Return to beginnings, middles, and ends

Some time ago I wrote a post describing our lineage of Tomiki aikido as organizing the tori-uke encounter into beginnings, middles, and ends...

Aristotle wrote in his Poetics that "A whole is that which has a beginning, a middle, and an end."  This applies to aikido as well as to poetics because an encounter also has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

• Hanasu is the main exercise that we use to study beginnings. 

• Randori is the main exercise that we use to study the middles.

• Kata is the main exercise that we use to study the endings.

A student told me today, "under previous aikido instructors I used to spend a whole lot more time kneeling on the ground trying to finish a pin on uke."  I pointed out that different classes like to emphasize different parts of the whole of aiki but my preference is to spend most of our practice time on beginnings and middles because if uke is finished then he's finished but if he's not finished then it's not time to play the end-game.  You're still in the middle.

Today, thinking about this old article, I still agree wholly with my conclusion - I prefer to emphasize beginnings and middles in my classes, but I think I would re-word it a bit.
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Hanasu (wrist releases) are the main exercises that we use to study beginnings.  These teach evasion and entering and off-balancing skills that are most crucial in the initial parts of an encounter.
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Randori, as I said earlier, is used to study the middles, but in Tomiki's lineage, a lot of our randori study takes place in the context of Randori-no-kata (also known as kihon no kata or junanahon kata) - a set of seventeen (plus or minus - some instructors have said 15, some have said 23) techniques that represent the vast majority of technical aikido things that you will see in randori.  So, I might characterize Junana as being about the middles of the tori-uke encounters.
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In my old post I said that kata was about the endings, but What I should have said was osaekomi (pins that we usually only see in kata) are the study of endings.
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So, a typical encounter would start off with a release-like motion (hanasu), and flow through something that probably looks like something in Junana, and end in something that looks like one of the pinning controls that we see in the various kata.  So Hanasu-Junana-Osaekomi is sort of a template for organizing your ideas about encounters.
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This reminds me of a story from days gone by.  Many moons ago, my sensei took three of us lowly shodans to a seminar in a neighboring state.  It was an Aikikai dojo that was hosting one of the biggest of big-name Japanese sensei.   Everyone would sit in a big circle in seiza as the sensei demonstrated some move or another.  He always demonstrated three times. He never spoke English or gave instructions, just demonstrated the thing three times and grunted permission for us to all go and do likewise.
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Then the class would break up into partners and small groups that would try to do what the sensei had demonstrated and chaos would ensue because nobody in the room had a clue.  Everyone would start asking their neighbors on the mat, "how did he do that?"
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Except for us - the four Tomikiryu pariahs in the room - the guys that did that sport crap instead of real aikido.  We were able to watch what the sensei did and immediately translate that in our minds to, "Oh, he just did release #1 and flowed into #6 from Junana and then held the guy down like this."  So we would grab a partner and start practicing the thing.
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Pretty soon all the lower-ranked Aikikai dudes were asking us," show me how he did that." and we wisely whispered, "Hell no!  That old Japanese guy over there - this is his day to be sensei, not mine!"  We could tell that he was getting progressively more frustrated with the students' inability to follow his demonstration, and we didn't want to draw his wrath when we were the strangers in a strange land.
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It's not that the Aikikai students were poorly taught or incompetent.  They just did not have a framework to understand what they were seeing the sensei do.  Thank you, Tomiki sensei, for providing us that framework of beginnings, middles, and ends.

 photo courtesy of Paco PH


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I left my toes in San Francisco

Over the years I've done several articles about the prevalence and incidence of various injuries and illnesses related to judo and aikido classes.  Some of the most memorable ones include...

• Judo Bruisers
• Attention to Details
• Avoiding Heat Injuries
• Safety of Judo Chokes
• What Are You Getting Yourself Into?
• Judo Hurts My Hands
• Concussions
• Second Day Soreness

And perhaps the funniest...

