The dreaded rank demo

When I was coming up through the ranks - particularly when I got to about the shodan-nidan range, our instructors liked to make their rank candidates go test in front of a pile of highly-ranked examiners. The rank demos would be at the end of a week-long grueling seminar, and often as not, by the middle of the rank demos there would be 2-3 of the  10-15 examiners either barely awake or just flat-out snoring!

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I remember a couple of candy-striped belts joking one time that they's seen so many new shodans screw up Owaza Jupon (a kata called "The Big Ten") in so many creative ways that they'd started calling it "The bigger 11" or "the lesser 9."

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I used to think those guys were real jerks for not being able to stay awake and respectful during such a big deal, but since then my role has been reversed and I've had ample opportunity to watch shodan rank demos and while, to my credit, I haven't ever fallen asleep in one, they do get monotonous after a while.

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Why does that have to be?  Where is it written that there is one list of things that all up&coming shodans have to do to get their rank?  What if there were some flexibility in how the demonstrations were done?  I'm not talking about dancing velociraptors or backflips through flaming rings or anything.  You don't even have to change the rank requirements - just demonstrate something besides the same 20 techniques in the same order that the 100 people before you did. 

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I've heard it said that any instructor worth anything can watch you do whatever you want to do for about 3-4 minutes and know what level you are.  So, how about we inject some creativity into the rank demo process.

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I bet it'd be fun for the students, and I bet more of the geriatric candy-stripers would stay awake longer ;-)

[photo courtesy of Wikipedia]

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New eyes and fresh hearts

Over the past few years, maybe 10 or 15 years, I've heard several practitioners of various schools of koryu kenjutsu and jojutsu say that they just don't get the attraction of aiki-jo and aiki-ken - that there is just not that much martial skill involved in aiki weapons practices as compared to koryu.

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Some of this I can attribute to koryu snobbery.  Nothing but the inside teaching is going to be good enough for some folk that fully buy into the propoganda about how they are the real guys with the real knowledge.  Brand loyalty plays a large role in this - but brand loyalty gets old eventually.

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And some I can attribute to Ueshiba's lack of structure in passing down his weapon skills.  His students, and to a far larger extent, their students have a very un-even skill set ranging from great skill to cut-your-own-arm-off incompetence.

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And some of this I can attribute to a difference in goals.  The SMR guys (for instance) are not trying to use the jo to get at takemusu aiki, so it makes sense that aiki-jo may differ from SMR jo because they are aiming at different endpoints.

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But the snobbery of some (certainly not all) koryu guys and the resentment it engenders in some (again, not all) aiki guys is tiresome.   I like practicing with and learning from both groups and my personal practice has benefited from allowing myself to be influenced by each group, but I've gotten to the point that I don't especially want to be included in either group.  

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Perhaps both communities could benefit from each looking at the other with new eyes and fresh hearts.

[photo courtesy of Magali Veldhuis]

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Uke-centric ukigoshi

So, one of our emphases this year is an examination of nagenokata with particular emphasis on the role of uke.  We have previously been working the first couple of techniques in this uke-centric fashion, but over the last week, we've gotten to kataguruma and uukigoshi.  Following are a handful of hints we've found for uke-centric ukigoshi...

• In the first stage, tori (the spotter) is learning to lift and support uke on his hip, while uke is learning to plank-out head-down and examine the conditions at the edge of the world - just like in Junokata.
• Also, early-on in the build-up to this technique, we had uke practice the step, overhead konk, and forward roll without tori.  This makes an interesting contrast to the earlier seoinage because in seoinage, there is  smooth flow from the overhead konk into the forward roll, but in this one, the overhead konk is stopped and the roll is on the opposite side.
• I like practicing this one in contrast to the seoinage, because ukigoshi provides a backup when tori turns the 'wrong way' for the seoinage - that is, when tori gets freaked out and ducks inside the strike.
• The kids hit this throw right off the bat - it was pretty remarkable how they all got the left-sided ukigoshi the first time and every time after we built it up this way!

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Generations in budo

Coming up through the ranks, we used to talk about our relationships using a family analogy.  All of our cohort of students were like budo-brothers and budo-sisters.  The teachers of our teachers were like grandparents.  Some of the folks that studied when our teacher was coming up through the ranks - those folks were like aunts and uncles to us.

