Deashibarai & gyakugamaeate - perfect first day lessons

Why is deashibarai the first technique of the gokyo?  I have wondered this for a long time, and (in my spare time) sought an answer.  I've come up with a couple of possible answers.

• The timing and footwork and mechanics of deashibarai teaches the timing and footwork and mechanics skills for all the rest of the throws.

• Deashibarai is easy to teach beginners to throw in a controlled manner so that the thrower can act as a spotter for first-day fallers with highly imperfect ukemi skills.  I demonstrated just last night that with five minutes of sit-and-rock and controlled backfall instruction and 5 minutes of technical instruction on deashi, first day beginners can practice throwing and receiving deashibarai in a mutually beneficial manner.  These same beginners spent about 20 minutes during their very first class doing real randori with deashi.  Win!

For a long time - basically forever - we've heard and taught that shomenate is the first thing we teach in Tomiki aikido because it is a good backup plan whenever the other techniques go wrong, and that the mechanics of shomenate teach the mechanics of the rest of Junana.  I'm not sure, though, that is the whole story.

.

What if we look in larger, broader chunks?  We're not really teaching (just) shomenate first.  We are teaching atemiwaza (what the rest of the aikido world calls iriminage) first - and that is a great first lesson that handles a ton of problems.  Basically it is a programmed response that says, "Any time an attacker gets inside ma-ai, get slightly off line, grab his face however you can, and throw yourself on top of him."

.

Shomenate is one of several forms of atemiwaza/iriminage that we teach first, but gyakugamae-ate has some benefits for first-day practice that suggest we might save shomenate for a bit later.

• Gyakugamae-ate places us in the much-preferable shikaku (behind the arm) position, which we would like to teach early for self-defense reasons.

• Gyakugamae-ate allows the first-day thrower to help the first-day faller to the ground in a controlled manner to a much greater degree than shomenate.  Shomenate is more of a smash-your-way-out-of-a-bad-situation backup technique.

Guess what we're going to be working on tonight at aikido class and Thursday at judo class?

Want to discuss this blog post?
Come find me on Facebook at my Mokuren Dojo FB group

____________________
Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

To strike the un-strikeable strike

So, in my previous post I basically said that Aiki guys need to use strikes to be "real martial artists", but not really.  Some of my readers jumped in on my FB group and said, "That's stupid, there's nothing keeping an Aiki-guy from knocking someone senseless (in a loving harmonious way) if'n they so desire.

.

You guys are catching onto a couple of my big secrets...

1. I am not infallible in my opinions - sometimes I'm even completely full of B.S.
2. No blog post is complete - that's the nature of the beast.  In fact, the most successful blog posts are selective enough to stir enough controversy to elicit a reader response.

But, let's get back to the idea of atemi - to smash or not to smash.  I gave several rules of thumb yesterday about why percussive atemi is non-preferable in aikido.  Today maybe we could point out and discuss some specific instances where we like the effects we get from percussion.  Here's a handful of my favorites that might not be as intuitive as a knuckle in the nose...

• I am a big fan of the outward hammer from naihanchi/tekki applied to the corner of a jaw.  I frequently tell folks if they end up on the inside in control of one arm and want to slow down or eliminate the threat of the other arm, to turn uke's face away by pushing (or hammering) on the opponent's jaw.  This is one of my favorite atemi in aiki situations.
• I also enjoy cuffing ears with a cupped palm - certainly not on ukes or partners, but I will often indicate in iriminage where the head grab could just as well be a percussion to uke's far eardrum if you needed to disorient him more or dispose of him sooner.  This air-pressure cuffing strike is also extremely disorienting when applied to the orbit of an eye.
• I have found that a straight, open-handed strike/push to uke's hip joint can be very disruptive and helpful in situations like kaitennage, udehineri, gedanate, or sukuinage.

How about you guys - where do you find some unusual atemi in aiki encounters?

photo courtesy of SigurdR

Want to discuss this blog post?
Come find me on Facebook at my Mokuren Dojo FB group

____________________
Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Thoughts on aikido atemiwaza

I've said before, several times, that atemi (striking) is a vital part of aikido - at least aikido that is done as a martial art or self-defense.  Remove the strikes from aikido and it becomes an especially boring form of modern dance.

.

But I've also said before, atemi is probably not what you think of as a typical martial arts strike.  Even bloggers as dumb as Sensei Strange have figured this out. ;-)

.