• He Said
• She Said

But somehow in all my blogging over the years, I managed to miss posting about perhaps the most common judo injury - mat burn.

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Pretty much all beginners, when they begin judo, succumb to mat burns - typically on the tops of their most proximal toe knuckles.  Most cases are pretty mild and go away in a day or two with some soap and water and maybe some Lanacane spray.  My personal bout with bat burn was more profound because I was a bit more obstinate in my newaza encounters.  I scraped all the meat off the tops of my metatarso-phalangeal knuckles so badly that I could see the white of tendon moving about in there.  Fortunately I've wised up (a little bit) in the ensuing 20 years.

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My coach's instructions with regard to mat burn on the toes was along the lines of, "Maybe you shouldn't do that to yourself."

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Recently, having completely forgotten about the specter of mat burn, I had two different beginners tell me that they burnt the meat off their toes during newaza class.  First time that's happened in a LONG TIME, so I figured I'd drop a couple of hints with regard to avoiding matburn..

• God made us to bear weight against the Earth with the bottoms of our feet - not the tops of our feet.  Not only is the skin of the bottom of your foot tougher, but you can push much harder when the bottom of your foot is on the ground.  So, LIVE TOES!
• Mat burn on the forehead and corners of the brow is also very common, and this happens when you turtle up and someone jumps on you and grinds you against the ground.  So, DON'T TURTLE but if you do find yourself being smeared on the mat, TAP EARLY instead of insisting that the other guy injure you to prove that you are in an inferior position.
• Mat burn and gi burn also happen commonly on your knees and elbows.  You might want to GET A RASHGUARD - a long-sleeved, long-legged set of nylon undergarments - Under Armour or the like - to prevent this.
• The three previous warnings probably eliminate 95% of all mat burns, but BURNS HAPPEN, so LEARN FIRST AID.  You want to wash a mat burn with soap and water, perhaps spray some Lanacane on it, and cover it with a sterile bandage.

[Photo courtesy of Nate Marquardt]

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Playful, productive randori

Jason and I were talking just last night about this video, in which Ryron discusses trading roles in randori so that you get experience in playful survival grappling as well as submission grappling.  One of the things that I especially liked was how his explanation on this video mirrors exactly what I was saying on one of my first blog posts years ago (not that I'm claiming to be years ahead of the Gracies or anything... but... ;-)

I like the coin. It's a cool piece of Gracie paraphernalia, but if you would like to do the same thing with any coin - flip a coin and if it comes up heads, you're in thinking mode and if it comes up tails then you're in butthole mode.

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Secrets of the Samurai - by Ratti & Westbrook

This is an excellent, must-have volume for your library.  Ratti delves deeply into the historical origins of martial arts in Japan, and Westbrook's illustrations are beautiful and classic of themselves.

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Mike Sigman on Internal Strength

I watched these two videos some years ago, and just now found them on YouTube.  Interesting material.  Well worth a couple of hours of your spare time.

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Kids in aikido?

I really enjoyed this video demonstration - especially the segments of kids practicing aikido - real aikido - not watered-down aiki warm-up kids primer aikido. 

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Coming up through the ranks we were assured by our instructors that aikido was not for kids because it was too dangerous.  They justified that opinion with a couple of reasons, like wristlocks putting growth plates at risk and lack of maturity=lack of control... but I suspect that opinion was based more on their personal lack of interest in teaching kids than in some sort of objective fact.

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When you look at it, kids practice judo and karate and BJJ and boxing all the time without depopulating the world.  Why shouldn't we be able to train kids in aikido.

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I've been thinking for a while about how to do kids aikido classes.  Still thinking about it...

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Jita Kyoei - my investment in you

I drill this into my judo kids - when we are warming up I ask them (among other things), "What's your main purpose for being in judo class?" and the answer that I expect is, "To make everyone else better."
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Jita Kyoei - mutual benefit - you and me both win - you and me going forward together - everyone shines together.