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Thinking about that reminded me of a tidbit that they taught us in grad school - this was in a class on physiology of aging and gerontology.  The instructor said that once a person reaches about age 30, "Nature is done with them" because they'd had time to grow to maturity, have kids, and raise the kids to maturity.  In an evolutionary sense, there is no reason for nature to put any genetic energy into developing and maintaining the individual, so they begin an inexorable decline around age 30.  Sure, there is a lot of plasticity in this phenomenon.  Some folks are able to devote enough energy and willpower into self-maintenance to remain strong and healthy long after 30, but it's still a pretty good rule of thumb (age-related decline often begins around 30) and a fairly reasonable explanation.

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Thirty years is also close to the length of a generation (25 years) as described in Howe & Straus' really interesting book, Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069.

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That made me wonder - how long is a generation in our budo analogy?  The first thing that pops into my mind is the average time it takes to get to yondan (teaching rank - roughly 10 years) and then raise a student to yondan (another 10 years or so).  You could probably add 5 years to that because of the attrition rate in martial arts - it'll take a while to find a student capable and willing to get to yondan.  That would be about 25-year generations - four generations per century - just like Howe&Straus' Generations.

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What does it matter?  Well part of the Generations book discusses why each generation tends to rebel against the values of the prior generation but embrace the values of the generation before that (2 generations ago.)

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Does that phenomenon perhaps hold with respect to budo?  Does that suggest that the Shu-Ha-Ri (keep-break-leave) cycle only describes individuals within one generation but doesn't describe the life-cycle of a school of budo - that is, we eventually break with our teachers but then tend to embrace our teachers' teachers?  Does that have some implications for a move from modern budo back toward Koryu?

[photo courtesy of Wikipedia - Yonsei]

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Uke-centric nagenokata for kids

A couple of years ago I started a series of articles about re-examining nagenokata  from the POV of uke.  I had found that this approach was especially effective for teaching children, but it also seems appropriate for adults.

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I'd gotten as far as the first set (the three hand throws) but I got distracted so now I'm ready to return to that line of thought and that series of articles on uke-centric nagenokata.  The first articles included...

Uke-centric Nagenokata

• ukiotoshi
• seoinage
• kataguruma

Kataguruma was a bear to get working from this uke-centric POV.

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My current tack on training this uke-centric kata is going to be...

• work it in smaller pieces - break each technique into 2-3 steps and practice each step
• high repetition - rep each piece of each technique, then rep the whole technique
• work it in reverse - from the critical moment of throwing (which is the most frightening so they balk right at that moment), backwards toward the initiation of the technique so that when they do the technique for real they are so familiar with the end point that it is not intimidating.

So take ukiotoshi for instance.  The training will look something like...

1. standing in right shizentai with grips, kneel, position uke, uke does forward roll (repeat 10x)
2. starting in right shizentai with grips, tsugiashi backwards 3x, kneel, position uke, uke rolls (repeat 10x)
3. take grips, tsugiashi back, kneel, position, uke rolls (repeat the full technique 10x)

Uke's goal here is to demonstrate the ukemi associated with the techniques of nagenokata.  Tori's goal is to provide structure and support for uke's demonstration without disrupting uke's flow.

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We're also going to work on having tori (the spotter) kneel so that uke can roll nicely out of kataguruma.

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I think I have it worked out how to get the kids through the first 9 techniques (hand, hip, and foot techniques) using this uke-centric POV.  Stay tuned...

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2013 - A year in the life

Lately I've been reflecting on this past year (2013) and projecting some plans...

In 2013 I planned to attend/teach one event per month (including my ABGs here).  I ended up doing 10 instead of 12.  Not bad...

• I started out with a trip to Corpus Christi for a get-away with Eric, Matl, Waddell, Nick, and some other excellent folks.  We ought to do another of those this next year sometime...
• I had the privilege of teaching a benefit seminar in Jackson MS to raise money to send Police trainers to Thailand to show people there how to extract children out of the sex trade.
• I got to attend a most excellent Isshin/Aiki camp at Hazlehurst.  Can't wait for the next one of these.
• I did one seminar at Union University (on kuzushi) but I wasn't able to attend the Fall shindig because of illness.
• I got to teach Koryu Dai Go at Windsong In OKC - what a great group of people!
• We did two Aiki Buddies Gatherings here in Magnolia - at the first one we worked on groundwork and goshin jutsu and we had two excellent Shodan demos - Jason in judo and Todd in aikido.  At the one in the Fall we worked on koshiki kihon and aikijo  - the second one was very well attended.
• In November I got to return to Richmond VA to teach a couple of classes on koshinage and Junokata.
• I made a flying trip to Starkville to work with James Reuster (who I haven't seen in about 15 years).  He taught a profound class on releases that has and will continue to impact my aikido.
• I also got to attend one judo tournament with Mike.

