Feldenkrais movement principles

Just like me, Moshe Feldenkrais was both a therapist and a Judo black belt. Unlike me, Feldenkrais was a genius. Everything that I have ever read by or about Feldenkrais has been mind-blowingly thought provoking, including his book, Awareness Through Movement, and his Judo Groundwork book which is interpreted in this essay at Judoinfo (this is cool too). Any of Feldenkrais' stuff that I read once I have to read over and over.

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In Awareness Through Movement, several chapters are dedicated to the questions, "What is good posture?" and "What is good motion?" The following are some of the most interesting points (to me) from those chapters. These seem to be applicable to both Judo and Aikido and speak particularly well about aikido.

• Effective action improves the ability of the body to act.
• Reversibility is the mark of [good] movement.
• Light and easy movements are good.
• There is no limit to improvement.
• Use large muscles for heavy work.
• Forces acting at an angle to the main path cause damage.
• Superfluous efforts shorten the body.
• Concentration on the aim may cause excessive tension.
• Performance is improved by the separation of the aim from the means.
• Lack of choice makes strain habitual.

Whenever you think that you have mastered something in aikido, I recommend you choose any one of these ideas and consider it carefully in the context of the motions in your technique. See doesn't the whole technique fall apart for you. See isn't your aikido better when you finally get it reassembled in accord with Feldenkrais' ideas.

The hikiotoshi demon

Hikiotoshi uchi is a surprisingly versatile and robust technique. There are several different ways it is practiced in the syllabus. The solo practice allows one to concentrate on getting the right angles and the right timing of the hands and feet, while the paired practice allows us to simulate contact with a sword. Hikiotoshi can be done as suburi in sets of 25 or 50 or 100. It can be offensive (hikiotoshi) or defensive (tsukihazushi) and these two versions also demonstrate that it can come from a fairly wide range of angles and still be effective.

I don't know about all the rest of you jodoka out there but I know that I have a tendency in paired practice to try to strike too hard. Friday I practiced it just dropping the jo into the centerline with my weight behind it and was getting good results. The presence of a guy with a bokken in front of me seems to change things in my mind. Makes it more urgent to get that sword out of the way. I ended up getting harder and harder until uke flinched and I missed, throwing myself into position for a perfect decapitation.

That seems like the same demon that pops up in tegatana when we switch from simple taisabaki to pushing motions. In tegatana it manifests itself as a desire to take larger steps, while in jodo it seems to manifest as a desire to hit harder in paired practice than in solo practice. Interesting...

We're in the new dojo

Today we moved out of the old dojo into the new dojo. Here are some things to understand to make the most of the new site:

• This is a private residence – not a business. Treat my home with respect and help take care of the dojo.
• Because this is not a business you will pay no fees or dues to us. If you want to help offset the cost of utilities and maintenance, put a tip in the tip jar. ($30 per student per month would help a lot.)
• Do not park on the street and do not block the ramp at the front of the house.
• There are no dressing areas, so come dressed and ready.
• Shoes, sandals, or flipflops are part of your uniform. They help keep dirt outside the dojo.
• The toilet is in the house up the stairs to the left.
• Every student and instructor will help clean up after each class before he or she goes home.

While we are completing construction and clean-up the following rules are in effect:

• If you see a nail or tack or piece of wood on the floor, pick it up and throw it away.
• Classes are likely to be shoe-wearing, no-groundwork, no-falling classes for the first week or two.
• Take more dirt home with you than you bring into the dojo.

Chain #1

Today we worked on ukemi, tegatana, and hanasu as usual, focussed slightly on hanasu #6 and #8, then started exploring techniques that spring from release #1.
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This is an interesting exercise because it allows us to explore a lot of different recurring cycles in our motion, including left-right, up-down, bent-straight, hineri-gaeshi, and near-far. It also introduces much of junanahon kata.
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Patrick M. was getting a superb owaza kote gaeshi on me nearly every time. After we'd beat those release techniques to death we worked on the atemiwaza. The two cool techniques of the day were the ushiroate from koryu daisan (brush off and run) and the kataotoshi from owaza jupon.
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[Update 6/9/2010 - using the releases to set up various techniques and exploring the transitions between these techniques is a great exercise.  It makes the releases much more general-purpose and it improves the flow of your aikido.]

Ukemi night

Tonight was ukemi night at judo class. " But," you say. "Every night is ukemi night at Mokuren."

Well tonight we worked on ukemi emphasizing forward rolls then building into the proper ukemi for hip throws. The technique of the night was kubinage and we threw on a crash pad so the beginners could have the confidence to not flinch and resist and end up getting hurt. Devin, the smallest member of the class, was throwing beautiful hip throws that resembled a mix of koshiguruma and kubinage - effortless and effective against class members (literally) three times his size. Then we worked on the various floating throw elements that make up osotogari.

So, why do we do so much ukemi practice at Mokuren? First of all, it is the single most appropriate, applicable, effective self defence that exists in any martial art. Unless something is drastically wrong with your lifestyle then I promise that you will slip or trip many times more during your life than you will be attacked. Being able to fall reflexively and properly is much more likely to save you than the ultimate deadly ninja technique of the night. Ukemi is also about a lot more than self-defence, but let it suffice to say that it is ultra important and my students practice it until it is a reflex and then continue to refine and maintain that reflex.

