Kotegaeshi is a pain in the...ahem... wrist

For some reason, kotegaeshi has always been one of the 1-2 most onerous things to teach.  Beginners to kotegaeshi are often scared of the elevated fall, which makes them tighten up and then their wrist seizes and it hurts more, which reinforces the fear of the thing.  

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I often teach versions that sit uke down in an easy backfall, but eventually they are going to encounter the forward elevated version, and then I feel like I'm not doing them any favors babying them with the gentle backfalls.

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I've got a new crop of folks just ready to deal with kotegaeshi so I'm back to trying to figure out the best way to teach the thing.  I've been thinking about the suwariwaza version...  Any ideas?

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Shihonage is a chimera

A while back I went to a seminar with a highly-ranked instructor and the seminar topic was the last section of junanahon kata - floating throws. Well, the instructor walks out on the mat and said, "Okay, floating throws... Let's start with shihonage." And immediately my internal alarms went off. See, in the Tomiki scheme of things, shihonage was classified as a wrist throw, not one of the floating throws (maeotoshi, sumiotoshi, hikiotoshi). Of course, we went along for the ride and had a great practice, but I kept wondering why he'd decided to throw shihonage in with the floating throws.

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Of course, you can learn to apply the floating throw principles in any throw...

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And shihonage does share the same distinctive form of offbalance with the other floating throws in Tomiki's kata...

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But I still kept wondering. And I think I have realized that shihonage is a chimera - part one thing and part another. Shihonage shares characteristics with both the wrist techniques and the floating throws.

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In its role as a chimera it points both directions. It suggests that your floating throws can benefit from some greater wrist control and your wrist techniques can become more floaty. You can apply ideas from either set to the other.

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I saw the same thing at the recent Kondo seminar when Dr. Kondo threw me with shihonage. It was a wrist technique - definite wrist control - but he floated me into that wrist control and used the wrist control to maintain and prolong the float. Then the actual turn and throw happened on the next otoshi - just like a floating throw.

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Notice shihonage's position in the kata also suggests its role as chimera. It is the last item in the wrist set and just before the floating set. As an exercise, you might consider how the last technique of each set can be thought of as a chimera. How is ushiroate like an elbow technique? How is wakigatame like a wrist control? How is hikiotoshi similar to the next kata (Owaza Jupon)?

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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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Nishio shihonage - with sword and stave

Whoa! This is really interesting instruction. We practiced shihonage today in the later aikido class (again, a little different form than this) but Nishio's instruction and performance here is superb. Especially interesting at the very end is his performance of this technique with the ken and with the jo.

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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
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Helpful handful: Ichikata as an intro to power

Photo courtesy of BekiPeti

Power can be defined as the ability to make something move or get something done. One of the fundamental theories of aikido and judo is that people's power is always ebbing and flowing, waxing and waning as we move. The techniques that we do are timed based on the ebb and flow of the opponent's power.

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Suwariwaza (kneeling technique) is one way to see this phenomenon in action. For instance, in Ichikata, the first five techniques are suwari, and they vary in their timing condition with respect to uke's build-up and application of power.

• Suwari oshitaoshi (provocative timing) – tori catches uke sitting back, all the way down, before uke has started building power. Tori attacks uke's face, provoking a response that tori uses to throw uke. As such, tori is well ahead of uke in the timing of this technique. Basically, tori overwhelms uke before uke can build up a resistance.
• Suwari tenkai oshitaoshi – uke attacks tori's face and tori rises with a rising block but uke is not so far ahead in timing that tori is overwhelmed. Still, because tori is behind he cannot run over uke as before so he turns out of the way and throws uke. Tori has successfully played catch-up.
• Suwari tekubiosae – uke attacks tori's face and tori is ever farther behind. Finding himself in the hole, tori knows he'd better not try to apply power, so he fades around and moves with uke's arm until uke's power peters out and tori's power is relatively high. Then tori pins uke.
• Suwari ryotedori sukuinage – here tori is absolutely caught flat and dead (energy-wise) and uke grasps both of tori's wrists. Tori retracts his wrists, slipping uke into off-balance and activating uke's back muscles, which tori can then follow into a pin.
• Suwari ryotedori sukuinage (juntai timing) – this is an odd exercise in timing. Tori is actually pulling uke up from the previous pin and getting in synch with him as he rights himself so that the throw on the opposite side happens immediately as uke regains his knees.

