kuzushi in hizaguruma

Continuing my series on specifically where is the kuzushi found in our judo throws - our third technique that we teach beginners is hizaguruma - the knee wheel.

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But first a tangent - coming up thru the ranks, we had the hardest time EVER getting hizaguruma to work.  And my instructor at the time was not much better than we were at the thing.  We asked him one time "why is this thing taught so early when it is so damned hard to make work?" and he made up some nonsense about how it was taught as the first thing so that by the time you get a black belt you will have had sufficient practice to (maybe) make it work.

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Let me state in an unqualified way, that is B.S.  This thing is taught early because it is both basic and foundational (it is a great early example of the guruma concept).  It is not difficult to throw - in fact my yellow belts tend to throw it regularly for ippon in shiai and it is often their favorite throw.  We used to have a hard time with it simply because we were throwing it with the wrong mechanics and the wrong timing.

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We teach hiza as a backup plan for a failed deashibarai.  Tori sails in and tries to sweep your front foot but can't get it to move.  So he places his sweeping foot on the line of uke's feet facing both of uke's feet, and immediately uses his other foot to block uke's back knee as he tilts uke into the hole.

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So where is the offbalance in hizaguruma?

• Timing - after an attempted deashi when uke's front foot is weightbearing.  Tori has made a tiny round-the-corner step and uke's back foot is just about to move forward.
• Direction - Uke's posture crumbles into the hole between his feet - 90 degrees to the line of his feet. 
• Unintended action - uke had intended to step forward with his back foot to face tori, just like in kosotogari.  Instead his step was blocked at the knee and his intention and momentum carried him into the hole.

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Kuzushi in kosotogari

The second technique we teach in judo is kosotogari, and we teach it as a response to a deashi gone bad.
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You will recall in deashi we teach to push uke on a backstep, which should either cause him to rock back and forth or take another full step back, either of which allows us to do deashi.
But what happens when you get the timing of the sweep wrong and uke's front leg is more weighted than you thought - when you hit deashi and his foot does not move?
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In this case, you take a turning step (just like in walking kata) around uke's front foot to stand beside/behind him, then when he turns back to face you, kosotogari appears.
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So, where is the kuzushi in kosotogari?

• Timing - after an attempted deashi when uke's front foot is weightbearing.
• Direction - there is really not a lot of push/pull in this, but tori turning the corner invites uke to turn the corner after.
• Unintended action - uke had intended to stand still and weather your deashi attack.  Instead he was forced to turn the corner to keep tori from slipping behind him.

There is the off chance that instead of turning to face, uke may refuse to move, but that is just dumb because that is inviting some much more awful things, like sukuinage or taniotoshi or uranage.

Kuzushi in deashibarai

Have you smelled the smoke yet?  The smoke coming from the grinding of the gears in my head?  It's Sean's fault because of his article he posted this morning at Northern Wind Budo Blog.

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And when the gears start a grindin' and the smoke starts a pourin' like that, there's no telling what might result.  I thought I'd try my hand at describing just where the kuzushi is at in several throws.  I thought I'd start at the very beginning (a very good place to start) with deashibarai.

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First, based on a couple of previous articles, we can say a pretty good definition of kuzushi is "a properly timed and directed application of force that causes uke to make an action that he had not planned to make."  Sure, there are some weird, spooky ways to get some interesting offbalances, but for the most part you have to push or pull uke in a certain direction at a certain time, and that causes him to make some unintended action that you can exploit.  So, in order to describe a kuzushi, I'll have to describe the timing and direction of the push/pull as well as the unintended action that uke makes.

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So, how is this done in deashibarai (at least in the deashibarai we usually teach beginners and pracice the most)?

• timing - right when uke's foot touches the ground on a backward step.
• direction - push their torso in the direction of their back foot
• unintended action - uke puts more weight than he wanted to in his back foot, then rocks back forward.
• exploitation - as uke starts to rock back forward, you sweep his unweighted front foot.

One of the biggest problems with a lot of people's deashi is that instead of a sharp "on-off" sort of push which causes uke to rock back then forward, tori pushes too hard and long which causes uke to rock back and then step backward out of your deashi.  In this case, the unintended action (kuzushi) is uke stepping back with the leg you were intending to sweep so your exploitation is to step with uke and then do deashi on the other leg. 

