What is aikido?

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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮
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What is Classical Judo?

A couple of weeks ago a student of mine and some aquaintances of mine got into a somewhat vigorous discussion about "classical judo."  It didn't quite devolve to, "But I do classical judo too..." and "No you don't.  I do classical judo," but it seemed headed down that path.

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During that discussion one party asked the direct question, "What is Classical Judo?"  I didn't join in the discussion at that time but I though that was a really good question.  See, the Classical Judo construct is so multi-faceted and complex that it is sort of a slippery chameleon.

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"Classical Judo" can be a lot of things, including...

• ...a hammer to bludgeon someone with in an argument.
• ...an appeal for validity to the dead (and therefore un-assailable) demigods of Judo - mere name-dropping
• ...a marketing tactic - an attempt to brand your judo club such that it has greater perceived value
• ...a weapon to coerce students into compliance with your way of thinking about judo
• ...an excuse not to have to validate your techniques and methods in contest.

All that is not to say that I think there is no such thing as Classical Judo.  There is.  I consider myself to practice Classical judo and I have been laying out an ever-expanding discussion on the topic that looks like it will become a series of posts in the near future.

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But in the mean time, I thought it would be interesting to get some feedback from y'all as to what you think Classical Judo is and what could be the value of such a construct?

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90 degrees

What we worked on tonight...

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If you can do something to get uke to commit to fighting you on a certain line, then hit him 90 degrees to that line, you will often break his structure.

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Works like magic... Absolute magic...

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Rhythm in striking combos

There is a rhythm to a good combination.  Not every strike can be a full-force crushing blow to the center of mass.  Some beats are occupied by lesser strikes that can be used to good effect.  This rhythm concept can be analogous to drumming.

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In basic doumbek drumming there are three notes, or techniques.  Their names are onomatopoeic - doum is the bass note, tek and ka are less forceful, more melodic rimshots.  Listen to the following, thinking of the deep bass (right hand) notes as crushing full-force blows and the other notes as raking or slapping targets of opportunity with less forceful passing strikes.

Can you feel some of those rhythms could be similar to fighting rhythms?  Watch the following (throughout, but especially starting at about 6:00) and listen (in your mind) for the doums, teks and kas...

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What is aikido?

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Situational karate combinations

So, in the context of striking, what is a combination?

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I say a combination is not picking three basic strikes and practicing stringing them together so that they become one neuromuscular program.  You don't pull the trigger and automatically these three techniques happen in sequence. (That is a very basic form of combo, but not what I'm talking about.)

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I say that skill in throwing combos comes in developing the ability to throw one fundamental technique, then rapidly assess, "What else useful can I do from this position with this momentum while I am returning toward guard or neutral?"  Basically taking targets of opportunity.

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So, a good combo is not, "Do inside hammer, then front kick, then shuto to neck, then back away."  Instead, a better combo is, "Ok, I have hammered his attacking arm and I am moving away from him so I might as well check this arm and that leg and chop the neck in passing."  Or another combo from this position might be, "I've hammered his arm and am moving away... How about I rake across his eyes and then push myself away from him with a reverse punch to center of mass." Situational things strung together appropriately in the moment.

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What is karate?

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Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮
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How to subdue a German without handcuffs

I got to looking through W.E. Fairbairn's old WWII era combatives manual titled, GET TOUGH the other day.  Interesting book with a lot of foundational info. 

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It also has some interesting, varied, miscellaneous material, such as the method shown above for restraining a prisoner if you have a pole or sapling but no rope or cuffs.  Interesting even if you don't expect to ever need to knowhow to do this.
 I would highly recommend not getting drunk and trying this restraint out on your buddies at a party!

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An American martial arts myth

Martial arts are rife with myths and apocryphal stories meant to convey some point or moral. I absolutely love these stories. Most of them occurred long ago in some exotic-sounding place and involved a samurai or a monk or that sort of character.
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Well, here's you a distinctly American piece of martial arts apocrypha that could have taken place in Appalachia... or perhaps Missouri... or even down in the bayou... or maybe even in L.A...

It seems that Clem and Abe had a long-standing feud between their families with great suffering and attrition on both sides. Finally, Clem called for a parley with Abe and proposed an end to the feud. "Let's just have a good old fashioned nut kickin' contest between me and you." Well, Abe had never heard of this sort of contest and he asked about the rules.

"First," Clem said, "I kick you in the nuts as hard as I can. Then when you are recovered you kick me. We go back and forth until someone gives up." Abe thought about that for a minute. It sure sounded painful but if it meant an end to hostilities he was willing to endure it.

So, Abe stood straddle-legged and Clem got a running start and punted poor Abe so hard his feet came off the ground and he landed on the ground screaming and puking. Clem waited paitently as Abe rolled around for about half an hour, finally getting up to his knees and then to his feet.

