Stronger and faster

There are a lot of attributes that go into making a technique successful. The timing, offbalance, strength, speed, mass, etc… of both attacker and defender play into it. But when a technique goes bad in practice, what do you immediately think to change in order to make the next repetition more successful? I’m not asking what should you be thinking about working on, but what do you naturally think of

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For many folks, I'd bet you think, "I've got to be stronger and faster."

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This reminds me of a tournament I was in years ago as an orange belt. I beat a green belt pretty handily with what I have to admit was a superbly-timed sukuinage. The guy jerked on me hard and I clipped both of his legs with my whole body, using his own strength to throw him and his mass to turn us so I landed on top. It was a beautiful judo moment.

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After the match, that guy’s coach came up to me and asked, “Are you the guy that beat my green belt so badly?” Being a young smartalek and high on adrenaline and testosterone at the time, I answered, “I donno, I beat somebody’s green belt real bad.” (If you’re reading this, I’m sorry I spoke to you that way. It was disrespectful and stupid.)

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But anyway, I thought then and I still think that coach’s response was remarkably short-sighted. He sighed, looking exasperated at his student and said, “Yeah, I’ve got to work on him to make him stronger and faster.” I actually managed to control the response that popped into my head, “Yeah, you go do that and next time I’ll throw him that much higher.”

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Point is, his first thought was that this player was unsuccessful because he was not strong enough and fast enough, when the reality was that the player’s own strength beat him in the first place.

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Strength and speed are good things, but they are pretty sorry as a first line of defense. When a technique is not successful in practice, look somewhere besides strength and speed to make the next rep better.

Simple self-defense

Violence is... Well, It is violent!

This is the second in a series of reviews of Rory Miller's excellent new book, Meditations on Violence. Check out my previous review, and by all means, get a copy of Meditations on Violenceto read and re-read.

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Violence is, by its nature, violent. Rory puts forth this idea that should probably go without saying but it often doesn't so Rory spells it out for us.

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By definition, violence happens...

• closer than you are accustomed to dealing with
• faster than you are accustomed to dealing with
• more suddenly than you are accustomed to dealing with
• and with greater force than you are accustomed to dealing with

In other words, violence is more violent than you think. If it were not, it would not be violent it would be merely uncomfortable or inconvenient. The implications of this statement to your martial art could fill a book. Actually it did fill a book - Rory Miller's Meditations on Violence.

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Highly recommended for all martial artists interested in actual self-defense applicability of their art. Get your copy from my Amazon store:

Pinning and holding

Aiki with Patrick M. and Rick

• ROM, ukemi (Rick looks like he's feeling more comfortable with the side and turn-back rolls)
• tegatana with emphasis on making the backward turning steps shallower to minimize the cross-legged weakness in the middle. We also paid attention to trying to find subsequent motions matching the natural rhythm of the body. For example, the "reaching around in front and push up to the side" is not two separate moves but an arc (or french curve) that your arm is descriving and which your body has to follow.
• hanasu & chain #1
• Nijusan #6, 7, and 8 with emphasis on the forms of pinning on the ends of these kata
• suwari menuchi tekubiosae with pin

Amen, brother! Preach it!

This is the best video explanation I've found of what I've been teaching and calling the aiki brush-off. Just like this guy mentions in these videos, if you watch most aikido randori sessions, the tori is concentrating on applying techniques to each successive attacker. Problem is, this ties the tori up, creating openings for the other attackers. Most of the time, when you see really successful aiki randori practitioners, they brush-off more attacks than they counter with actual techniques.

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This type of brushing-off action is what I've been concentrating on in my personal practice and in my teaching for the last couple of years and it has really changed my aiki for the better. I've had several highly-ranked folks whose opinions count a lot to me say that my aiki has become more robust and effective, while at the same time becoming softer. I attribute this to practicing the aiki brush-off.

Another interesting thing to note about these randori sessions: when the brush-off either fails or creates enough time to actually do a technique, the two techniques that pop up most often are shomenate and aigamaeate (A.K.A. aikinage or iriminage). Just exactly like the results we've gotten in knife randori like here and here. Atemiwaza is the first backup for the brushoff. Everything else in the art is backup for the atemiwaza.

To intervene or not to intervene?

If you haven't already, y'all ought to hop on over to John's and throw your two cents in on his recent question - one of the most interesting things on the martial blogosphere in a while...

Cost-efficient convenient martial arts training

One thing that can really put a crimp in your study of martial arts is travelling expense. Face it, with the outrageous cost of gasoline getting ever worse, it's hard to make it to class week-in and week-out. Many people are having to work odd schedules just to keep their jobs, and it is increasingly common for the class schedule to not mesh with your dwindling personal life.

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Here's an easy and cost-efficient way to relieve these problems. Instead of everyone going to the instructor, bring the instructor to you! Instead of a bunch of people using up their gasoline to get to some central location that is not really ever as convenient as you would like, why don't you get a group together, choose your own venue, and everyone pitches in a little money to bring an instructor in.

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Sound interesting?

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If you would like to hire me to come teach you aikido or judo, you can contact me at mokurendojo@gmail.com. I'll work with you to get you some great martial arts instruction in any venue convenient to you, and at a price that you will like a lot better than having to pay for the gas to come to me.

O.C. can you see...

I enjoyed this video (watch out for non-family language). It brought back memories of when I was in grad school and working as a private security officer. We were made to qualify with OC (oleoresin capsicum) with the same training folks the Sheriff's office used, part of which involved being sprayed.

This video really demonstrated one important point very well:

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OC spray is a strong irritant, but is not debilitating in most cases. This girl ran a (simple) obstacle course and performed fairly well in physical combat skills even after taking a goodly dose full-on.

