What is aiki? What is ju?

Great discussion going on in a previous post about what constitutes aiki or ju (the philosophies or principles that drive aikido and judo respectively). I have perhaps a little different way of looking at it. Don't know if it's better or worse. don't even know if it's much different.

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The syllables ai and ki mean something like harmony and energy respectively, but instead of translating that as harmonious energy, lately I've been thinking about it as appropriate energy. so aikido is the art of appropriate energy or the art of being in an appropriate relationship to the energy around you.
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UPDATE: Both Rick Matz and Sensei Strange jumped in to correct my statement that ai=harmony. The syllable ai apparently literally means to fit. In my mind, though, that doesn't make me particularly wrong when I said that I like to think of aiki as appropriate (fitting) energy, or aikido as the art of being in a appropriate (fitting) relationship with the energy around you. Check out Strange's post here - apparently first in a series.

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Ju literally means something like gentle or flexible or free, as in free-moving. I like to translate it as flexible tactics. So judo is the art of flexible tactics.

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In aikido, you strive to maintain that appropriate relationship, and if you are successful then that energy won't run you over and kill you. In judo, you seek to find whatever tactic will most efficiently get you your goal, which is usually defined as a throw or submission. In aiki your goal is survival, not throwing the guy down, so you can say you are doing judo because you are looking for the most efficient tactics to get you your goal.

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But the way we Tomiki folk do judo is pretty aiki and the way we do aiki is pretty ju. It's like that Reece's commercial that Mark quoted a while back on his Boobishi blog - "Hey, you got your aiki in my ju! No, you got your ju in my aiki!" it turns out that a lot of what we practice in both arts is within the intersection set of aiki and ju, so you might as well call aiki and ju similar or the same or complementary principles.

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Suwariwaza in amateur wrestling

Contrary to some folks' opinions, suwari does not suck! In fact, probably the most commonly used technique in BJJ matches (and pretty darn common in judo and amateur wrestling) is a suwariwaza technique - the shoot into the single leg pick!
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I can imagine all the aikido purists as well as all the hardcore BJJ guys out there grimacing in horror. Well, as a very basic example, check out the following video...





What? You don't think that counts as suwariwaza? It happens on the knees, there is movement on the knees (shikko or kyoshi) and an expression of principle. It just does not start with both parties in seiza drinking tea.
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To fall or to step over the hill?

In a previous post on walking, I broke the walking cycle down into four events for discussion. Here is another way of thinking about the same thing.

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Whenever one of your feet is weightbearing, one of two things is happening...

• your center is moving toward your non-weightbearing (free-moving) leg
• your center is moving toward your weightbearing (stuck) leg

The first condition is when it is approipriate and efficient to fall out of the way. The second condition is when it is appropriate and efficient to step over the hill to get out of the way.

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The cowcatcher

I've written a lot about getting out of the way - the first and probably most important idea that you learn in aikido. Now I begin working on how to integrate these ideas into the rest of the aikido that we're doing. I'm going to talk about an idea that I call, "The Cowcatcher."

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A cowcatcher, in old railroad parlance was an angled grate welded onto the front of an engine that was designed to pick stray cows up off the railroad tracks and throw them to the side so they didn't get hung up under the wheels and derail the train. A cowcatcher is a fender or a deflector or a flying wedge. We use a maneuver I call, "The Cowcatcher" at the beginning of nearly all aikido techniques (at least all frontal attacks). Here's how you do it:

• close both hands into tegatana (a.k.a. shuto or spearhand) shapes so that you don't break you fingers against uke's arms.
• point your spear-hands together in front of your belt with unbendable arms
• as you evade out of the way, sweep both arms upward between uke's face and yours, both arms still unbendable

In effect this is a double rising block (as in karate - think the middle of Bassai Dai) that is blindly swept through the center line of the relationship. it has several benefits, much like the old railroad cowcatchers...

• it occupies the centerline that uke has to come through to hit you
• it tends to deflect any attacks coming at you
• it tends to leave tori's arms in contact with uke's arms, so that it is easier to grab in preparation for some technique
• it can clear some space for tori to walk around in
• having hands thrown in his face disrupts uke's attack and makes him hesitate

I recommend that if you don't typically use the cowcatcher in your practice, consider this exercise - do whatever aikido or jujitsu techniques or karate one-steps you practice but make the first move a step off the line of attack combined with this cowcatcher motion. That is...

• get out 'da way
• do the cowcatcher motion
• now, do your cool jujitsu/karate move

I think you will find that your techniques become much more robust, general-purpose, and fail-soft if you add the cowcatcher to the front of them. Try it and let me know how it goes.