Here at Magnolia, we had several areas of emphasis in our studies...

• Aikijo and modular knife
• Ukemi as the most important, most practical self-defense skill
• Koryu dai go - more proactive, direct initiative "go and get em'" type aikido
• Tomiki's aiki taiso
• The extensive gray area between Kodokan judo and Tomiki aikido - we've been playing more with starting judo throws from releases and ending aikido throws in ukigatame (for instance).
• I've been watching a lot of Yoshinoro Kono - particularly his footwork, his aikijo,  and his students Koshiki no kata.
• I've also been watching a lot of Tokio Hirano and his students - particularly his wave-like entries into uchikomi and his Nanatsu no kata.  This man is inspiring.

There have been many ups and downs.  I've been plagued with elbow and shoulder pain problems for about 8 months.  It's getting better but it really put a damper on my jo work at Windsong this past summer.  I wasn't the only one with shoulder problems - Kel fell over a bush or something and broke his rotator cuff and had to have surgery so that put a major damper on our working together.  I'm looking forward to having him back with us this coming year.  On the positive side, I moved my oldest son, Whit, from kids classes to adult classes and it's been a blast having him as a regular partner.

In the coming year - 2014...

• I would like to attend 1 event per month, with the exception of January (new baby girl is due).  I'm especially looking forward to the Windsong Summer event - sounds like it'll be a hum dinger.
• Mike will attend 1-2 more tournaments this spring.
• I'd like to devote Saturday 9-noon classes for 2014 to embu-mode kata practice with emphasis on Koshiki, Nanatsu, Nage, Katame, Ju, and Nikata.  Hmm.  sounds like 6 katas 2 months each.
• We will continue our emphasis on aikijo and knife.

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Hirano sensei's interesting kaeshiwaza

At about 5:05 in this video of Hirano Sensei doing Nanatsu no Kata, he does a really interesting counter.  Uke is turning in for something like TKgoshi and Sensei just takes a knee.  Uke falls as if it were a taniotoshi, but tori's action looks like a backwards ukiotoshi.

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So... what name would you guys give that thing?

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Syllabus and drills are encoded in the kata

What does kata give to judo as an art?  A lot of things, but the one I'm thinking about today is - Kata gives your instructor a syllabus and a set of suggested drills - sort of like a set of bullet points on what to teach when.

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Take for instance, Nage no kata.  This kata can serve as a reminder to instructors of appropriate skills to work on...

• Nage shows some suggested possible defenses against three of the most common attacks experienced on the street - an overhand right to the head, a two-handed chest-level grab/push, and an encircling low grappling sort of hug.  Three things that can easily get overlooked if we concentrate too much on how to win tournaments.
• Nage shows a wide range of technical responses - hand throws, hip throws, foot throws, and two kinds of sacrifices.  This is a huge technical range that is easily enough to stretch any instructor into teaching beyond his tokuiwaza.
• Nage shows some lessons about how to vary throws based on uke's resistance - for instance, the ukigoshi-haraigoshi-tsurigoshi sequence.
• Nage shows some lessons about good ways to teach particular actions - for instance, the side-to-side okuriashi action is a good drill to get folks working on okuriashi, but it seems to never occur that way in randori.  In randori it happens stepping around the corner, but it seems to be harder to teach stepping around the corner into okuriashi to beginners whereas the side-to-side okuri is an easy introductory drill.
• Nage teaches uke how to handle a wide variety of falling actions.

The list could go on and on.  So, Nage no kata is like a set of bulleted reminders to the teacher about what to teach and how to try teaching it.

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Ju no kata is the same way.  It's hard to see specific ways that the techniques (as demonstrated) in Ju no kata can be used in randori (which Kano said was its purpose), But when you look at it like a set of reminders of topics and prescribed drills, it makes much more sense instantly.  Take the first technique, for instance.  To be able to do this movement, ...

• Uke and tori must develop a good perception of ma-ai, a smooth, graceful tsugiashi, and an understanding of how to deliver and receive a deceptive attack to the face -  so the 3-step approach works as a drill.
• Tori is learning to yield out of the way and disrupt uke's timing and balance.
• Uke and Tori are both learning a very common reversal for a rear attack and tori is learning how to diffuse that reversal.
• Uke is learning to know when he has been had - while still testing tori's control (by bridging back onto tori)

The fact that this technique is first, and is similar in structure to the rest of Junokata suggests that is a good way to teach any technique - that is,...