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But it's not just kids that need drilling on this.  It's adults too.  And it's not just students, but sensei too.  And it's not just judo, but aikido and karate and... every other discipline.  Jita kyoei is not our natural state.  We far too often and far too easily fall into me-my-mine mode when we should be in we-us-ours mode.

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Sometimes we have to put our own desires and agendas secondary to those of others.  Sometimes we have to stand and wait, in our strength, for slower weaker less experienced others to catch up. As we become stronger and higher-ranked, this should happen more and more often and to an ever increasing degree because there will be more people needing to catch up farther to get to the point to where they can help us.

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There have been times when this dynamic has frustrated me as a teacher.  Sometimes it seems like the higher-ranked folks don't make any progress because we're always starting over with the white belt material, but I think this is probably just my me-my-mine hanging out.  As a teacher (sensei or sempai) I make you better so that you can lift me up later.  Rising water floats all boats sort of thing.

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But what about all the students that will never get to my level?  Shoot, most won't ever get a black belt.  Jita Kyoei still applies!  Even though you might, realistically, never get past the hand-holding stage in judo or aikido.  Even if you move around the world and I never see you again, I am still increasing the capacity of people in our society - people who are doctors, lawyers, carpenters, mechanics, teachers, fathers, mothers...  People who could use a dose of ju and aiki - but more importantly, people who could use a dose of jita kyoei in their lives and careers.  

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I build you up, you build up a bunch of people, they build up a bunch more folks, and eventually some of those folks are bound to build me up somehow, whether in martial arts or some other way - even if it is just that I get to live in a society full of capable, mutually beneficial citizens instead of a society full of me-my-mine drones.

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Jita Kyoei is my investment in you.

[photo courtesy of Nocopol_TO]

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Practical Unarmed Combat - by Feldenkrais

Highly recommended classic tome on unarmed combatives - from the POV of one technique - hadakajime. As you can see from the above pic, Feldenkrais shows hadakajime from A-to-Z,  inside-out, upside-down, and backwards!

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Cognates for tsuki

Consider the lowly thrust, lovely in its directness...

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Miyake Koshiki no Kata

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Kitoryu - dead art or not?

Some years back, Our teacher hosted Tsunako Miyake sensei, and one of the things she said she wanted to teach during that visit was Koshiki no Kata.  "What's that" was most everyone's response.  Of course, there were some of us that knew that Koshiki existed, but nobody really knew what it had to do with anything.  Well, it turns out that Koshiki no kata has more to do with what we do than anyone understood.

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During that visit, Ms. Miyake penned a calligraphy (on her keikogi! which she gifted to one of the dojos!) that interestingly said (approximately), "Daitoryu aikido + Kitoryu (as seen in Koshiki no kata) = Tomiki aikido).

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Koshiki is the main surviving remnant of the Kitoryu school of Aiki-jujutsu - preserved in the Kodokan Judo curriculum.  Kitoryu gave rise to Kodokan judo, and was also influential in the development of aikido.  Morihei Ueshiba studied Kito for some time, and Professor Shishida even suggests that Ueshiba's aikido may have been largely developed as a counter to judo (that is, using the Kito and Daito that Ueshiba knew to bust the Kito and Tenjin that Kano's students knew).

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It is easy to find Daito folks if you're willing to travel, but trying to find someone with a certificate in Kitoryu is so nearly impossible that we'd figured/guessed that it was a dead art (except what is preserved in judo as Koshiki no Kata). 

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But lo and behold - I have managed to locate someone who (I think) has a certificate in Kitoryu!  A few years ago a friend told me that he knew an aging sensei that had studied Kito as a young man and even had a certificate.  I had heard good things about this instructor but had never gotten to work with him or talk to him - but over the past year I've gotten to work with him and talk with him on a couple of occasions, and he seems like the real deal (he does exquisite aikido, as do his students, and he has some pretty obscure historical knowledge that I managed to verify later.) 