It turns out there are about 2 different ideas about striking in martial arts - 

• percussive impacts intended to cause severe structural damage - what you think of as karate and boxing strikes.
• non-percussive bumps and pushes intended to distract and disrupt the opponent's balance and posture - like you may see more often in jujitsu and aikido

There are plusses and minuses to both kinds of striking techniques.  Whichever one you favor, you can certainly find some justification for it - but whichever one you favor also has some potential problems to consider.

• Percussive atemi is direct and intuitive and fairly quick and easy to learn.  Percussive strikes can also end a fight very quickly.  So boxing and karate may be a shorter path to quick self-defense than aikido atemi.  It also makes you feel powerful to be able to defend yourself with your fists - so that may appeal to some folks.
• But in a litigious society, percussive atemi may create legal entanglements.  I know a fellow that was blind-sided and managed to collect himself enough to lash out with a hook punch, breaking his assailant's jaw.  Even though there were witnesses and it was a clear-cut case of self-defense, the assailant still sued.  It may be more defensible in cases like this to be able to say, "He attacked me and I was afraid so I pushed him away and I guess he fell down."  Pushes also look more innocuous to witnesses than do skilled-looking punches.
• Punching is a higher-precision activity than pushing or bumping. Pushing someone is a much grosser motor skill than punching, and is a much more easily retained skill under pressure than punching properly.
• Pushing is a more automatic, autonomous response than punching.  If you push against a mammal, they tend to push back automatically, whereas, surprised people often have to collect themselves a bit to prepare themselves to punch or kick.
• With punching, there is greater potential for self-injury.  That is largely why boxers tape and pad their hands.  People that fight with bare fists tend to get their hands cut up if not broken.  These particular injuries don't often occur to people that fight open-handed.
• There is less potential for control with percussive strikes.  Since there is no way to know just how much force you need to put on someone to disable them, the common strategy is to generate maximal force and apply it to the opponent's weakest spots.  This means greater potential for injury and less potential for control.

From reading those bullet points, I'm sure that you can tell that I personally favor the non-percussive aikido-type atemi.  It's no skin off my back if you disagree - I'm sure there are a lot of kick-punch folks that could beat me up.  But per my analysis, the benefits of non-percussive atemi clearly outweigh the benefits of percussive atemi.

What do y'all think?

photo courtesy of Germaine

Want to discuss this blog post? 

Come find me on Facebook at my Mokuren Dojo FB group 

 ____________________
Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Modality in randori

I got the opportunity this past weekend to do a lot of toshu randori with some amazing players - some of whom I don't get to lay hands on very often and some of whom I'd never met.  A couple of observations about our randori in general...

.

The modality of randori was really noticeable this weekend.  By that, I mean, we seem to have aikido mode (longer ranges, less power, more flowing, more atemi) and judo mode (closer, tighter, stronger, more mechanical offbalances).  Most everyone at this randori was comfortable in both modes and we were switching pretty freely between modes - going from far to close to kneeling to newaza and back as the situations developed.

.

But the fact that the two modes exist sorta bothers me.  Frequently when I found myself getting stuck making mistakes and taking falls it was because I got in my mind that we were playing within one mode and my partner would switch modes on me.  It didn't really frustrate me because it was all good experiential, experimental randori whether I was throwing or falling, but it did make me curious.  We would like to be non-modal (aikido=judo=same thing) but we are not.

.

A second thing I noticed was, I suppose, an artifact of new randori partners that had never met or played with each other.  In my club, when we are practicing aikido randori and an atemi to the face comes up, we frequently are not trying to use that atemi to throw the other guy down.  We have an understanding between partners that if I can touch your face and keep my hand there for a second or two, then I could have gouged an eye.  So, if I make face contact for a couple of seconds, the other guy takes a fall.

.

Some of my randori partners were used to playing in a different mode (there's those modes again).  I suppose they were used to our face-touches being either percussive atemi or throws - like mechanical knock-downs.  So, they would often let me lay a hand on their face for a couple of seconds and they would look at me like I was an idiot as they proceeded to pluck my hand off their face and throw me down with a hineri.

.

Again, I'm not complaining about being thrown or not "winning" - I just thought this was an interesting thing.  Depending on how you look at the atemi (eye attack vs. throw) we were both "winning."  But we were also both discounting something important.  I should definitely watch out for some sharp opponent grabbing my atemi, and my partners probably ought to watch out for the potential for a fight-ending eye gouge.