 

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Patrick Parker

www.mokurendojo.com

 

The engine of judo and combatives

A few weeks ago I posted a story about one of my students getting a leg broken by skipping a seminar at my Dojo to go to a competition.  Today another of my long-time students reminded me of a cool episode in his life.

This student had gotten up to about green or brown belt, and decided he wanted to join the Marines.  So off he goes to boot camp, or whatever they call their initial training stint, part of which now includes the MCMAP ground fighting material.  I don't recall the time frame, but at some point in this training, he got a week off to go home and he came and played with me for a few days.

I'm always curious about how our classes are serving folks, so i asked him how he was handing the MCMAP stuff with his background in judo, what was the same, what was different, that sort of thing.  He said it was all familiar except for the MCMAP folks were more focussed on cool techniques and pretty much totally lacked foundation for those cool techniques - how to shrimp, how to bridge, 2-hands on a point, etc...

So, I figured he must be doing pretty good in the competitions.  Not so.  He seemed to think his performance had been pretty mediocre and he was disappointed that he hadn't done better with his background.  So we got on the ground so he could show me what he'd been doing in MCMAP, and sure enough, he was a flurry of aerobically conditioned muscle trying for cool armbars. But there was no foundation of ground mobility there.

He had let his instructors brainwash him into forgetting how to shrimp and bridge and do all the foundations that actually make this stuff work.  So we had a review session for 2 or 3 days that mostly consisted of drills involving shrimping, bridging, and positional transitions.  I suspect he was sorta disappointed when he left that I hadn't shown him the cool ninja techniques that he needed to do better in MCMAP.

But then he went back and commenced to kicking absolute ass at MCMAP.  He rapidly (instantly) rose to the top of his class, and his crowning achievement was whipping the MCMAP instructor's weekend cagefighting MMA ass!

Seems the instructor had the same bad habit that I'd schooled out of all my students of crossing his ankles in front of the opponent when in the rear guard, so when the instructor took my student's back, my student proceeded to ankle-bar both of the instructor's legs and force him to tap.

There is something to be said for paying close attention to foundations.  Working on the cool submissions without drilling the foundations is like having a beautiful sports car with no engine.  It won't go.  It's not good judo and its not good combatives.

Legendary heart yankers!

Some time back I did a series of articles about martial arts urban legends, like 3000 year-old martial arts and knocking peoples noses back into their brains and that sort of thing. Today I was reminded of another.

This morning I ate breakfast with a Vietnam vet aquaintence, and he asked if I still taught judo.  When I said yes, he immediately started in on how he used to do judo in "'Nam" and wanted to know if we also practiced, "the neck method" in our judo. I think I managed to avoid rolling my eyes.

Then he claimed that his special forces judo buddies had "broken their hands so they would grow back together into blade hands" and that they had been trained to stab their hands through enemies chest or abdomen in order to grab their heart and "yank it out!"  He said this was their preferred method of silent sentry removal.

I just nodded and said, "wow!"

Kuzushi in kata

There is a definition of kuzushi that has come into favor among many of the judo and aikido clubs that I most often have contact with.  It says that a state of kuzushi happens anytime uke is forced to make an action that he did not intend to make.  Whether it is a breath or a blink or a flinch or a step, if it was unintended then it reflects a state of unbalance or weakness. Any unthinking, reflexive reaction means uke is disbalanced.

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Under this definition the act of unbalancing uke means to cause uke to make an unintended action.

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In randori, this makes sense, because if you can draw uke out or bump him and make him take a recovery step, or if he flinches or blinks in response to your atemi, then you can more easily do your thing.  But how does this definition play out in kata, where every action is pre-planned and therefore intended?

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Let's start by saying that it's pretty much axiomatic that you can't do good kata without kuzushi.  Kata without kuzushi sucks.

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But you also can't do good kata with uke pre-planning to jump offbalance dramatically at the right time.  Kata with uke jumping for tori also sucks.  The kuzushi can't be part of uke's planned, intended actions.  If it is planned then it is not un-intended, which means it is not kuzushi, and we're back to the kata sucking for lack of kuzushi.  Pre-planned intentional jumping has a wholly different character of motion than does unintentional motion.