Photo courtesy of PSD

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Power and consistency in evasion

Photo courtesy of Yelnoc

In a previous post on gett'n out 'da way, I characterized trying to lunge, or push yourself out of the way as “feeble and inconsistent,” as compared to turning a leg off and falling out of the way. I'd like to expand on that some.
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First, consider the position of your legs with respect to your center of balance. In whatever stance you want to put yourself in, your legs are mostly vertical below your center. That means that they are positioned such that the only thing they can do well is push against the ground to lift your center. You can expend a ton of energy with your legs and not get much horizontal motion. Basically, the only thing that pushing with your legs does, is jumps you into the air. Pushing with your legs is a terribly inefficient way to get out of the way.

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Also, consider this, it is hard, if not impossible, to push the same way, with the same strength several times in a row. Your muscles fatigue, the joint angles change, your balance changes, and all this lends to your speed of evasion being inconsistent. Sometimes you push hard and move slow. Sometimes you push more weakly and move somewhat faster. The upshot: you never know how much time it takes to get out of the way (i.e. to move your center 18 or so inches). On the other hand, gravity always works at the same speed, and if you learn how to collapse and fall out of the way from from shizentai, it takes very close to the same amount of time every repetition. You have a constant understanding of how much time it takes you to get out 'da way, which, when compared to a good innate knowledge of ma-ai makes for a very powerful evasion skill.
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Karate-do footsweeps

Interesting - a karate-do take on ashiwaza (footsweeps). We studied these two sweeps in karate but only to a small extent - and we were told not to play them in sparring because the guy tends to fall on his own leg and break it or sprain it. These guys seem to have worked it much more than we did.


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How is stepping faster than falling?

We usually emphasize falling out of the way as the best way to evade off the line of attack, but it turns out that walking over the hill, as I covered in a previous post, is actually faster and more efficient than falling out of the way. Consider this...

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When you fall out of the way, you collapse a leg (let's say the right one) and you begin to fall to the right. Then you put your right leg back down under you and draw your left leg under you. In stepping over the hill, you stick a weightbearing leg and as your momentum is carrying you upward onto that leg, you step across with the free leg.

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About the shortest unit of movement that is worth discussing much is a half a gait cycle, during which you have moved a foot and shifted weight over it but haven't yet moved the other foot. If you look at both types of evasion, you find that by ½ a gait cycle into the evasion, the falling step has only moved you partially out of the way. Your trailing leg is still in the way. The over-the-hill step, though, has moved you completely out of the way within a half gait cycle. So, the over-the-hill step is nearly twice as fast/efficient as the falling step.

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This speed/efficiency advantage serves as a good justification (but not the only good one) for starting the first two wrist releases the way we do (stepping over the hill) instead of starting them the way that feels natural for nearly all beginners (falling out of the way).

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Suwariwaza is groundwork

Photo courtesy of DimmerSwitch

Rob commented a couple of days ago on my suwariwaza post – I don't think Rob was wrong, but that was not quite how I would put it.

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The knife in kata is a symbol of power in that it represents the opponent that totally outclasses us. If we can learn to deal with the knife-wielding enemy and we treat everybody like they have a knife, then the empty-handed guy is easier to deal with. Knife teaches empty-hand but empty-hand does not teach knife.

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Suwari can be symbolic of standing technique with limited motion, as Rob suggested (though I prefer to just stand up and work in a corner or small space) or it can be symbolic of being attacked while seated (though that is tenuous IMO). It is also just plain good exercise for the hips and legs and hara.

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But I prefer to think about suwari not as a symbol of anything, but as a kind of groundwork. Suwari doesn't symbolize groundwork – suwari is groundwork.

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The problem has to do with the formality and the level of abstraction at which suwari is done.

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And my question from my previous post stands - why do we have to practice suwari in such a way that it is onerous, painful, and useless. Why can't we practice it such that we benefit from it and enjoy it? What would have to be done to our practice of suwari to make it worthwhile and fun?

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Walking over the hill

Photo courtesy of JommeV

This month's dojo theme is evasion – getting out of the way. In a previous post I talked about how we typically teach to fall out of the way, letting gravity take over and power our movement instead of trying to lunge out of the way under our own feeble, inconsistent power. Well, it turns out that there is an exception to this idea of falling out of the way.

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Take a slow walk across the room using a normal gait and watch what happens. You are always in one of four conditions:

• standing on right foot, falling toward left foot
• standing on left foot, falling toward right foot
• your right foot just hit and is stuck, but your momentum is still carrying you toward your right
• your left foot just hit and is stuck, but your momentum is still carrying you toward your left

The first two conditions occupy most of the time in your walking cycle, and these are the conditions under which it is appropriate to fall out of the way. For instance, if you are attacked when you are standing on your right foot falling toward your left foot, then you just extend that left footstep and fall out of the way.

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But what about the second two conditions. If your right foot has just hit and is stuck but your momentum is still carrying you rightward, you can't easily unstick that right foot to move. (This is the condition that Dan Prager mentioned in his comment to the previous post.) To solve this problem, you have to do the evasion by stepping with your unweighted foot toward your weighted side. If you practice this several times, you'll get the feeling that you are stepping over a hill (your stuck foot being the hill).