Photo (which doesn't really have anything to do with this article - I just think it's a beautiful pic) courtesy of Stefan Schmitz.

Want to discuss this blog post?
Come find me on Facebook at my Mokuren Dojo FB group

____________________
Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Helpful handful - shomenate (redux)

I love having new white belt students! They make me revisit and rethink how I present the basic fundamentals.  I have a theory that you can find the best Aikido teacher in the world by finding the one person who has brought the most students through the white belt material.  And I think I'm definitely in the running for that position! :-)

So, last night we were working on shomenate.  I've done this helpful handful before, but here are the things that I was emphasizing last night...

1. Kuzushi-tsukuri-kake - these elements might show up in different orders or they might develop all at once, but you have to have all three.
2. Get uke's chin lifted fully, so they are looking at the sky instead of you.  When they can't see you its harder for them to continue attacking.  Plus, lifting the chin locks the spine, which then becomes a great lever for you to use to move their center of mass away from you.
3. Step both of your feet all the way between and beyond uke's feet.
4. Don't add the little extra oomph with your shoulder at the end.  If dropping your entire mass onto their locked spine is not enough to blast them, then a little extra shove from the shoulder won't be either - plus you can wreck your own posture and maybe hurt your partner's neck.
5. Uke - take the fall. Take a step or two back to absorb some of the force, then sit down.  This gets you lots of practice falling from one of the most severe back falls you'll ever have to take, and it allows Tori to learn to apply his mass over a full range of motion.

Chicken or egg

I've been thinking a bit about the timing of events in the first two techniques of Junanahon kata.  The way that I teach these techniques, they start off with the same actions - as uke invades ma-ai, tori gets his hands up between his face and uke's, and tori also steps off the line of attack toward the inside.  But tori ends up in different places with respect to uke in these two techniques.  In shomenate, tori ends up inside uke's arm and in aigamaeate, tori ends up outside uke's arm. 

Same actions place tori in two different places. Sorta like Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park lecturing whats-her-name about chaos theory - microscopic differences cause the water to run off of her hand in different directions.

But it turns out that it's not just how uke and tori happen to knock together that drives these two techniques. The timing of tori's actions tends to place him either in front of or behind uke.

Tori's step out of the way has a wave like, down up quality. As a general rule, Tori wants to synch the rise and fall of his arms with the rise and fall of his body so that he is not raising his arms as he is dropping out of the way.  This means that he can either raise his hands then drop out of the way, or he can drop out of the way then raise his hands.

If Tori raises his hands then moves, he tends to end up behind uke's arm - aigamaeate  If he drops out of the way, then raises his hands, he tends to end up inside uke's arm - shomenate.

Photo courtesy of Nicolas B

Shomenate variations

Interesting footwork dealing with people who want to fade back and around your shomenate.  Notice how this tori is able to remain squared up on uke's weak line as uke moves about.

____________________
Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

My kids working shomenate

Trying a new thing... Posting video from the Android...

Owaza and atemiwaza

It's cool how every single aikido class gets better and better.  We literally have no mundane classes at our dojo.

.

Tonite for half the class we worked on owaza #1-5 from 2-wrist grab conditions, then for the second half we worked on junana 1-5 using a cool teaching method that Usher-san showed this weekend.  Nice flow, good intensity, plenty of falling, and decent repetition.

.

It's really cool having the best aikido class and the best aikido teacher around right here at our school!

____________

601.248.7282  ~ Subscribe ~ Facebook ~ Twitter ~  email

Shomenate - foundation of aikido

Shomenate is the first "real technique" that we teach beginner aikidoka because it is foundational to the rest of aikido practice but also because it is just about the best fall-back self-defense technique there is. Here are a couple of hints to make the most of your shomenate.

• Extend uke's neck fully - Remember, you don't want to press horizontally backward on uke's face. Instead you want to use your palm under his chin to tilt his bead backward so that his spine is locked into an upward-looking position. This makes it harder for uke to attack you (he can't see you), it is disorienting, and it gives you tremendous leverage on uke's center through his locked spine. From this position you press horizontally backward through uke.
• Tori, extend your step through uke - You want to take a larger-than normal step through uke's feet with both of your feet. If you leave one foot back then you sap power out of the throw. Try to get both of your feet past the line of uke's heels. Try to get your second foot (recovery step) in there as fast as possible. This sort of feels like a hop, but not upward - your direction of travel is downward and forward between uke's feet.
• Uke, yield and fall - take a step back and sit down. Oftentimes if tori is nice to you, it would be possible to step back and not fall, but this can spoil your learning effect. You want to take this time to learn how to handle this fall so that it is not as severe, so ... take the fall!