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Kuzushi has to arise naturally (unexpectedly) from the interaction between tori's and uke's intended actions.

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In kata, both parties know beforehand all the actions that are going to take place, and the final outcome.  But Uke must start into the kata with proper intention and then the interaction of that intention with tori's action should cause uke to take an unintended step.

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Uke and tori may both know when and where that step is going to occur and where it will land, but it was not uke's intention to take that step, and now he must recover his balance/composure/whatever in order to continue with the program of intended actions in the kata.

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We often talk about the necessity of "intent" in uke's attacks. We often talk about uke making "good attacks."  We often talk about tori having to "get a good initial off-balance." In these instances, this is what we are talking about - this interplay between uke's initial intentions and the reality of the relationship as it unfolds.

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Three hipthrow entries

I have, for a long time, based my judo classes on the idea that there are  handful of throws that are foundational to the rest of the throws - the idea that all of the cool, weird throws are just fairly minimal variations of a bare handful of foundational throws.  I have fluctuated on whether I think there are about nine foundational throws, or if perhaps it might be as few as six, but the general idea has remained pretty constant, and we've gotten a lot of mileage out of is teaching model.

With regard to teaching hipthrows, I have three basic entries that I teach that can be used for pretty much any hip throws -

• stepping through uke's hips as he steps back
• turning parallel with uke and fitting in as he steps forward
• shifting the front foot out of the way then turning backward with the rear leg to fit in

Problem is, I have always taught these three entries in a sort of haphazard manner, whenever I happen to think to or whenever a student has a hipthrow question that looks like a different entry would solve.  Since any of the three entries can be used to throw any hipthrow, I have mostly defaulted to using the first one just because it is my personal favorite and the easiest to teach.

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Then I got to looking at the core throws that I listed above. There are two hipthrows there (ukigoshi and ogoshi), and the first thing that I teach after these foundation throws is koshiguruma - another hip technique.  Hmmm... Three hipthrows before green belt and three entries for hipthrows... I bet you can read my mind...

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I think I will try explicitly pairing each of these hipthrows with one of these entries, so that beginners get some systematic exposure to all three koshinage entries.  My first thoughts on this pairing are something like this...

• stepping through into ukigoshi
• turning parallel into ogoshi
• turning backward into koshiguruma

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____________________

Patrick Parker

www.mokurendojo.com

Aiki-strikey and the starburst

A while back, I published a list of five pointers that I try to keep in mind in order to make my atemi better.

• Timing - only hit on a footfall
• Kuzushi - only hit after an initial off-balance
• Direction - strike on one of two weak lines
• Gravity - add a full body weight drop
• Connection - don't hold them up afterward

Today I want to add a sixth idea that comes from some of the striking gurus - specifically I think I got this from the Parker Kenpo guys.  I call it the starburst principle and I think they might call it something similar.

When your striking limb has momentum, it is not possible to change its direction arbitrarily.  When its in flight you can steer it some, but not much.  This is one of the basic rules in toshu randori. But as soon as it hits something, you can redirect that limb in any direction, because its momentum is imparted to what it struck.

If you imagine a starburst, or a three-dimensional asterisk, at the point of contact, the points of the star describe the places you can go after that impact.

The Kenpo guys use that to build combos.  They might strike arm then glance off to neck, drag through to strike the other arm, and bounce off to the groin, etc...

But you can use this idea to figure out how to put successive off-balances on uke until he crumbles.

Basically, in an aiki context, the starburst tells you to hit, and instead of driving through uke in that same line, change your line of force by 90° or 180° and keep hitting them with off-balances separated by 90° or 180°.

Tsugiashi - kuzushi - ayumiashi

For our purposes, there are basically two ways to walk -

• regular, everyday walking down the street - the Japanese call this ayumiashi
• sliding, trying to keep the same foot forward -this is called tsugiashi

Ayumiashi is very energy-efficient, using only about 100kcal/hour at moderate speeds, but it has some serious problems when you're in a fight - especially when you are up close and someone has grabbed hold of you.  for this sort of application, tsugiashi has some advantages, and it minimizes some of your disadvantages.

