Owaza and atemiwaza

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

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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.

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

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Owaza Jupon is the bomb!

I've said it before, probably more times than you care to read, but I just have to re-iterate that Owaza Jupon is by far my favorite exercise in aikido.  This rabbit hole keeps getting deeper and deeper.
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Tonight we spent the whole time on Owaza, doing the techniques from the "standard" fast shomenuchi attack as well as the ryotedori attack that brings in so much of the material and ideas from Koryu Dai Go (see the old video above).

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Lately I have most enjoyed the feel of the looser gurumas - the ones with the most slack between uke and tori - namely udeguruma, shihonage, ushiroate, kotegaeshi, and ushiro kubigatame (#4, 6, 7, 8, and 9).

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Of all the formal exercises that we've been given, Owaza feels the most like real aiki to me.  I love it!

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Kubiguruma as failed shomenate?

Sensei Strange et al are having a nice discussion over on his blog about my favorite kata - Owaza Jupon.  In one of the comments it was mentioned that you can think of kubiguruma as a failure condition for shomenate - in other words, you tried to push uke's face and missed, with your arm passing on the side of uke's head away from his lead arm.

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I've heard this explanation before - try shomenate and you miss so you grab his neck and do kubiguruma. But then I got to thinking... (you smelled smoke, I know)

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Has anyone ever missed shomenate in randori this way?  The only times I ever remember missing shomenate in randori, I'm either being carried away from uke by my momentum so I miss altogether (and I can't grab his head from here) or I try shomenate and uke pushes the hand off his face with his free hand (as in urawaza shomenate countered by wakigatame) - to the wrong side for kubiguruma.

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It's kinda hard to conceive of a situation where shomenate would miss on the kubiguruma side of uke's head and you'd still be in a position to grab his neck.

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Is this my lack of imagination or is this a sort of contrived linkage between shomenate and kubiguruma?

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Now on the other hand, I have done kubiguruma with my hand on uke's face like in shomenate.  Makes for amazing falls. But switching from a failed shomenate to kubiguruma???  I don't know.

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Owaza Jupon, Kondo style

The second set of Owaza Jupon contains three techniques that the student has already learned in Junanahon Kata - shihonage, ushiroate, and kotegaeshi. This repetition is typically justified by saying that these throws are done differently in Owaza - more dynamically and in a separating fashion. Well, Dr. Kondo told us a few weeks ago that this is his students' normal operating mode for Junanahon kata, so he felt the repetition in the second half of Owaza Jupon was un-necessary.

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So, what would you do about the repetitiveness of this kata?

• Would you maintain the repetitive techniques in Owaza?
• Would you drop these three techniques, reducing the ten-point kata to seven points?
• Or would you substitute new techniques into the kata?

Dr. Kondo's take on this was to substitute three new techniques into the second half of the kata in place of shihonage, ushiroate, and kotegaeshi:

• seoinage - much like the seoinage from nagenokata
• osotogari - much like the nanameuchi osotogari from Kodokan Goshin Jutsu
• ushirodori makikomi - similar to the third technique of junokata, but executed with uke doing a rear bearhug.

This made for some really interesting practice, Things I noticed...

• Unless we study nagenokata a good bit, we probably don't spend enough time throwing seoinage, etc... from fast-moving separated attacks (hamarejudo) like in Owaza Jupon.  Even having done nagenokata a good bit, this technique was awkward for me in this particular context.
• Seoinage, if done with a guruma-like emphasis (as would be suggested by throwing this technique into Owaza Jupon) is virtually the same as udeguruma from the first set. This makes for even more repetitiveness in the kata. Speaking of which, I thought it was interesting that the three repeated techniques in the second half of the kata agitated Dr. Kondo but the first three gurumas in the first half (identical except for gripping action) didn't.
• Osotogari was difficult for me to do from this attack with a guruma action. Perhaps osotoguruma would be a better throw in this kata.
• The ushirodori makikomi is really cool - obviously guruma - so it fits well in this context. It also adds another class of attack to the kata (ushirodori) but still illustrates the principles of the exercise (guruma and separation).

 What do you think of the repetitiveness of Owaza Jupon?  What do you think of this particular solution?

 

 

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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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Owaza jupon for multiple randori

Sometimes someone tells you something that you already knew, but changes how they say it just a bit - just enough that it totally casts that knowledge in a different light.  That happened to me a couple of times at the recent Kondo clinic. 

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For one thing, Owaza Jupon - I've been doing this set of techniques since brown belt and It has always been my favorite kata.  It has always seemed more aiki like than the other stuff we did.

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I'd always characterized the kata as an exercise in separation (throwing as you move away from uke) and as an exercise in contrasting otoshi and guruma - and it is both of those things.  This past weekend Dr. Kondo told us that Owaza Jupon was intended to be a multiple opponents type thing.  That it is comprised of techniques that take very little time or commitment so you can do them when you are in a hurry.  That is, these techniques are good for multiple randori because you don't have to get tied up with uke for very long and because they don't tie you up with uke.

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See, I'd always known that it's a separation thing, but hadn't made the connection that the reason you separate is so that you can stay free to keep moving.  Slight spin on the idea, big wow to me.

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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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More Owaza Jupon

Here's a couple more of my students working on Owaza Jupon (10 major throws) from a 2-hand grab entry. I think you'll notice that the exercise flows something like this...