• Teach how the technique develops during the transition from hamare to kumi judo.
• Teach the technique from both points of view - uke and tori.
• Make sure that the technique fits the Ju ideal of judo.
• Teach how to reverse it or the weaknesses where the technique can be broken.
• Teach how to recover a broken technique.
• Teach uke how to safely submit when he is truly compromised.

Once you have taught one good (ju-ish) technique from both perspectives(uke and tori), and how to counter it and how to counter the counter and how to submit you now have all you need to start doing randori!

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Major throws on non-dominant side

Every so often someone asks me something about learning throws on their non-dominant side, or someone recommends to me or my students to learn to throw left seoi or left osoto or something. I have mostly resisted this because one of my teachers recommended some years back that we should learn a few small ashiwaza on both sides but probably not major throws like seoinage. He had a few reasons -

• You will always have a dominant and a non-dominant side and regardless of how many reps you put into it, your non-dominant throws will not be as good as your dominant-side throws. 
• It takes more than twice as long to learn a throw on both sides because you need some number of reps on your dominant side and maybe 2-3 times more reps on the non-dominant side just to feel competent. So, learning throws only on your dominant side lets the students progress mroe than twice as fast. 
• You will not miss throwing opportunities only throwing one-sided because any opportunity for left osotogari (for instance) can be thrown by some other throw (right kosotogari comes to mind). 

But regardless, you should be able to throw some portion of your throws on the non-dominant side. There are reasons on this side too -

• Kano intended judo to promote balanced physical development - to teach left and right actions both big and small. Learning to throw on your non-dominant side fits the spirit of judo (gentle, yielding flexibility) the same way that learning 40 ways to throw the guy down fits the spirit of judo better than only practicing 3 (dominant-sided) tokui fits that spirit of judo. 
• It's good for our ukemi skills to be able to take falls on both sides with more-nearly equal facility. 
• It's good for your brain to learn to work both sides of your body. 

Note I'm not saying necessarily that we need to learn to throw all 40 (or 67 or however many) throws on both sides. But for starters, Kano suggested 15 throws that should be learned on both sides (nagenokata)...

• ukiotoshi, ippon seoinage, kataguruma 
• ukigoshi, haraigoshi, TKgoshi 
• okuriashibarai, sasaeTKashi, uchimata 
• tomoenage, uranage, sumigaeshi 
• yokogake, yokoguruma, ukiwaza 

I might add to that some throws from what I consider the kihon of judo...

• deashibarai, kosotogari, hizaguruma, osotogari, ukigoshi 
• kouchigari, ouchigari, ogoshi, seoinage, koshiguruma 

This would suggest that we should work perhaps as much as half of our throws bilaterally. As it is, my pre-nagenokata students mostly only work on a handful of throws on both sides ....

• deashiabarai 
• okuriashibarai 
• hizaguruma 
• kosotogari 
• ukiotoshi 

I don't think I want to blow up my time-in-grade requirements right now by making my students practice half the gokyonowaza on their non-dominant sides, But I do think I want to expand our repertoire some this year. How about we start by devoting significant effort to learning/practicing the following on our non-dominant side this coming year...

• ippon seoinage 
• osotogari 
• ukigoshi 
• kouchigari 

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How you like me now?

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A study - gari-otoshi-guruma-gaeshi-gake

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Happy little trees

Who remembers this fellow?  Bob Ross was an artist who did a PBS show in the 1980's and 1990's - The Joy of Painting.  He was much parodied (even self-parodied) for painting "happy little trees" and painting in "your world,"  but there was real artistry here.

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And not just in the finished paintings.  There was artistry in his technique, and in his selection of tools and media.  There was mastery behind his eyes and artistry in his manner of talking about what he was doing.  There was artistry in the filming of his processes.  So, in the case of Bob Ross's work, what was the artifact - the finished paintings or the film recording of him doing his thing?  Was he a painter or was he a movement/spoken-word artist?  Who was his audience - his own soul or the TV audience or whoever ended up with the finished paintings?

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Artists create artifacts, right? Painters create paintings, dancers create dances...  Some folks say that without producing an artifact for an audience -without that communication between artist and audience - there is no art.  Some of the artifacts are consumed instantly by the audience (e.g. dances, sushi) and some are more durable (e.g. bronzes), but pretty much all artists produce artifacts for an audience.