So us cool martial artists usually try to shift from ayumiashi to tsugiashi about the time we get inside touching distance (ma-ai).  Notice how that shift in walking methods is encoded in the approach in each technique of Junana Hon Kata?

But have you ever noticed that kuzushi almost always forces the unbalanced player back into ayumiashi? Makes sense - we've been doing ayumiashi since childhood so we revert back to our most experienced mode when offbalanced.

Interestingly,  you can look at that as one of the main goals of kuzushi - to get the other guy to shift back to ayumiashi, thus magnifying his disadvantages, thus making your opportunities greater.

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 Patrick Parker
 www.mokurendojo.com

Lies, damned lies, and averages

You've heard the expression, "There's three kinds of untruths - lies, damned lies, and statistics."

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Today I wanted to discuss an important phenomenon that sort of falls in that third, most despised category - that of averaging.  But I'm not talking about numerical averaging like a grade point average or a pitcher's ERA.  I'm talking about a terrible sort of averaging that goes on with motor control 'programs' in your body/mind.

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When there are two common ways to accomplish a goal, or when there are two actions that are nearly identical but have critical (life-threateniing) differences, unless you are careful to choose one and always be absolutely ruthless with yourself in practice that you do that one motor control program in that given instance, occasionally you'll get distracted or confused or hurried and your brain can sort of 'average' the two programs, creating some potentially non-viable bastard non-solution.

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We saw two absolutely perfect examples this weekend.

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When doing a forward roll, there are two common landing positions - one with the top leg behind the bottom leg and one with the top leg in front of the bottom leg.  We teach the top-leg-behind form exclusively, and we have pretty good reasons, but honestly I'm not sure that the other form is all that bad (if you land that way 100% of the time).  It seems that where people really get in trouble is when they don't pay attention to their landing and sometimes they land one way and sometimes land the other way.  These folks are habituating two different forms of the same solution, but occasionally (far to often) you'll get confused or distracted, and you'll land almost exactly halfway between these two positions.  That is, with one leg atop the other.  This usually has disasterous results with the top leg hammering the bottom ankle, knee, and/or legs crushing testcles.  I don't know that it matters which of these two falling positions you choose, but you had better choose one and pay attention to it all the time.  (We recommend the top-leg-behind version for several other reasons.)

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The other example is one of our instructors who has done an extensive amount of both pistol shooting and tactical knife work.  When drawing either a pistol or tactical folder, the hands come together in front of the chest, but the hands are doing different actions/grips depending upon the activity.  Well, this instructor apparently suffered a momentary lapse of attention, and drew his folder (which automatically opens when drawn from the pocket), brought his hands together in front of his chest as if grasping a pistol, and cut his own thumb severely.  One tourniquet and six stitches later he is mostly okay (kinda grumpy), but he has provided us with another perfect glimpse of this damnable motor averaging. 

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This second example I don't have a good solution for because I don't have any experience with pistols and fairly little with tactical folders, but the gurus that I listen to have one rule that tends to cut down (get it "cut" ;-) on self-mutilation.  Always, always, always keep the blade closer to the opponent than your other hand.  In other words, never put your free hand between your blade and the opponent.  I might add, on a personal note, that I don't especially like the Emerson self-opening 'wave' knives for that reason - sometimes I like to take my knife out of my pocket without it opening ;-)

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But anyway, this isn't intended as me griping about him and his choices or practices.  That accident could happen to anyone who works with blades.  The point is, I advise that all my readers watch out for situations where this motor control averaging phenomenon can come into play, and create rules of practice (like top-leg-behind, or free hand behind blade) that you always, always, always abide by in practice.

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Attention to details

About 15 years ago I was running a dojo in the next town up the road from my current location.  Pretty small, rural location, but due to the generosity of the folks in our aikido organization I was able to get several big-name teachers to come do seminars at my little dojo.  These usually drew pretty good attendance from all over the region.

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For one of these seminars, the teacher brought one of his brown belt students who was all fired up about judo competition.  Well, it seems that he'd heard that there was to be a tournament in Jackson MS the same weekend as our seminar, so the brown belt talked a handful of my students into ditching the seminar and going to compete in the tournament instead (I know, right?).

