analogous to an aikido or judo throw, then there is no kake phase.  They just do tsukuri and kuzushi and then wait in a safe place.

Watch the following two videos - one of kuzushi done right and one of kuzushi done dramatically wrong. 

People, like buildings, have a lot of potential energy, and causing them to fall to the ground recklessly can cause a lot of grief, so it behooves us to figure out how to do this kuzushi thing right.

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Seven fundamental off-balances

So, Nick's got a cool shindig planned for end of September at his place in OKC.  I think the way it works is everyone that shows up is supposed to bring some aiki or judo thing to play with.  The piece that I want to work on is Koryu Dai Yon  - especially the first 7 movements that some people call Shichihon no kuzushi.

The first two of these things have long been my nemesis, my aiki-arch enemy.  But what better to work on with the gurus in OKC than the thing I suck the worst at?  Should be fun.

You should come play with us - you'll either learn something or have a good time laughing at my incompetence!

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The effects of aiki porn

There is, of course, an objective skillset underlying aikido and judo, but each practitioner seems to also have a subjective aesthetic ideal of what the art is supposed to look and feel like.  Perhaps this is (some of) the difference between do and jutsu.

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We inherit a lot of our aesthetic ideal from our instructors, but we probably also get a bunch of it from movies and youtube.  How many mid-1990's aikido guys out there can honestly say that they didn't get a kick out of seeing the beginning of this movie (and the rest of Seagal's shenanigans)? Depending on how it jived with the aikido you were being taught, it probably either made you want to do aikido that looked like that - or even if you hated what you saw in Seagal, I bet it took a long time to really, honestly get over thinking that this was what real aikido was supposed to look like.

And how about judo guys?  I bet nearly all of us love to circulate things like this on Facebook...

...which is cool and ok, until someone gets the idea that this is what all "good judo" looks like.

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The problem with this sort of media depiction of our arts is the same problem with porn - it can fool you into thinking that is the way real people are supposed to look and act.  It can deform your ideas about reality, which can then deform your practice, your teachings, and even your interactions in the real world.

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Personally, I was exposed to a lot of teachings in both aikido and judo coming up through the ranks, that I've begun to wonder about in the last couple of years.  There are a lot of teachings that I have a hard time telling if they are someone's aesthetic or if they are necessarily functional principle.  I have a hard time separating practitioners' aesthetic ideals from teachers' heuristic rules of thumb from champion's ideas of best practices.

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Things like unbendable arm in aikido - I've seen folks do really cool aikido with or without that piece.

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Things that we take for granted, like "get your center lower than uke's to do a shoulder throw" - I've also seen tall people able to do good seoinage and koshinage without bending their knees at all.

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Things like whether gripfighting is an essential skill or a time-waster.

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Even things like the idea that kuzushi or atemi must come before any technique for it to work properly.

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The list goes on and on.

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What's jo got to do with it?

Today we had our first Aikido Renaissance Playday of the year, and I went into it thinking along the lines of playing with aiki-jo material and trying to figure out what sticks and swords have to do with our aikido anyway.  What is so 'aiki' about aiki-jo?

We worked on the first four of Tomiki's Jo-no-tsukai, A.K.A jo-nage in some aikido lineages.

• migi sumiotoshi
• hidari sumiotoshi
• tekubikime
• maeotoshi

As we worked on these techniques, I was paying attention to the hints and instructions that I was giving people.  I was particularly looking for times when I was telling stick-weilding aikidoka the same things I'm always telling the empty-handed aikidoka.  Today's major themes ended up being -

• Push straight down the length of the jo instead of pushing sideways (as if trying to bend the jo).  You'll bestronger, more controlleed, and less likely to slip and bust someone's teeth.
•  If you get to a place where you can feel uke's strength, then you are in the wrong place - move somewhere that he's not as strong.
• If you want uke to move away from a strong position, you can't hold him there.  Often you have to relax and give up your own territory in order to get uke to shift to different ground.

Do those sound familiar?  Anyone recognize those situations or phenomena from aikido or judo?

Then we worked on three of Tomiki's jo-dori

• shomenate
• gyakugamaeate
• maeotoshi

Here we wound up repeating one major theme a lot -

• If you allow uke to choose his own ground, you'll end up in a strength battle.  Walk away and tear his root out of the ground, and then do your technique.

Finally, we worked on the first two of the Seitei-jo techniques -

• tsukezue
• suigetsu

Here our emphasis was on honte and honteuchi and hikiotoshi.  I've said before that hikiotoshi has been the bane of my existence, but I have to admit today it was almost fun to work on ;-)  It was working very nicely.

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com