 [photo courtesy of Ashley Rose]

____________

601.248.7282  ~ Subscribe ~ Facebook ~ Twitter ~  email

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.

.

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...

____________

601.248.7282  ~ Subscribe ~ Facebook ~ Twitter ~  email

Situational karate combinations

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

.

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.)

.

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.

.

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.

____________

601.248.7282  ~ Subscribe ~ Facebook ~ Twitter ~  email

Tomiki's atemi isn't very striking, is it?

A student sent me an interesting question the other day...

...[haven't] I always heard the first 5 techniques in Ju Nana are Atemi waza? If that's the case, I was just thinking about Ushiro......how is that atemi, if indeed it is?

Ushiroate, as seen above performed by Tomiki Sensei, basically just involves pulling the guy down from behind.  You certainly aren't hitting the guy, so why is this thing classified with the atemiwaza (striking techniques).  This question pops up a lot.

.

I've heard some instructors say that these are defenses against strikes - not that they are strikes themselves. I don't buy that because a) the atemiwaza can be easily applied against wrist grabs, etc..., and b) the whole of junana can be considered defense against strikes.  That is certainly no basis for classifying these five techniques.

.

There are also some instructors who point out that Tomiki probably had a different idea about atemi than we do.  He certainly did not mean atemi to be a "chop uke in the nose," damaging impulse type strike.  Ate in Japanese does mean to strike, but it also implies things like,"touch" or  "apply." This creates enough linguistic give in the category of "striking techniques" to allow something like ushiroate to be grouped here.

.

The answer I gave - the one that makes the most sense to me - is that the atemiwaza category contains both direct strikes and immediate consequences (variations/combinations/followups) to those direct strikes.  The atemiwaza starts with three ways to attack the face directly in order to get an off balance and get control of uke's center.  If you practice randori trying just those first 3 things, the next two things will rapidly evolve. Gedanate happens when uke will not allow you to hit his face, and ushiroate happens if uke crowds you too much.

.

So, since #4 and #5 are natural consequences of the first three fundamental atemi, they are grouped together.  The atemiwaza includes 3 strikes and 2 what-if's.

____________

601.248.7282  ~ Subscribe ~ Facebook ~ Twitter ~  email

Helpful handful: how to improve your atemi

In aikido randori, we sort of have a gentleman's agreement about atemi. If you can get your hand(s) onto the other guy's face and your body structure is right for an atemi, then in friendly randori you can pretty much consider that a "win" even if the timing or spacing isn't perfect. In this situation, you could have gouged eyes, pushed him down, or landed an impact atemi. So, if you can touch his face, he pretty much falls down and you win by default.

.

This unwritten rule works pretty good for aikido training, but it can lead to some problems - some laxity in your attitude about your strikes. If you are going to play "friendly rules randori" like this, then you owe it to yourself to be absolutely ruthless with yourself when you are practicing your kata, in hopes that you can avoid some of that mental laxity.

Following are five points to follow religiously to get the most effect out of your atemiwaza...

• timing - only strike on a footfall. If you strike as he is picking up a foot or as he is standing on one leg hovering the other foot, then he can step with your strike, reducing the effect. Land your strike the instant his foot hits the ground.
• kuzushi - only strike after a previous initial offbalance. Don't strike out of the blue. Get an offbalance and then strike on his recovery.
• direction - only strike on an offbalance line. As he puts a foot down, either strike in the direction of the line of his feet, or strike perpendicular to that line.
• gravity - add a whole-body drop to each strike. Take at least one short step with both feet at the moment of the strike.
• leave uke hanging - don't hold onto uke during the strike. This can give him support.

____________

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

____________

Send me an email or let's connect on Facebook or Twitter

Invisible shomenate

In yesterday's article I enumerated several benefits of doing shomenate by swinging an unbendable arm in an arc upward to uke's face instead of in a straight line, like a boxing jab. Today I wanted to mention another benefit to the vertical arc approach as opposed to a straight line approach from a boxer's guard.