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You can probably see it coming.  One of my yellow belt students managed to get his leg broken at the tournament, and the whole group of them came back to the dojo that afternoon, looking sorta sheepish.  That yellow belt missed a bunch of practice in the subsequent months, but he eventually healed up, like teens usually do.  A couple of years later he wanted to get into the Marines and I had to write them a letter telling them that he'd completely healed from that injury.  He finished his stint with the military and now he's in college and doing some boxing and grappling.

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A couple of months ago I got to thinking about that student so I wrote him a note asking if he remembered any lessons or wisdom that he'd learned from ditching the seminar in favor of the tournament that he'd be willing to share with my blog audience - since we're all about learning from each other's stupid mistakes ;-)

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He responded...

I guess if I learned anything, it was to pay closer attention to detail.  Specifically in form, as it was my own bad form that broke my ankle (when I was throwing the guy, my foot was planted on my heel rather than the ball of my foot).  I've always been pretty careful with things like that, but that really drove the nail in that coffin.  I also came out with a clear understanding of my own vincibility.  Before that, I was pretty sure I was untouchable, and often prided myself on how I'd never broken any bones.

Since then, I've been extremely careful with precision regarding form, especially as it correlates to the preservation of my body, since as you well know, we pretty much only get the one.  When I am striking or throwing someone or something or even playing a sport, I go out of my way to analyze the impact my movements are having on my body.  I feel like I've been able to avoid many more injuries just by paying closer attention to detail.

So, there you have it.  The voice of experience.

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Kodokan Goshin Jutsu - kata not-a kata?

A couple of years ago we had a nice blog discussion here on Mokuren Dojo about whether or not Kodokan Goshin Jutsu (KGJ) is or is not a kata.  Honestly, it is an interesting thing because it has characteristics of both kata and non-kata exercise sets or drills.  I can see it either way.  But for the sake of argument, and to be a bit provocative and draw some folks into a good conversation with me, I took the side that it is definitely and obviously not a kata.

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I thought today that I'd summarize the old conversation and maybe add one or two more points...

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Of course KGJ is a kata...

• There are pre-defined uke-tori roles and the action and both players have foreknowledge of the sequence and flow of actions in each technique.
• It was deliberately designed by some of the greatest masters of judo, aikido, and jujitsu, to illustrate principles and lessons that they wanted communicated to future generations.  Therefore, there is a proper and an improper way to practice and execute KGJ.
• IJF, in recent years has even standardized the proper execution of KGJ so that it can be contested and judged as a kata.

KGJ is not really a kata - just a collection of drills...

• Depending on what sense of precision you have in kata, it may or may not even be possible to achieve kata-like precision.  If precision means to make the same motions in the same sequence every time, it is not possible to practice KGJ (or really any other partner forms) with kata-like precision.  But if by "precision" you mean to express the same principles in response to a similar attack form, then sure, precision is achievable.
• Since being delivered on stone tablets with techniques writ by the finger of Tomiki, every teacher that has ever taught this thing with vastly different emphasis.  This collection is not teaching the same lessons every time. It is not telling the same story every time.  It simply lacks the internal consistency and logic (riai) of kata.
• It's not even called a kata - the other Kodokan kata are all suffixed with " - no kata" while the drills and exercises are not.

Goshin Jutsu is not unique to Kodokan.  Most martial arts have similar collections of situational self-defense scenarios that they practice in addition to whatever other curricula they teach and practice.  When KGJ was developed in the 1950's, it was (so I've heard) because the American flyboys in Tokyo were clamoring for a set of "modern self-defense moves" to practice - something mroe up-to-date than the knee-crawling, scimitar-flinging stuff found in Kimenokata.  And Kodokan obliged them by creating a committee to meet to figure out what would be the best modern self-defense situations to practice, and to offer suggestions as to how to solve these self-defense problems using judo.  The output of that committee became known as Kodokan Goshin Jutsu.

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There is no question of the value and validity of KGJ. The real question (at least for this debate) is how to practice it.  Should it be treated as a kata (to be practiced formally and precisely) or is it a collection of valuable drills (to practice to gain experience in variation around central principles).