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When we were taking the SO's OC ccourse they highlighted some studies that had been done with OC. The researchers would spray a participant and have them navigate an obstacle course (around folding tables, etc...) with the goal of touching the sprayer before having to be washed off. 100% of particiants were able to find, catch, and touch the sprayer (who was told to evade at a walking pace), regardless of age, gender, etc...

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The moral of this story: If you are considering OC spray as a self-defense, please reconsider.

New gonokata video

This is interesting. The Go no kata (forms of strength) is one of the "lost" kata of judo. Gonokata was aparently practiced in the pre-war Kodokan school, but was not taught post-war and died out along iwth the pre-war students and instructors. There has been no small amount of talk in the last few years about reviving this kata, either by finding a surviving person who learned it before WWII or by reconstructing it from written accounts. I don't know which of these this demonstration represents, but on first viewing it appears to be a pretty good one for two reasons:

• It fits with the available written descriptive material I've seen on the old kata, like this and this.
• It has a similar spirit to junokata, for which it was supposed to be a complementary partner-kata.

Basics and floating throws

Aiki with Patrick M. and Rick

• ROM, ukemi (Rick overcame a major fear and did several of the turn-back tolls successfully)


• tegatana with emphasis on leading with the center and keeping a feeling of being drawn upward into proper natural posture. The contrast between these two revealed a place on the turning steps where I am settling onto my back heel, almost into a wrestling-feeling posture.


• hanasu 1-8 with emphasis on moving at ma-ai, putting hands up, and either brushing off or synchronizing or getting an offbalance


• we spent a lot of time on evasions R1 and YK2


• YK2→(maeotoshi or sumiotoshi) depending on whether you float with him onto his near or far foot. This was that super-cool, amazing sumiotoshi.

Grapple outside the box

We're always advised from every angle to, "Think outside the box." Try to find different ways of looking at a thing. I've read that is one of the main attribures of genius, is being able to see things from different points of view. I'm no genius, but This is one of my main strategies on how to teach martial arts.
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For instance, grappling, whether you call it judo, jiu-jitsu, ssireum, Greco-Roman, freestyle, or whatever, is still the same thing. It is grappling; contestants mostly in close physical contact with each other, pushing, pulling, bending, twisting, lifting, walking, and rolling. What changes between different styles are the rulesets, or the constraints under which these six-or-so physical feats are done.
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I think it is very beneficial to students for the instructor to change rulesets and conditions often in practice. Instead of spending your entire judo career working under the USJF ruleset, play jui-jitsu, push-hands, sombo, Cornish and other rulesets - not just occasionally - often. Play with jackets and without, play with belts and without. Standing, kneeling, supine, prone. Blindfolded, with an arm tied behind you, etc...
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This helps develop mental flexibility (the prime attribute of judo) and the ability to rapidly figure out how to push, pull, bend, twist, lift, walk, and roll under whatever set of constraints are at hand, while working toward varying goals.

Sensei's killin' buddy runs the gauntlet

Back in the day, I want to say it was around 1992 or so, we had the pleasure of having Steve Steed join our college club. Steve was about 4th dan in tangsoodo and had just come off active Army duty during or around the time of the first Gulf War.

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Well, it was a Sunday afternoon practice and it was a kick-punch sparring day, so I showed up and the instructor tells us, "This is Steve," and we began sparring. I thought it was interesting that Steve was made to start with the highest ranked guy and consecutively spar a few minutes with each successively lower-ranked guy. Though I'd never seen it, Steve was pretty savvy. He knew how things worked. He knew he was being made to run the gauntlet, and that was just okay by him.

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I watched him demolish our highest-ranked guy quite easily, barely working up a froth. He moved on to his second course of the afternoon, and tore our second-highest-ranked guy apart. Hmmm, I was thinking that the situation looked pretty glum for me, as about the 4th highest rank that day.

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Fortunately the head instructor suavely announced that the remainder of the matches would be special condition matches, and when Steve got to me, all lathered up and ready to kill (and eat dead, burnt bodies), they announced that Steve could only kick and I could only punch for this match. AHA, my chance!

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They called go, Steve threw a kick, and I slipped it, stepped in, and glued myself to his chest. I didn't even bother punching because that might have separated us back into kicking range. I just moved with him and checked his legs to keep him from getting any momentum going. We went the entire time period with me glued to him, frustrating his ability to hurt me.

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After that we rapidly became great buddies and had many adventures. So great was the Legend of Steve, that my first batch of students in southwest Mississippi came to know him as "Sensei's killin' buddy, Steve." I suppose the implication of that title was that Steve was the guy I'd most like to have around when killin' time comes.

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Don't know what dragged that memory out of the old data banks, but it popped into my mind this morning and I just had to write it down.

Dan Gable, the man, the legend

The first half of this film is composed of clips of Gable-trained wrestlers competing. You can see some of Dan Gable's intensity and aggression in them. You can see it in the close-up of the tremors in his arm. The second half is a short piece of a documentary on Gable. The man, the legend, the demigod of wrestling.

Dan Gable on aggression

Here is a short segment with Dan Gable talking about the role of aggressiveness in wrestling. This really applies to all competitive fight sports like boxing, MMA, etc... The idea is simple. All other things being equal (and I know they never are) the more aggressive fighter will win. Why is this? Two reasons are apparent:

• The rules are designed to promote a type of fighting that is interesting to the observers. These rulesets award aggression
• Sun Tzu said, "Invincibility lies in the defence; the possibility of victory in the Attack." He recognized years ago that this is just the way things are. This is reflected at times throughout history, from Gretzky saying, "you will miss 100% of all shots you don't take," to Neitzsche writing about the Will to Power.