.

You usually think about blind spots being in the outside corners of your eyes, beside and behind you. But you actually have a blind spot below your nose and chin. How many of you, when looking forward (or even a little bit downward) can see your own chest or your own lips? Your nose and jaw blocks your vision of this area! In aikido this is called shikaku (lit. "dead zone" or more figuratively, "blind spot").

.

Swinging shomenate in a vertical arc keeps your hand and forearm in uke's blind spot the whole time. On the other hand, if you do a palm jab from a boxer's guard position, your arms are in uke's vision the whole time. This is part of why shomenate is so darned sneaky. If you do it right, they literally never see it coming! They might see your shoulder move (but with the rest of your arm in uke's blind spot, that's hardly a telegraph) and then suddenly your hand is under their chin and your fingers are in their eyes.

.
Want to see more of my ideas about shomenate? Check out these articles...

• Five hints for a better shomenate
• Shomenate as a gross motor skill
• Shomenate is 65% of aikido

____________

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

____________

Send me an email or let's connect on Facebook or Twitter

Shomenate - direct but not straight

In karate we drilled from day one that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. We were taught to strike in a straight line from where your fist is to where the target is. Today I am reading a historical boxing manual, which includes an elegant chapter on "hitting straight." And this got me to thinking about shomenate.

.

In a some ways, you can consider shomenate ro be roughly the aikido equivalent of the boxing jab, but it does not go straight from the initial position to the target.

.

In the basic kata form, starting from arms relaxed at sides, the wrists pull back and the unbendable arm swings up to the opponent's face (or to parry the lead arm). The palm is not travelling straight to the target, but is describing a slight arc. It would be possible to train aikidoka to follow a straighter path in shomenate, but there are benefits to the way it is done - benefits that would be lost if we were to mimic the boxing jab more closely.

• Fast enough: The path in shomenate is sufficiently straight that the difference in time between the straight path and the curved path is miniscule.
• Simpler: The way we do shomenate only requires we coordinate the use of one joint - the shoulder. A straight-path palm jab would require us to coordinate bending and straightening of the elbow as well as the shoulder.  Doubling the complexity of the motor skill would increase learning time and reduce reliability.
• Stronger: By only using the shoulder muscles to lift the arm into shomenate, we are restricting the muscle activity to larger, more centrally-located muscles. The straight palm jab would shift part of that load to smaller, more distal muscles of the arm.

So, although shomenate is not technically the shortest path, it is close enough to straight for our purposes. I guess you could call it a direct strike rather than a straight one.

 

____________

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

____________

Send me an email or let's connect on Facebook or Twitter

Aikido is 100% atemi!

A while back I mentioned the old aphorism that "atemi solves 80% of the problems in aikido," and I got a response from someone along the lines of, "What? Are you nuts? Do you really think that hitting people in the face will ever solve any problems in aikido?" At the time I didn't respond, but it's funny how this sort of thing roils in my mind for a while until I decide that I really do want to respond.

.

So, why in the world would someone think that atemi accounted for most of aikido?

.

Sensei Strange, an aiki blogger that I try to keep up with, mentioned in a previous post (sorry I didn't dig up the link) that he thought aikido is primarily about kuzushi. Another blogospheric aikidoka, LF Wilkinson, stated in a previous post (again, I didn't dig up the link for you) that aikido was all about 3 things - timing, ma-ai, and kuzushi.

.

Do you see some common ground developing here? Five out of every four sensei surveyed state that kuzushi is a critical element of aikido. I've written before that kuzushi is critical (though I don't think it is the only important principle or even the most important).  This aiki=kuzushi idea is pretty common.

.

Consider what it takes to effect a kuzushi - you have to exert some force (sometimes very little) against uke with a certain timing and in a certain direction.

.

If the force is exerted over a prolonged period of time, then uke can receive support from you, nullifying the kuzushi. The force must be a sudden-on, sudden-off sort of thing. So, you are really talking about creating a jolt or shock or bump on uke at a certain time and in a certain direction.

.

What does a "timed, directed jolt of force against uke" sound like? To me it sounds like a strike. Atemi.

.

Thus, to the extent that aikido relies on kuzushi, it relies on atemi because all kuzushi is atemi (except for the no-touch stuff, but even that is generally done by making uke think you are about to hit him).

.