This reminds me of another (perhaps) distinctive of judo at Mokuren. That is, we very rarely do uchikomi practice in which tori turns in repeatedly without throwing. Uke falls on virtually every technique practiced at Mokuren because ukemi is that important a skill. Of course, there are proponents of uchikomi practice that will correctly argue that they get many more repetitions of the kuzushi and tsukuri phases of various throws than we do at Mokuren. Also, uchikomi can be a very good cardiovascular exercise. But, in my opinion, ukemi is such a vital skill that we try to practice it as much as possible. Also, with uchikomi practice, uke is relegated to the role of motionless practice dummy and learns virtualy nothing. By minimizing uchikomi at Mokuren, both partners are actively learning for a greater portion of the time.

Same hand stuck foot

James Reuster gave me an idea several years that I have gotten a lot of mileage out of. I think he learned it from the Aikido of Maryland folks. It is "same hand stuck foot." This is the idea that whatever hand is the power hand, you would prefer to stick that same foot to the ground. Until this point the model we'd used was "same hand same foot," or the idea that whatever hand was the power hand, the opposite foot was grounded in the back. "Same foot" is a great way to apply power in a push, but it is very hard to be neutral - tori ends up stuck in a push whenever he starts it. The "stuck foot" idea pretty much cures that problem, leaving tori much more neutral and mobile.
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The tai chi guys talk a lot about "ground path," including this guy, who has a lot of interesting articles and some good tapes on the idea too. The idea of ground path is to create a route through your body from the power hand to the ground so that the force the opponent puts on you ends up directed against the ground. With the "same foot" idea, the ground path goes from one hand through the center and down the opposite leg. This sticks both sides of your body in place - the power hand on one side and the grounded foot on the other side, reducing your mobility. Alternately, the "stuck foot" idea creates a ground path from the power hand through one side of the body and into the ground. This leaves the center and the other side of the body free to move and respond if the technique does not work.
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It turns out that it is easy to correct when you find yourself stuck applying force in "same foot" so that you are in the more mobile "stuck foot." You can either change the power hand or the grounded foot. Both of these fixes show up in the wrist releases and especially in randori and make a big difference in your mobility.

Mokuren uchideshi program

Tonight I wanted to welcome our new uchideshi to Mokuren dojo. His name is Kristof Tomey and he is from Ukraine. He will be living with the Parkers for about 10 months and doing aikido with us.

I like to think that I am so famous a sensei that people from all over the world flock to southwest Mississippi to learn from me, but alas, he is an exchange student. But he still counts as uchideshi because he is living with us and doing martial arts with us, so there!

This makes our second uchideshi. Our first was Gregor Barth from Berlin, who spent about 8 months with us and studied Judo. Gregor was (is) a very promising competitor with a very nice tokuiwaza of seoinage. Perhaps we will be seing more of his name in the international Judo circles...

Anyway, Kristof arrives at the beginning of August, and we all wish him a safe trip and a delightful educational experience in America.

Let the step release the pressure

Today we are back to the techniques associated with hanasu #1 (oshitaoshi and all that...). I was mining through some notes I got from Henry Copeland when one particularly interesting point popped up. On tenkai oshi taoshi we are to work on not releasing the pressure then stepping, but rather, letting the tenkan step release the pressure. There's no telling how many times Henry has told me that before now, but maybe now I'm prepared enough to listen.
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Tonight we're having aiki class at the new Mokuren Dojo in Magnolia. I've finished panneling the walls and we're cleaning up this afternoon and doing no-falling, shoe-wearing aiki tonight. This weekend I'm hoping to get the AC and lights and phone wired and work on the wainscot and moulding. We're moving out of the McComb dojo saturday afternoon.

Udegaeshi

Ok, so every aikido technique has to have a backup plan because a major principle is that we must expect techniques to fail but not be surprised if they succeed.
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Plan-B for oshitaoshi is called udegaeshi. When oshitaoshi fails it is most often because uke pushed out by straightening his arm Tori follows this straightening arm, knowing that at the end of any straightening must come a bending. The change in direction at the end of the line changes tori's position from ura to omote and creates a gaeshi position for uke. From here, tori follows the bending arm into a gaeshi lock and pushes uke backward to the ground.
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Like the last pin, this one is not a hold-or-die thing for tori. Tori wants to be positioned closer to uke's head than his side (shikaku) and pressing the arm to make the position inconvenient for uke.

Nodes of neutrality

Some years ago a group of aikidoka discussed with me a concept that I call nodes of neutrality.
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The idea is that between any technique and its associated backup technique there is a place from which it is equally easy to get to either technique. We want to find these nodes and move through them because they represent a place of relative safety where we have at least two options. If we favor some particular technique instead of moving into a node, then we are reducing our own options.
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As an example, each wrist release in hanasu is paired with several others. On a basic level, #1 is paired with #5, #2 with #6, #3 with #7, and #4 with #8. So, there should be a node between each of these pairs of techniques. It turns out that we can most easily find the 1-5 and 3-7 nodes by staying centered and walking forward off the attack line to the end if the line. Likewise, the 2-6 and 4-8 nodes are found by turning 90 degrees offline outside uke's arm. From these points it is easiest to allow uke's motion to determine whch technique occurs. This concept of nodes between complementary techniques also appears in junanahon kata and koryu daiyon to a large degree.