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Fundamental judo and magical aikido

Judo with Todd

• ROM, ukemi
• footsweep to control with emphasis on bumping uke to get his front foot floating and then reaching out and touching his foot to see if he is really floating or not.
• deashibarai uchikomi early and late
• deashibarai uchikomi - 2 of any variation on one side and one on the other.  This really develops the feel of randori because of the type of synchronization
• osotogari - four variations that allow tori to throw uke right-sided no matter what foot uke is moving or what direction.

Aikido with Todd

• tegatana, slightly faster than normal with emphasis on keeping a dynamic tension between floating and weightedness.  This tends to draw you upright into a perfect shizentai (natural posture) 
• releases with emphasis on #6 and 8 as ways to get into the #2 and #4 positions by following when uke does something wrong.  That sort of makes the kata 4 repetitions of a pure release form followed by four in which you have to synch and follow along with uke until you can find the place to turn into the position from the pure release form.
• chain #3, including near and far wakigatame and near and far kotegaeshi
• ichikata section B, techniques 1-3 (oshitaoshi and tenkai kotehineri) with emphasis on using ki bumps to diffuse uke's strength so you can walk around it, breaking down his posture.  This stuff is pure magic, amazing how tori can move around uke's strength.  Great example of how inappropriate  strength destroys uke.

Training log

Judo with Todd - ROM, ukemi, footsweep to control, deashibarai, kosotogari, ukigatame, ground mobility cycle

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Aikido with Kel, Todd, Jesse, and Justin - ROM, ukemi, tegatana, evasion&brush-off, release#1, shomenate, suwari oshitaoshi, tekubiosae

Magical kotegaeshi night

Aiki with Kel and Whit

• ROM
• tegatana with emphasis on balls of feet and the 'washing the mirror' exercise
• we worked 'washing the mirror' into a sort of general-purpose evasion and offbalance program using attacking partners
• gyakugamaeate
• chain#3 including wakigatame, kotegaeshi, and gyakugamaeate
• variations on kotegaeshi with emphasis on taking the slack out of the arm without crushing the arm, striking to induce a vibration in uke, then following the vibration. (the magic kotegaeshi)  We also played with siilar mechanics in the suwari munetsuki kotegaeshi from sankata.
• We ended up tying it all together with kotegaeshi from owaza, using the 'washing the mirror' idea, getting in synch, and throwing on the step
  

Floating throws again

Aikido with Kel

• ROM, ukemi
• Tegatana with emphasis on hip-width steps
• Hanasu with emphasis on synching and moving with uke – particularly on #2 and #4
• Preview of floating throws – kotetaoshi, maeotoshi, sumiotoshi (& variants), hikitaoshi. I let Kel do most of the reps of these things so he could get the feel of the motion and so I could do some ukemi.
• Review of Kel’s rank material – elbow techniques – oshitaoshi, udegaeshi, hikitaoshi, udehineri (& variants), wakigatame (& variants)

Floating throws

Aiki with Patrick M.

• ROM, ukemi with emphasis on falling/rolling as natural extension of a step that has been extended as in a floating throw
• tegatana with emphasis on constant, standard-sized steps as opposed to extended (floating) steps
• hanasu with emphasis on tori blending, following, and extending one of uke's steps.  We especially worked this idea with releases #2 and #4 because these are the releases that set up the floating throws at the end of Nijusan.
• Floating throws including kotetaoshi, maeotoshi, sumiotoshi, and hikiotoshi.  Because of Patrick's 1-armed aiki, there appears to be only one of the sumiotoshi variants that he ever gets into and he is unable to do hikiotoshi without great modification.  He ends up doing a guruma version of ushiroate from owaza in place of hikiotoshi and it works great!  We played with tenchinage as a variant of sumiotoshi a little bit.
• Cool technique of the night was suwariwaza menuchi tekubiosae.