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This is the type of evasion used in the first 180 degree turn in the walking kata (Tegatana no kata) as well as the type of evasion taught in the first and second wrist releases (Hanasu).

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It turns out that this walking over the hill step is actually faster and more efficient than the falling out of the way step - stay tuned for more on walking over the hill.

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Yippee, we're doing suwari!

Photo courtesy of Dokiai

A few days ago I was having an email discussion with an aikido guy whose opinion I respect a lot. We were talking about suwariwaza and he had this to say...

I hate the kneeling techniques. I don't really get a lot out of them and they always make my knees hurt.

At the time I didn't really think twice about this. I even half agreed. This is a pretty common sentiment - that suwari is a time-waster, is out-dated, is culturally irrelevent, and doesn't add anything to your practice. But the more I think about this, the more bothered I am by it. Not by his opinion (everyone has opinions), but by the situation behind it (aikido suwari sucks).

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Why does aikido suwari practice have to be terrible? People should be shouting, "Yippee, we're doing suwari!" when we work on it. Why is it such an onerous time-waster? People in BJJ don't moan, "Damn, it's time to do groundwork again!" Consider the following spectrum of martial arts practices arranged in close-and-tight to loose-and-far order...

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(close) judo newaza - BJJ - suwari - standing clench - aiki (far)

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If you buy into this ordering, then suwari becomes the missing link between close standing work and loose groundwork. Some BJJ guys call suwariwaza 'kneeling takedowns' and some old amateur wrestling books refer to these techniques as 'short takedowns.' Everybody does suwari as a link between ground and standing, so why does aikido suwari suck so much to have to practice?

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Two more hints on falling out 'da way

A couple of people have emailed me talking about what a weird concept falling out of the way is.  Here are a couple of more hints on how to get the feel of the thing:

• Fall all the way down - Get a crash pad or a mattress or something to that effect.  Stand in shizentai with the crash pad beside you and practice collapsing the leg and just falling on your side on the crash pad.  This is the first part of the falling evasion I was talking about in the previous post.  Once you become comfortable with the falling part you can start catching yourself before you fall all the way and you'll be falling out of the way.
• March like a robot - When you get the feel of falling and start using that collapsed leg to catch you, try a few repetitions of picking the leg straight up and putting it straight back down under you like a piston.  When you are ready to fall, instead of collapsing the leg and dragging the floor with it, snap the foot upward off the floor, then when you want to put it back down, snap it back down.  After you get the feel for this falling evasion you can tone it down so that you are not walking like a robot, but try it a few times to get used to it.

I've got another great hint on this evasion business coming up that will likely solve some of your problems with this falling evasion.  Stay tuned for a post on what I call, "Walking over the hill."

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We're famous again

Mokuren Dojo was recently featured in the McComb Enterprise Journal's special Perspective magazine. Here is a couple of photo I scanned from the paper.

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Falling out of the way

Aikido is about avoidance, evasion - getting out of the way. Thus this month's dojo focus - "Get out 'da way!" First thing that I want to mention about gett'n out 'da way, is that you usually want to fall out of the way instead of stepping out of the way. Obviously you don't fall all to the way to the ground, as in ukemi, but you want your evasive motion to be powered by gravity because it is far easier and faster to turn a leg off and drop out of the way than it is to jump or lunge or push yourself out of the way with your legs.
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So, how do you do it? Take wakiashi (sidestep) as an example:

• Starting in shizentai (natural upright posture) with your feet side-by-side and about hip-width apart or maybe a little closer.
• Turn off the muscles in the leg closest to the direction you want to go. You begin to collapse to that side.
• pick up the foot on the side toward which you are collapsing.
• When your hips or center have moved about as far as you want them to, put that foot back down (ball of foot first) right under your center and catch your fall.
• As your center starts to rise over the foot you just put down, draw your other leg back under your center so that you end in shizentai, just like you started.

Falling out of the way - not stepping.

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The fine art of hair pulling

Last week I posted a bunkai for Heian Shodan, the most distinctive part of which is the interpretation of most of the moves in the kata as hair-pulling. I promised a couple of more details. It turns out that hair-pulling is not just a grab-a-random-fistful-and-jerk sort of proposition. Here's how you do it...

• Grab hair at the temple if possible - it hurts far more there than other parts of the head.
• Twist - don't pull. It hurts far, far worse! Try it on yourself. Grab a fistful of your own hair at the temple and compare the misery of twisting vs. pulling. Now, for some relief, try it on the top of your head.

Notice that the down-blocks in Heian Shodan start high and across the body and they involve a pulling motion, bending the elbow as your fist approaches your center. Then the fist twists and the arm locks out into the down-block position. Turns out this is the perfect way to pull hair in a fight.

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Grab, pull toward your chest, twist, push down, and hold.

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That's a recipe for a great offbalance and distraction.

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