Safety strategies in aikido

There are only a handful of major principles, or strategies in aikido which help to keep tori safer in crazy situations. These principles should occupy the majority of our training time so that we ingrain them into our subconscious at a reflexive level. The major ones include:

• evade off the line of attack
• move away from the attacker
• put a hand in uke's face (shomenate) when surprised
• move behind the attacker (ushiroate or tenkan) whenever possible

All techniques in aikido are instantiations of some or all of these safety principles in various situations and combinations.

Today in aiki class we did Patrick M's yellow belt demonstration. He did excellent, as did his uke. We will be scheduling Andy S's green belt demo within the next 2-3 weeks and I can already see that his will also be a fine demo. Looks like it'll be the first one we host in our new dojo location.

Anyway, today we worked on the last move of tegatana, spun through hanasu, and homed in on what to do with the tenkai kote gaeshi that springs up out of release #8. We found that ushiroate was a good backup technique, and that if we lost the tenkai kote gaeshi then the situation tended to decay into release #3, which gives us opportunities for variations on kote mawashi.

Suwari sumiotoshi and snapdown

We began our kid's class last night with suwari sumiotoshi and the contrasting snapdown in which tori reaches across, grabs uke's right armpit, and snaps it past tori's right knee onto the ground. Once you become comfortable with this then you can snap people straight into a cross-face turnover. This is another good pair of techniques for ground randori because they illustrate that Kito 2-direction principle. I got Cody a couple of times with these techniques in randori tonight.

In the later class we began warming up with light and easy deashiharai and it turned into an entire hour on deashi. We worked on the basic deashi as uke steps back and tori bumps him and sweeps. Then we worked on the roundabout, very late timing of deashi as part of the continuum of the step cycle. As uke steps fwd on the right, extend him down the line, as in osoto then step to parallel his recovery step. then sweep. This second variation of deashi was feeling especially... interesting... tonight.

Oshitaoshi

Oshitaoshi is the Tomiki equivalent of ikkyo in aikikai aikido. Tori gains control of uke’s arm at the wrist and elbow and uses it to push uke down to the ground.
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The pin at the end of the technique is known as udeosae gatame, and it introduces the idea of pinning in aikido. Aiki pins are not “hold ‘em no matter what” things, but are intended to make continuation of an attack inconvenient, potentially exhausting, and maybe painful for uke, while tori remains able to give up the pin easily and disengage safely. The pins from seiza seen in aikikai aikido do not appear in our style until much later.

Think about oshitaoshi as similar to shomenate – pushing forward through uke’s center – it just so happens that you have his elbow. If you take his balance effectively and move with him then you shouldn’t have to wrestle him to the ground by pushing hard on his arm. If you have to wrestle or push then it's not the right time for oshitaoshi.

Tegatana ideas

Tegatana is a synthesis of the unsoku and tandoku undo, which are basic forms of footwork and arm motion used in aikido. These motions were separated from their contexts in techniques and placed by themselves into tegatana no kata so that the aikidoka can practice the motions without having to deal with so many variables at once. So tegatana consists of context insensitive, or general purpose movements used throughout aikido. Sometimes it is fun and instructive to try to think of specific aikido techniques where the motions in tegatana are used, but because of the general nature of tegatana, it is often hard to spot a specific application for some of the motions.

One of the first things we learn in tegatana is how to evade (taisabaki) off the line of attack (embusen) using safe, conservative footwork (tsugiashi). Tsugiashi is a dropping, sliding step in which one leg shifts and the other leg follows without crossing the first leg. The first three motions in the kata consist of three types of taisabaki in which tsugiashi is used:

• diagonal steps forward and backward
• sidesteps left and right
• turning steps

Here is some clippage from a comment I posted to a student's blog - not that I think my advice is so awesome that I like to quote myself (it's generally a very bad thing to self-reference) - but just to keep from having to retype it and rephrase it...

...a couple of hints to help you keep the right sized steps in tegatana. First, notice that with very large steps forward it is difficult to land on the ball of your front foot instead of the heel. Conversely, if you take a very large step backward you cannot keep your rear heel near the floor - it pops up. so, watch how your feet are working and if it is awkward to do a proper falling tsugiashi try shorter steps. A good trick for learning to make standard sided turning steps (move # 3) is to measure the width of your basic stance in tegatana then draw a box on the floor (or cut out a paper square) with sides the width of your stance. Then start with your toes on two adjacent corners and step around the box to the left and to the right so that after each step your toes are on adjacent corners.

Of course, this doesn't mean that there won't be times in aiki that you have to take a large step, but in tegatana you are learning a standard-sized step so that when your brain tells your body "go that way" your body takes one standard step instead of some random step. When this is ingrained in you, your brain can adjust your step length appropriately, but with no standard sided step then all motion is random and chaotic.