Aiki practice tonight

Aiki with Kel

• ROM, ukemi
• tegatana emphasizing walking on the balls of the first two rays of the feet. Also looking for the combinations of moves that can be trailed together into one long French Curve.
• hanasu with emphasis on following uke's curve on #6 and #8 instead of picking some arbitrary place to turn and forcing ukke into your curve.
• shomenate with emphasis on getting the initial offbalance right on the initial footfall.
• aigamaeate with emphasis on checking the elbow to keep the knife hand off you as you push him down. We were getting a little bit more vigorous falling practice with aigamae today than usual - it was good!
• Chains: R1→oshitaoshi; R1→R5→tenkai kotehineri; R1→R5→kotehineri; R1→R5→kote mawashi oshitaoshi→hikitaoshi→ushiroate. On these we were emphasizing letting the motion of the bodies tear uke's grip apart and tori just closing his hand on whatever he happened to have. This way there is no fine motor skill or specialized gripping required.

Pinning and holding

Aiki with Patrick M. and Rick

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

Patrick's ikkyu rank demo

Aikido with Patrick M., Vincent, Chris, and Hashan

• Tegatana while holding a full cup of water. We played this exercise twice, the second time faster, and I sloshed a little water on the second rep on some of the arm motions. That might indicate that my arms were doing something independent of my body, because my COM motions seem to be pretty well under control. I'll have to play that exercise a few more times and figure out what to think about that.
• Releases without incident.
• All of Nijusan with Patrick M. as tori and me as uke. He did great. I asked him what he thought were his strengths and weaknesses in aikido and he said that his faithful daily practice was his strength and the floating throws at the end of Nijusan were his weakness. Sure enough, he seemed more confident with everything before the floating throws, but that is to be expected because the floating throws are his current rank-level material. We probably ought to work on hikiotoshi some more, perhaps getting some other instructors' perspectives on how he can make that thing happen with one arm. But I thought it was all good despite the slight deficiency on floating throws. I thought that his oshitaoshi, hikitaoshi, and wakigatame were especially good. He has gotten good at finding the time to drive uke straight into the ground on those three. I thought he might also need some more work on kotehineri...
• The whole class worked on oshitaoshi, kotehineri, and kotegaeshi
• For the cool techniques of the night we worked on #9 and #10 of Ichikata, kotemawashi and kotegaeshi.
• Vincent called for more practice on the kaitennage that we practiced a week or so ago, as well as a tenkai kotehineri from a wristgrab. Both techniques that are found in his police training.

Pins and repetitions

Aikido with Patrick M.

• ROM, ukemi, tegatana, hanasu
• shomenate, aigamaeate, gyakugamaeate - plenty of reps of each
• oshitaoshi, hikitaoshi, wakigatame - all paying particular attention to the pins on the end.
• Cool thing of the night: ryotedori countered by gyakugamaeate (nikata technique #2)

Why not a fusion of aiki and ju?

Dave Chesser asked me the other day, basically, “Since Tomiki aikido is supposed to be a fusion of aikido and judo, why do you not see folks do more judo techniques in Tomiki aikido competitions?” There is a lot going on there, but I think I can address some of it. First, you have to remember that Tomiki aikido is not a fusion of aikido and judo. It is an interpretation of aikido by a man who was a master of judo. So it is sort of aiki from a ju point of view. With that said...

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Judo techniques within aikido

There are some ‘judo techniques’ that are also part of the Tomiki aikido system. Going through the basic Tomiki syllabus, you see gedanate (called sukuinage in judo), wakigatame, and sumiotoshi, for example. These techniques are allowed in both competition systems and you see them thrown in competition pretty often in both systems.

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Aikido techniques that are not part of judo

Continuing through the Tomiki syllabus there are a lot of throws that do not occur in judo, at least in the context of competition. For instance shomenate (the frontal face strike) and kotegaeshi (wrist twist) and oshitaoshi (the arm push-down). Some of these are easy to explain – the judo guys never found a good, safe way to allow full power, full resistance striking in competition so they disallowed striking, or even touching the face. Early jujitsu competitions were rife with injury, so Kano disallowed all joint manipulation except for the elbow (the most stable joint on the body).

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The real mystery here is the absence of oshitaoshi in judo competition. Oshitaoshi is very similar mechanically to wakigatame, which occurs in judo competitions a good bit. Oshitaoshi is not disallowed in judo (it even pops up in judo kata) – it’s just not done in competition... I’d like someone to explain that one to me.