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So, in the martial arts, it's easy to figure out who is the artist, but what is the medium?  What is the artifact?  Who is the audience?

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Kata for knife defense is big-time B.S.

This thing makes the rounds every so often, and it's a good 4-minute laugh-riot, right? Well, if we are  honest, it makes instructors uncomfortable too, because of the kernel of truth within it.

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In aikido and judo, we often do hand-to-hand randori or sparring with a goal of 50% success rate. That is, I "win" about half the time and the other guy "wins" about half the time. This is not just trading throws (nagekomi), it is managing the intensity and controlling our objectives such that it is a toss-up as to who is going to come out on top in every encounter. If you find yourself throwing the other guy down 80-100% of the time then something is wrong with how you are doing randori. You need to dial it down so that the other guy has a chance to work his material and you need to reconsider what your goals are for randori - maybe work on something besides throwing.

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But when you give uke a knife, if the practice conditions are even remotely realistic, then tori's success rate should plummet to near-zero. The knife is just that good a weapon.

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If, through practice, we can build tori's success rate back up to near 50% while maintaining moderate realism, that is a phenomenal result! That suggests that the addition of a knife wouldn't change the odds much beyond those of a hand-to-hand encounter. That would be superb knife-defense - bordering on amazing!

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I think we get into trouble doing knife-defense in kata (as in Kodokan Goshinjutsu or Tomiki Sankata or Rokukata). In kata, tori is defined to have a 100% success rate and he is forced to look and move a certain way while doing it. The only way this is possible to overcome this double-whammy against a knife-wielding partner is for uke to throw the encounter badly in tori's favor, like Bob is teaching in the video above.

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Therein lies the knife-defense B.S. factor.

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I think kata is the culprit - at least, embu (demonstration) mode kata. Attempting to hit 100% against a knife while moving in a prescribed manner is impossible. But kata is not totally useless - what if we take the kata patterns as starting points and redefine our goals and what we think kata is supposed to be.

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What if kata were a set of pre-arranged starting points for a randori-like drill, in which the goal were to survive (not triumph) about 50% of the time against a live (semi-resistant) partner?  That would be doable!

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By starting with the kata patterns, you are able to reproduce the starting conditions precisely, which allows you to study some particular area of interest.  

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In drills you are allowed (maybe even expected) to fail sometimes - which is unacceptable in kata.  By reducing the target from 100% to 50% you eliminate the ego threat involved in learning to do kata. No longer do you have to worry about failure as an ego threat because a drill is like a game of tag in which you are supposed to lose 50% of the time (because losing is valuable experience too).

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More productive aikido randori

Randori is a funny thing.  Funny-curious - not funny-ha-ha.  It is a lot of different things to different people.  Randori is a test of your skills, an ego-booster and an ego-killer (at the same time), a fun social game...

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For me lately, I've noticed an interesting thing about randori.  I'm tired of throwing people down.  When you throw someone down the randori goes into a different sort of mode, in which no more randori happens until uke gets back up and fixes his suit and wastes a bunch of time, then eventually we get to do another encounter.

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Randori is about accumulation of domain-specific experiences and encounters.  Anything that gets in the way of accumulating experiences (like throwing your partner down) is counter-productive to randori.

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I can hear some of my lazier readers sighing a breath of relief.  He's not gonna make us fall down any more! Not so fast!  Falling is the most important skill, and it is almost the whole game.  There are only about 3 kinds of experiences that we are really interested in during randori - 

• falling down
• getting a arm in a bad bind
• getting punched in the face

If we were to remove the falling down part then the arm-bind face-punch randori would be of limited value and would also get old real quick. 

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So, we have to take falls, but the ensuing getting-up and re-starting part of randori is the biggest time-waster.  There are a few potential solutions...

• Do tsukuri randori - that is, take uke right to the edge of the abyss (kuzushi and tsukuri) but instead of pulling the trigger (kake), allow them to walk out of that back to a viable position.
• Implement a form of groundwork (newaza and/or suwariwaza) such that the encounter can continue after a fall.
• Allow a fallen uke to take tori down or attack from the ground  - again, so that a fall is not an encounter-ender (zanshin).
• Add in another uke or two so that when one is down, the other(s) can continue the randori (sannin randori)
• Yell at uke to get his butt off the ground faster each time (better ukemi).

I suspect we all could benefit from implementing some of those suggestions...

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