Mutual education

What a great randori session we had tonight. It started out as judo with Rob and myself, but we were both feeling lazy, so after some standing drills (including some work on happo no kuzushi - look for the posts in the next couple of days) and some light nagekomi we de-volved into chatting about knife randori and our aikido system. We ended up shutting up and putting up. We played with some of the variant forms of randori that I've talked about on this blog lately, including grab-and-go knife randori and the S.T.A.B. hug the arm maeotoshi. I got my thighs and belly cut up pretty badly a couple of times but managed to catch Rob a couple of times with shomenate (You remember, the technique that Tomiki said preceeds all successful aikido).
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It was neat trying my aikido against a really dangerous knife guy in some unfamiliar randori situations with some resistance involved. You want to have someone worthy of testing your skills against, go find one of Bram Frank's CSSD Modern Arnis guys. It was neat to see how well the core of our aiki system (shomenate) works even against this worthy an adversary.
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We also played some drills that I've been preparing for the Aiki Buddy Gathering next month. Using aiki brushoff and rolling the ball to integrate the kata and chains we do into randori. Cool stuff. For instance, we worked on a couple of nijusan techniques (shomenate and oshitaoshi) with uke given the instructions to absolutely not fall using the standard fall from kata. This leads, naturally into rolling the ball to stay safe and retain control and aiki brushoff to disengage and flee. Really cool. Worked wonders on Rob even as he added greater levels of force and speed and resistance. And Rob was able to do it well with minimal instruction.
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The really cool thing is, I think I managed to communicate to Rob what I've been trying to tell him for a while (that our aikido is really cool) and he was definately able to show me better than tell me what he was talking about in his knife randori comments (that the CSSD modern Arnis guys really know what they are talking about). We clarified and simplified a lot of our talk and theory in the crucible of randori tonight.

Outstanding gedanate

I was looking around for some footage for a couple of articles that are coming down the pipeline regarding kuzushi (unbalancing) and happo no kuzushi (Kodokan's 8-directional offbalance exercise) when I came across this OUTSTANDING demonstration of gedanate (also called sokumen iriminage) done by a Shotokan guy. I think this video is worth delaying the kuzushi articles for and I think my buddies that do Chinese martial arts (Dojo Rat, Northstar, BlackTaoist) might find it interesting in light of their recent Single Whip discussion. Stay tuned to find out what I think about the role of kuzushi in aikido/judo as well as some modifications to the classic Happo no Kuzushi demonstration that actually make it a useful learning exercise.

Kouchigari for effect

Most folks probably don't consider kouchigari an ippon throw, but this guy sure demonstrates it for ippon! Watch closely, because this throw is fast. Not only is kouchigari a serious threat on its on, but it pairs with other techniques like ouchigari, taiotoshi, and seoinage to make for a really confusing mess of motion for uke.

More on the Bear

Some days you eat the bear...

and some days the bear eats you!

These two pics are of Allen Kelly, who lives in Birmingham, AL. Great guy and a great aikidoka. I always enjoy getting to see him at the Henry clinics at Starkville. I like the intent in the top picture. Uke knows he's grabbed ahold of a terrible thing!

The role of the knife in aikido

Rob has an excellent, reasoned comment on my ongoing discussion of knife technique in aikido. he makes the point that he essentially wouldn't want to go empty handed to a knife fight. That he'd rather have a knife (a tool). Too true. But I think there is an underlying misunderstanding of the role of the knife in aikido training in general.

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Tomiki, when he started teaching aikido, put a foam knife in the hand of the attacker. Why? Some people say it was to facilitate competition. That's nonsense. He could have just as easily devised a competition ruleset with the attacker doing lunge punches. Some say that it was to preserve the budo spirit. I find that shaky too. If he's wanted to develop a traditional samurai-type sport he could have had them wearing kendo armor and defending against bokken or at least swinging foam bats. So, what does the knife do for us?

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The obvious answer is, "We learn to defend against a knife." Well, that's the biggest load of malarkey yet. The knife has evolved over the course of thousands of years as the best weapon around - even surpassing the firearm for general utility. Knives cause gruesome, debilitating wounds even when they are not fatal.

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Now, I'm biased. I'm not a fan of the Tomiki tanto randori methodology. From what I can see from what little I've watched. About the only thing that anyone has ever learned from competing against a foam knife is that if you take two relatively equally trained aikidoka and give one a knife, he will almost always win (see the video below). The knife is simply that big an advantage. Sure, in tanto randori, someone is occasionally able to knock the knife guy down, but it is almost never via clean technique and it is almost always at the cost of being cut many, many times. So, how do they balance that huge advantage of the knife in randori? They only score the attacks in which uke stabs moving forward with decent balance and they specify that the knife must enter tori's torso at nearly a 90 degree angle. Basically you can only do zombie stabs (albeit fast ones). But this is NOT a rant against tanto randori players. If you want to practice that way it's no skin off my back. I'm trying to get at what is the role of the knife in aikido?