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Judo techniques that are not part of aikido

If you take out the several techniques that are in both systems, you find that there are a bunch of judo things that are just not done very often in aikido competition. Things like osotogari, hip throws, most footsweeps. Again, these techniques are (so far as I know) not explicitly disallowed in Tomiki tournaments, but they are just not done.

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I’ve touched on this topic before in various articles. Perhaps best in this one, But also in these…

• http://www.mokurendojo.com/2007/10/aikido-vs-judo.html
• http://www.mokurendojo.com/2007/10/another-difference-between-aiki-and.html
• http://www.mokurendojo.com/2007/10/goshin-jitsu-in-aikido-and-judo.html
• http://www.mokurendojo.com/2008/04/more-on-aiki-strategy.html
  

More fundamentals and randori with the new guy

Aikido with Patrick M. & Allen

• ROM, Ukemi
• tegatana with emphasis on concervative steps and upright posture.
• hanasu - releases #1 and #2
• evasion drills and aiki brush-off
• aigamaeate
• standing kokyudosa-like randori
• cool technique of the night - wakigatame starting from the inside like in shomenate. We even played this with a knife in uke's free hand and it works even better. cool.

New guy in aiki class

Aikido with Kel & Allen

• ROM
• tegatana with emphasis on tsugiashi
• hanasu #1, #3, and #2
• shomenate
• chain#2 - YK1→maeotoshi and YK1→wakigatame

Working the envelope

AM judo with Rob

• warmup with the ground mobility cycle
• kosotogari→(kesa↔mune)→(wakigatame↔udegarame)
• near leg (bent) armbar, far leg (straight) armbar, and elbow crank from kesagatame
• top shoulder choke and step-over choke from kesagatame
• straitjacket holds from kamishiho, tateshiho, and munegatame

Stick & rope

Aiki with Kel and Rick

• ROM and ukemi
• Tegatana with emphasis on relaxing the shoulders down and back throughout the exercise
• Hanasu with emphasis on the stick and rope model - that is, releases #1 and #3, the connection is like a stick - you can only effectively push forward along the length of the stick, lining the stick up between your center of mass and the point of contact. Releases #2 and #4 work like a rope - you can't push a rope, only pull it with both centers of mass lined up with the rope. What this does is minimizes all moments of torque around the shoulder joint.
• nijusan #1 - shomenate
• Sankata tantodori #2 and #3, Sakate yokomen gyakugamaeate and sakate hidari wakigatame - both of these with emphasis on evading and brushing off - minimizing the amount of time you are in the meatgrinder. #2 (at least the way we were playing it tonight - similar to the kokyunage pictured above) is another one of those super-cool ninja invisibility tricks.

Early AM judo increasingly strenuous

5 AM Judo with Rob

• Warmup with ground mobility cycle and holding cycle
• Drill: uki→kesa→mune→ushirokata (10 reps each)
• Drill: uki→kesa→mune→udegarame→wakigatame (10 reps each)
• Drill: uki→mune→kesa→wakigatame→udegarame (10 reps each)
• nagekomi: R1/R3→outside cross grip→deashi/kosoto
• nagekomi: R1/R3→outside cross grip→osotogari (with a crashpad)
• nagekomi: R1/R3→outside cross grip→uranage (with a crashpad)

It was good to be back to a more vigorous judo practice after bruising/breaking (or otherwise busting) a rib a couple of months ago. I can tell I've lost (temporarily) some of my tolerance to having my chest crushed in groundwork. Well, now that I can play more vigorously again I'll get it back pretty quick.

Randori with locking techniques

Aiki with Kel

• We've gone from freezing cold to temperate to too-humid-to-survive in about two weeks. Scott Z. would feel right at home.
• Ukemi with emphasis on landing properly and slowing the legs down so they don't get hammered on the mat
• Tegatana & hanasu as warmup - no particular emphasis
• Nijusan #6-10 with the ukemi and pins (see this training log)
• Chain #1 - the shortcut that contains the hineri-gaeshi loop
• Randori with both partners walking into and out of gaeshi, hineri, mawashi, and wakigatame locks.
• Rokukata maeotoshi and Rokukata sakaotoshi as the cool ninja techniques of the night