"Alright, now it's my turn." said Abe, hitching up his pants and getting ready to get a running start.

"Nah,"Clem replied, walking away. "I give up. You win."

For some reason this story put me in mind of Kickboxing legend Bill "Superfoot" Wallace.  Wallace, among his many other accomplishments, got kicked in the nads so hard in a fight in Jackson Mississippi that he had to have one testicle surgically removed.  According to Wikipedia, Wallace saved the testicle and showed it to the other announcers at UFC1.

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Also on a related note, Superfoot Wallace got his bachelor's degree at Ball State University...  Coincidence?

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How I kill people with a knife

I remember a class back in the early 1990's, we were working on some knife techniques.  Standard type knife defense stuff you see in martial arts classes. 

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At that time we had a middle-aged Cambodian woman in the class as a white belt.  Pretty unassuming woman - plain-looking - quiet - stocky build.  I think she was studying something nerdy and boring in college like Plant Pathology.

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After the instructor had demonstrated a technique, she whispered to me, "I don't attack like that when I kill people."  I thought that she had just mis-spoken because her Engrish was pretty broken.  So, being a smartalek, I jokingly asked her, "How exactly do you hold a knife when you kill people?"

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Without flinching or hesitating, she turned the knife over (icepick grip) and said, "I sneak up behind, grab face like this and jerk back.  Then I stab in neck two or three times!" (pumping her hand up and down.)

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I was dumbfounded...  Mortified... It was at that point that I realized she must have been a young adult in Cambodia during the 1970's and 1980's.  She had not mis-spoken.  She'd said exactly what she meant.  When she'd killed people she hadn't done it like we were practicing. 

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The moral of the story - You can never tell who you are standing next to.

[Photo courtesy of Alan Chan]

For a great intro to how knives are really used by one of the foremost experts...

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Kata then bunkai ...is backwards

Somehow a while back Charles James' excellent Isshinryu Karate blog fell off my blog list.  I recently discovered and corrected that and Charles has realy been knocking the ball out of the park with most every post lately.  I highly recommend you follow that blog!

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One thing that he has written about in the last couple of posts is kata and bunkai, and what I personally took away from these recent posts is that kata-then-bunkai is, in a lot of ways, a backwards way of thinking about learning.
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He talks about practicing goshinjutsu (self-defense applications) with a live partner first, getting the hang of the skills, then stepping away from the partner and seeing how the old dead guys managed to encode those goshinjutsu skills into the kata.

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Of course that's the right way to do it.  That's probably much better than learning a precise but abstract kata first then attempting to layer some practical meaning on top of it.  Why haven't I thought of that all these years?
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Bunkai-then-kata

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Riding the wave in aikido and judo

To everything there is a season,

and a time for every purpose under Heaven.

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We move about in cycles. Left/right, forward/back, up/down, expand/contract, extend/retract, exert/relax - those examples are common and easy to see. But there are other cycles we probably think less often about. Important cycles like balance/unbalance and strong/weak.

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If I understand what I've read and heard about the old Kito School of jujitsu (from which judo and aikido were partly derived), one of the central theories of Kito was that our ki - our energy and potency and strength and vitality - was constantly ebbing and flowing. Thus the name of the school ("Kito" = "rise and fall").  This idea manifests itself in techniques in which tori synchronizes with uke such that the decisive encounter takes place when tori is strongest and uke is weakest.

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This Kito principle (as I call it) is central to aikido and judo.

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We move through these cycles at a certain rate based primarily on our body size. It takes some finite amount of time to go from strong to weak, and back to strong. Trying to speed up or slow down the period of these cycles is counter-productive, so you need to learn to recognize these cycles and go with the flow.  Relax and go along for the ride until you are stronger and the opponent is weaker.

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Sure, you might get beat up while you are in the wrong part of the cycle, or if your synch with the opponent is non-optimal. But tensing up and standing still and fighting the cycle won't help either. You'll still get beat up, but you'll be tired too!

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We don't make the waves,

We just ride them.

[Photo courtesy of Nathan in SanDiego]

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Uchimata

Probably the most popular competition judo throw in existence - uchimata.  Some folks throw this as a leg sweep and some throw it as a hip throw.  Officially it is classed as an ashiwaza (a foot throw).  I've never been able to make much of this trying it as a foot throw (though I've seen people who can!)  I personally throw it as a variation of ukigoshi.  In any case, it is an excellent throw!

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What is judo?

____________
Patrick Parker is a Christian, husband, father, martial arts teacher, Program Director for a Cardiac Rehab, and a Ph.D. Contact: mokurendojo@gmail.com or phone 601.248.7282 木蓮
____________
Subscribe now for free updates from Mokuren Dojo
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Send me an email or let's connect on Facebook or Twitter