 

Incidently, I think it would be an interesting exercise to reprise that old blog conversation with my Honorable Opponents (HOs) and myself taking opposite views - Perhaps LF could try to write a couple of posts on why KGJ is definitely and obviously NOT a kata and I would attempt to defend the other view, that of course it is a kata. Come on HOs, bring it on! ;-)

 

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Patrick Parker

www.mokurendojo.com

 

Why go before ju/aiki?

The other day, one of my aiki-betters made the comment on an online forum, "You can't learn to do soft till you know how to do hard."  And although that's pretty much how I developed as a martial artist, the statement of it that way struck me as interesting and unique.  The first question that sprang to mind was, "WHY does it have to be that way?" and upon further consideration, I think I can answer my own question.

It seems to me that you have to start with go (hard) before you can get ju (yielding) because "ju" means something different to everyone you ask.  You tell a group of newbies to "be soft" and some become flaccid while others remain hard.  Some try to do the "when pushed, pull" thing and others try to do the "no be there" thing.  Some are working on tactile invisibility while others are working in slow motion.  Then you have some guys in the corner "closing the waki" isometrically so you cant see them applying strength and still others stare into space and chant, "ommmmm."

But then you tell someone, "be strong." and you jostle them a time or two or slap them on the chest or shoulder and they make a pretty good approximation of the kind of stance and posture and body management and mindset youre talking about.

Reminds me of a training paradigm that Nick Lowry posted a while back for jodo (but it applies elsewhere too).  Basically, Nick says you start out with big, all-inclusive motion, then after you get the hang of it, you make it strong, and from there you move to fast, then light.

"Big-Strong-Fast-Light"  appears to me to address the same ideas as "you can't do soft until you know how to do hard."

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Seek safety in the Heart of Danger

There is an axiom in aikido that applies especially to our weapons practice, but which provides some nice crossover benefits to empty-handed work -

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dodge small - strike big

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Our tachidori and jodori in Tomiki aikido are mostly based on shomengiri (straight-down sword cut) or tsuki (straight forward jo thrust).  As uke passes ma-ai and becomes committed to the attack motion, uke attempts to enter past the weapon at least far enough to take control of uke's arms, while slipping only slightly out of the way so that the strike barely misses.  Then, several of the disarms-  especially the jodori - end with tori smashing uke with a huge, strong, decisive atemi.  There are several benefits to applying "dodge small-strike big" in practice...

• Assuming that you only have finite energy/strength/resources, everything you put into off-line evasion is that much that you cannot put into entering, and if you are to have any hope in the disarm, you've got to enter past the weapon to control uke's arms.
• People, when excited and adrenalized, like in a real life-or-death situation, often tend to make large, wild evasions and small, timid, hesitant strikes.  We try to counter this tendency in our practice by getting accustomed to evading as small as possible and by making the atemi as large as possible, assuming that in a real encounter the actual evasion will be somewhat larger and the strike somewhat smaller.
• By evading small, you limit the amount of free space that uke has to screw something up for you.
• It builds intestinal fortitude to steel yourself to calmly watch a sword descend toward your head, then at just the right moment to slip barely out of the way.  It also builds spirit and audacity to grab someone by the face and launch your center through theirs, smashing them.
• It is good practice for uke to learn to absorb large atemi (though it is definitely an advanced ukemi practice).  This builds resilience and confidence in your ukemi.

The way that I teach this small evasion is to imagine that, uke and tori are standing on railroad tracks.  There is a track running through uke's right foot and tori's left foot, and vice versa.  The evasion is done by tori sliding one foot straight forward on its track, then turning the other foot onto the track behind the lead foot.  Enter strongly as far as you need to, then turn just far enough out of the way.

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The way I teach the strong atemi is to tell tori to place an unbendable arm under uke's chin, gently lifting it into spinelock, then to stride between and beyond uke's feet with an emphasis on bringing the second foot up as soon as possible - you want tori's feet to land as nearly to the same time as possible.  The power in this push comes from the speed of the recovery step - not the length of the lunge.  It is very important to coach uke to yield to this strike by taking a large step back and sitting down out of it.  If uke is hesitant about yielding, he will endanger his neck.

Seek safety in the Mouth of the Dragon.

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Patrick Parker

www.mokurendojo.com