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I got to talk to him about Kito a few weeks ago.  He said that he doesn't like to teach Kito/Koshiki because it is so rough and violent that it borders on abusive to the students - and that matches what we knew of Koshiki no kata - Everyone that went to Ms. Miyake's Koshiki clinic talked about being beat up and sore as hell for a while. My Kito source also said that Koshiki was not all of Kito - that there were auxiliary arts and other kata, including horseback techniques - and that checks against what we know of the other Koryu - they were typically very diverse schools.

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Anyway, It looks like I'll be able to pay another visit soon, and perhaps hear some more fascinating history and maybe see some documents.  I would love to work on Koshiki no kata (and whatever else he wants to play) with this man!

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A golden oldie for some of my friends ;-)

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Shishida on Kano's ideal judo

Fumiaki Shishida demonstrating Itsutsu no Kata.

Professor F. Shishida makes a really interesting assertion in an article titled, Counter techniques against Judo: the process of forming Aikido in 1930s.  His assertion is that Morihei Ueshiba's aikido was largely developed as a foil or counter-art to Kodokan Judo.  Initially, this sounded like a stretch, but the more I think about it, the more it seems to fit with pieces of the judo and aikido apocrypha that we have talked about for a while.

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For instance,  There's the famous story of Kano's visit to watch Ueshiba in 1930, after which Kano supposedly said something confusing and mysterious along the lines of, "Kodokan Judo is the Judo of 90 degree angles and Aikido is the Judo of 180 degree angles.”

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I've had my pet theories for a good while about the meaning of this statement, but Shishida's article suggested an alternate meaning.  What if Kano was saying, "Kodokan judo is regular (proper, 90-degree, upright, orthogonal) judo, and aikido is the flip-side (or 180 degree or counterpoint) to Kodokan judo."  What if Kano was saying that aikido is a counter to judo.

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I know, the whole supposed statement is a historical stretch, and this interpretation might stretch it a bit further, but it makes for an interesting what-if.

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That idea also makes sense when looking at Mifune's and Hirano's judo counter katas.  Watching these things (especially Mifune's) the viewer gets a creeping suspicion they are doing aikido to bust uke's judo maneuvers.
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I and some of my teachers have thought for a while that aikido generally makes a pretty good foil to judo, and it is interesting to see someone much smarter than me (like Shishida sensei) say something similar.

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Okano vs. Matos 1964 shiai commentary

Things I got from this video...

• I recall one of my teachers (who had actually laid hands on Okano) saying that he had a killer kouchigari that would either outright flatten you (like this), or else would put the fear and respect into you, thus setting up another action.  In this case, the second action was morote seoinage.
• Okano's entry into the shoulder throw seems almost casual - no big deal - I'll just step over here and turn like this, and oh, by the way, you're thrown!  Nothing about Okano's movement here sets off the other guy's danger sense.
• Okano started off several of his matches this year by skipping and hopping around the mat, as if setting the tone for the other player to mimic this action.  Looks like Okano was drawing the other player into more vertical, bouncy motion through a mirror neuron trick.
• Once he accomplished whatever he was doing with the hopping and skipping, Okano settled into a completely different type of foot motion.  Watch Okano's footwork during the steps leading up to the kouchigari.  Okano knew where every footfall was going.  He made no arbitrary steps - rather, he deliberately placed every foot.  Matos, on the other hand (the other foot), was almost spastic, taking tentative steps and quickly reversing them.  He was much less sure of where his feet were at any given time.  His footwork was stuttering.
• Okano, in several of his matches this year, throws that superfast kouchigari.  Watch his sweeping foot.  He leaves it in place, like a bear trap, so there is no entry into kouchi.  When the hapless opponent walks by the already-set foot, Okano pulls the trigger!
• Okano appears to have liked to finish throws squatting over the opponent, almost like ukigatame, instead of falling with the opponent.  This seems to have been one of his main entries into groundwork.

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