• Uke grabs and tori demonstrates 2 basic themes - turning uke into a backfall (guruma; A.K.A. tenchinage) or stretching him out into a linear fall (otoshi).
• After this, uke grabs and will not allow the previous tenchinage, so tori grabs the arm wherever he can and turns for the other 2 forms of guruma, which look a lot like seoinage.
• The iriminage is missing from this video, but you see the shihonage and ushiroate and kotegaeshi that are characteristic of Owaza and also similar to Koryu Dai Go.
• The shortcut from iriminage into ushiro kubigatame
• shizumiotoshi - clipping a knee if nothing else works

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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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Obviously flawed

So, which way do you duck on shizumiotoshi?  Or, put another way, if you were going to knee-clip someone lunging at you, would you rather clip their front knee or their back knee?  I mentioned in a conversation on YouTube that I'd go for the front knee, like my students demoed on their video and like Kyle does here:

...and Sensei Strange replied that this was flawed and obviously not so good - that you want to go for the back leg like Kyle does here...

Well, Strange, you had me doubting myself there for a few minutes.  I was asking myself, "Where in the world did I get such nutty ideas?"  So I went back to my sources.

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KG, on his instructional video in which LF and Craig demo the Owaza, explicitly says, and emphasizes it over and over, "Aim for the front, unmoving knee so you don't get kicked in the head."  I want to say I've also heard Henry emphasize this in his seminars at MSU, but I don't have video to prove it.

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Of course, KG et al. might not be your ultimate resource, so I went back to Lee Ah Loi's blue kata book and skimmed through it looking for anything roughly like this thing that's in Owaza (anything named sukuinage or senkuinage or tenkai seukui nage, etc...) and found that with the possible exception of one clip in Nikata, all the clips and scoops are done to the front, weightbearing, unmoving leg.

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So my ideas are not necessarily all that obviously flawed.   At least if they are flawed, I'm in pretty good company. ;-)

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You've got a good point, Strange, about the dangerousness of this technique.  There is the potential for injury to whichever knee you clip, even if you do the back knee.  That is why we take precautions:

• Don't do this thing in randori - only in kata and only with a partner who knows it's coming
• Don't go fast - slower is safer
• Don't deliberately try to lock out his knee - drop in front of his knee, perhaps not even touching his leg, but keep in mind that in a bad spot you could have dropped on the knee.
• Don't try to make these things look like some imagined conception of "reality."  Trying to make these things look more realistic is a great way to get hurt or hurt someone else.

I think the most surprising thing you said, Strange, in your comment, was that you could cover your head with your hand to keep from getting kicked.  Really?  You'd jump headfirst into a knee strike from a guy who is lunging at you, confident that you could block that knee?  You're a ninja for sure.  I'm slow and I'd sure rather hide my head beside the guy's weightbearing, unmoving leg.

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I'm enjoying this conversation with you and Kyle.  I think you and Kyle both have great knowledge and skill and interesting POV's on this thing.  I guess the bottom line is, like Kyle said, you can do it either way, and he didn't say one was right and the other wrong, just that they demonstrate different principles or different degrees of otoshi and guruma.

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So, anyone else have an opinion or idea about this sort of movement?  Leave me a comment and share.

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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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The otoshi and the guruma that aren't

The other day, in our explorations of otoshi and guruma in judo and in aikido, we came across a couple of interesting examples of otoshi and guruma.  Interesting in that they really suck as examples of these two types of motion.  Kataguruma doesn't appear to have much to do with guruma motion and shizumiotoshi doesn't seem to have much to do with otoshi.  I sure would like some of you smart folks to tell me what makes kataguruma a guruma when it feels so much like an otoshi?

And shizumiotoshi feels really guruma, so why is it an otoshi?


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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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ABG 2009 - Sessions 7 and 8

I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to see my aiki buddies this past few days and getting to work in such detail on my avorite of all the aikido exercises - Owaza Jupon

• Session 7 - Owaza from the classical lunging through ma-ai attack.
• Session 8 - Owaza from ryotemochi attack.

Lord, deliver me from any more budo this year!

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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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ABG 2009 - Session 6

Perhaps we picked too much material for this clinic - We'd intended to do sankata and owaza, but we've made such a meal out of owaza that we ended up not spending much time on sankata. Tonight's session was sankata section A - suwariwaza

• oshitaoshi
• gyakugamaeate
• kotegaeshi
• sukuinage
• tenkai kotehineri
• shihonage
• gedanate
• hijikime

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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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ABG 2009 - Session 5 - video

Warmed up with ryotemochi tenchinage and then played all the Owaza material from ryotemochi.  This is really a fabulous way to reduce the intensity of the exercise so that you can work on this material without taking so much punishment from the ukemi.  Good way to focus on the concepts surrounding Owaza - namely otoshi and guruma.

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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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ABG 2009 - Session 4

Warmed up with an easy version of guruma - ryotemochi tenchinage, then moved into the second half of Owaza - the SUKUS techniques:

• shihonage
• ushiroate
• kotegaeshi
• ushiro kubigatame
• shizumiotoshi

This was followed by a super-fun session of standing judo randori.  I started seeing koshiguruma popping up in randori from having practiced it earlier today!
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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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ABG 2009 - Session 3

Warmed up with an otoshi-guruma version of kotegaeshi then moved into Owaza working on the gurumas from the POV of throwing with progressively greater slack between uke and tori.

• kubiguruma
• udeguruma
• hijiguruma
• kataguruma

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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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ABG 2009 - Session 2

Warmed up with the guruma entry for the floating throws from junana, then moved into the otoshi-guruma concept:

• kata otoshi
• kubiguruma
• koshiguruma
• ashiguruma
• hizaguruma
• taiotoshi

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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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