In my opinion, the only reason we practice against knife attacks is in order to learn to deal with being totally outclassed. It doesn't really provide much incentive to test yourself against those that are weaker than you - you never have an incentive to get better. But if you give even the most inexperienced player a knife then all of a sudden everyone gets the point that everyone is potentially dangerous. With the knife we can see how we stand up in the absolute worst of situations, and that is incentive to improve. We learn that we have to treat everyone the same - as if they are so awesomely dangerous that they totally outclass us.

Ukemi - attacking and falling

Over the course of the last year or so, I've written 22 posts that I'd labeled ukemi. Well, slow me! That actually encompasses two different kinds of articles - some on how to fall down safely and some others on how to give your partner a better attack. Well, now I've removed the ukemi label and have labeled those articles more appropriately falling/rolling or attacking. Hope y'all can find stuff better around here now.

Forward kneeling roll

When learning to do a forward roll, many instructors have a kneeling form that they say is lower-impact and easier than a standing roll. Well, the way that I've seen it done most often is not really a kneeling roll and it is not even easier than a standing roll. This is because typically it is done by beginning in a kneeling position with the front knee up - and then standing up into a crouch. This is actually counterproductive. Check out how we teach this first kneeling forward roll exercise.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4134922017577940531&hl=en

(AAARGH! that infernal Google embedded player makes me crazy. It worked for a while then puked out. The above is the link to the video.)

Things to notice include: the front knee and shoulder start on the ground. The hips rise but the shoulder does not come off the ground - so this is truly a no-impact exercise. Not only is it no-impact but it is exceptionally low-speed. The benefit of this is that it really improves the muscular coordination of the torso and hips better than throwing yourself through the roll.

Now, for pure entertainment value, check out this forward roll...

Please stab me... twice

Today it was Patrick M, Kel and myself. We worked on rolling and falling and tegatana getting Kel up to speed on how we do class. We worked a lot on the aiki basic instinct and used it to build up hanasu 1-4. Then we chained through chain#1 for a while.

Today we worked on uke's attack. I've talked and written a lot about attacking lately but this was a different way of thinking about it. One of the big recurring problems with a lot of aikido is poor attacks. Ukes lurch forward like the living dead, hanging an arm out for tori to break. Well, today we specified that uke's attack had to be one balistic motion through ma-ai just like always, but then uke has to retract his arm and center on tori in order to bring his other arm into play. Basically this turns all of our aikido attacks into either 1-2-type jab-cross or grab-cross combinations. This simple rule adds a lot of reality back into the training and gives tori a motivation (the second arm) to shape up. We've played this way some before but I really think I'm going to specify that pretty much all attacks in my class from now on are this type of simulation of jab-cross or grab-cross.

We worked shomenate this way and then added a knife, but with a twist. Uke's job was to stab tori twice no matter what else happened. This is another excellent way to put an end to the attack of the living dead. You'd be surprised how much of what passes for 'knife defense techniques' on YouTube goes totally down the toilet when uke starts with the express intent of at least stabbing twice. (Or maybe you wouldn't be surprised.)

And guess what - shomenate still worked like a charm! Sure we all got cut up some on each attack, and we each got totally evicerated once or twice, but we did pretty good against a decent simulation of a relentless knifer - which is about as out-classed as we can get ourselves without dealing with ninja or snipers.

Fall of the Spouse of Melissa

I really like the tone of this picture. The color of the light coming in the windows. Andy is getting the chops from Chops in the foreground and Melissa stands in the background with the storm behind her.

Melissa is a very good technical aikidoka, as is her husband, Glenn (grabbing Chad's head in the background below). They have both been doing aiki for a goodly long time now. For more pics of these two doing aikido, check out the MSU Aikido site.

I like to call this following picture, "Fall of the Spouse of Melissa."

Osotogari and hizaguruma

Osotogari and hizaguruma go together like peas and carrots. Actually better - nobody around here actually eats peas and carrots together, but I know from experience that these two techniques partner so well that learning one of them well impoves your performance of the other one. The reason that they go so well together is that they are dynamic opposites that occur from the same position. One is a forward throw and one a backward throw. One is (usually) an otoshi motion, the other a guruma. One is an attack on the near leg, the other attacks the far leg. One attacks an offbalance parallel to the opponent's stance line and the other attacks his perpendicular.

So it's just incredibly hard to avoid taking one of these two falls if you let the other guy get anywhere close to that position.