Maybe shomenate (chin jab or frontal face strike) itself only solves 80% of problems in aikido, but aikido in general is nearly 100% atemi. There are no techniques in aikido that you can do without jolting uke into unbalance.
.
Bet you never thought of aikido as a striking art!

____________

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

____________

Send me an email or let's connect on Facebook or Twitter

Using the startle reaction

One of the ideals in aikido is to make use of simple, natural motions because this makes your art easier to do as well as being more reliable under stress. One example of this is our use of the startle response.

.

When surprised by a sudden sound or movement, the typical reaction includes:

• bend elbows - this results in the hands being rapidly brought in front of the throat and face in a protective gesture
• bend knees - this results in the body starting to fall backwards, presumably away from the threatening stimulus.

There are numerous other automatic reactions throughout the body, but the most interesting and useful part of the startle response is to start moving back as the hands shoot up between the face and the threat.

.

It is possible to deaden your response to surprising stimuli, as in the children's game where you try to stand still while someone feigns slapping you in the face. Little boys like to be the" tough guy" who can stand still in the face of an oncoming strike, or else be the guy who "made the other guy flinch."

.

But this startle response is hardwired into your nervous system, so why bother trying to overcome it? It is amazingly rapid, reliable, and effective, so let's learn to use it. You don't really want to fall back into a fetal position when threatened, but maybe we can learn to gently steer our innate startle reaction to be even more useful. Here's the direction that we try to steer the reaction:

• as your hands come up between your face and the threat, turn your palms toward the threat and extend your arms as if to push the threat away.
• as you start falling, shift your weight so that you fall to the side or forward instead of straight back.

This type of modified startle reaction results in you automatically stepping out of the way, blocking the centerline, and attacking the face of the attacker (assuming a human threat). You will make your aikido much more robust and reliable if you can work on making all your techniques start with this type of motion. Once you play with this for a while, you will find yourself automatically entering with a 2-handed shomenate (chin jab/eye gouge) when threatened, then falling into an appropriate technique.

____________

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

____________

Send me an email or let's connect on Facebook or Twitter

Where is the initial kuzushi for shomenate?

So, how do you usually practice shomenate?

.

What I'm specifically asking about is the direction of the initial offbalance.  Let me describe it for a sec...

.

In shomenate, uke lunges through ma-ai and tori slips out of the way moving roughly 45 degrees forward and inside the punch.  Tori uses his lead hand to parry the punch, switches hands, and pushes uke's face in to make him fall backward.

.

So the question: as uke's lead foot touches and you parry with your lead hand, do you push uke's arm the direction of his feet or  perpendicular to his feet toward the rear?

.

How do you do it?

____________

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

____________

Send me an email or let's connect on Facebook or Twitter

How to gain or lose weight instantly

Heavier guys hit harder.  Sure, there are small people that can hit hard - some can hit harder than much larger people, but in general the larger you are the harder you hit.  This is why there are weight classes in contact sports, and why weight is valued in such sports.

.

The problem with getting larger in order to hit harder is that it takes a lot of time and effort to gain sufficient mass to hit a lot harder - plus, you have the potential to become overweight, which we all know can take forever to recover from.

.

What if I could teach you how to instantly get significantly heavier for just long enough to hit someone really hard, then just as instantaneously lose that weight?  Sound useful?

.

Try this.  Stand on an analog scale and pulse your feet downward to make the needle jump upward.  You can do this by bending and straightening your knees so fast that you only drop an inch or two - almost as if you instantly retracted your landing gear and then extended them again, just 2 inches shorter.  When your mass drops onto the scale the needle jumps up. (you might want to get a cheap or old analog scale because this exercise is likely to destroy it.)

.

Sure, you're not actually gaining mass, but you are allowing your mass to interact nearly-instantaneously with gravity, which creates an effective increase in weight.  During that drop, you are effectively heavier and can hit harder. 

.

For a fun exercise/demo, extend an unbendable arm, palm-outwards and touch a punching bag.  Then practice dropping weight and directing the reverberation through your body into the bag in sort of a zero-inch punch.  I bet you find that the better you get at making the scale needle jump, the more effect you'll get on the punching bag.

.
Once you get this skill to the point that you can get some good effect on the punching bag, I bet you can find places you can apply this trick in karate, judo , or aikido.

____________

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

____________

Send me an email or let's connect on Facebook or Twitter