Knife randori

I can see some potential pros and cons (pun intended) in the police knife video. Let's take them one at a time.

Potentially good things:

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  The defending officer protects his gun side (assuming he's right handed and the baddie attacks right handed.) Protecting the gun side of the body is fundamental in police training, and that can lead to odd, one-sided techniques just as in SMR jodo (in Japan there were no left-handed swordsmen so the system is mainly one-sided).
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  The defending officer may be assuming the presence of a partner, in which case, if he can get a nominal control of the attacker then the partner can assist. He may also be able to assume the presence of knife resistant body armor (not that that would protect his hip flexors).
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  The defending officer does end up in a mechanically superior position with respect to the attacker's base of support (sure uke could stand differently, but just go with me for right now).

and the potentially bad points (besides the ones y'all have already mentioned):

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  The form that the officers demonstrate is force-on-force situation, which may be intuitive and easily teachable but strategically undesirable.
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  The defending officer has to make one or two iffy hand switches.
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  Though the defending officer has good mechanical advantage, it would be easy for the defender to scoop him with something like taniotoshi or gedanate or sukuinage.

Now, the S.T.A.B. video clears a lot of this up. In the police video we only see one repetition of a demnstration form of the thing, but in the S.T.A.B. video we see several different people doing variations with different levels of resistance. So we have a lot more info. I'm sure not trying to sell you on S.T.A.B. but I can see a lot of good in it.
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Basically what the guy has done is built his system around one aikido technique - maeotoshi.  He's got a set of techniques all related to maeotoshi. The shoulder hit may be seen as a sort of testing the attacker to see if he'll fall for sumiotoshi. The guy didn't demonstrate it, but gedanate would work well from this situation. He does demonstrate a form of ushiroate. Uke is primed in much of this video for deashibarai or kosotogari. And the guy does show smooth transitions from an inside clinch to maeotoshi and from maeotoshi on one side to maeotoshi on the other side.
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The knee to the peroneal nerve is a pretty good addition to the system. It doesn't over-commit tori but it can hurt and it can give tori a good offbalance for maeotoshi or gedanate. Another good form of the same thing is for tori to stand on uke's near foot, pinning it to the ground. I also saw a head-butt in there.
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Several folks mentioned that the instructor got cut up a lot in his demonstrations. I don't know how long these folks had practiced this system, but the students were doing pretty good. I didn't see them getting cut up like the instructor. Plus, we've all heard the old adage to expect to get cut.
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Overall, I think the police video was a pretty poor demonstration of an overall pretty decent exercise that I'd like to play with some, sort of as a hyped-up form of randori. I've seen a lot of what I'd consider a lot worse.

The standard disclaimer applies - I'm not a knife fighter - I don't even play one on TV. Fortunately we've got a certified (certifiable) knife guy working out with us. Rob, maybe you could expand on what you think of these videos and what you see of this system's potential.
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There's still more of my thoughts to come on the knife defense topic. Stay tuned...

More knife defense

I know many of you are eagerly awaiting the follow-up that I promised to post on the police knife defense video from last week. Here is another little tidbit that I wanted y'all to check out. It's apparently the same knife defense system but this vid has much more info that you can use to evaluate.

Iriminage and kotehineri

Thought I'd break up the density of the previous post with a pic or two. The first is yours truly getting busted with a very good iriminage from Gokata. I like to call this picture, "Dude! Nice beard!"

Y'all remember all the sacharine sweet pictures in sepia tones of the little boy and girl holding hands walking down the country road? Well, here's the aikido version. This is katatedori tenkai kotehineri (sankyo to my aikikai friends) from Sankata. Tori on the left has uke's wrist in an awful predicament and is about to put uke's head in the ground when he finally puts that right leg down.

Boys will be boys

Someone posed the question at the new Convocation Forum whether any members have ever had to use their martial arts skills. I figured I’d answer that one here.

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The only real bad altercation I’ve been in was in college. This was after I’d done several years of TKD and karate, but before I got into judo and aikido. A group of us had gone to a concert in Birmingham Alabama and were returning home just after midnight. We wanted to get something to eat and stopped in Bessemer Alabama. Everybody we’ve told about this since then has said “Well, that’s stupid. Why the hell would you stop in Bessemer?” Apparently the proper protocol for navigating Bessemer is lock the doors and drive faster than the speed limit. We didn’t know…

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We actually avoided the McDonalds because there were a lot of seedy looking characters hanging around, so we stopped at Krystal’s. The place was deserted except for a group of four teens huddled in the corner. We ordered, got our food, and went to sit down. My roommate, who got his food first, sat us in a corner table and one of the teens was talking to him and he went back to his buddies as the rest of our group came up.

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Looking back, with greater training and experience, I can see now that the four teens were working themselves up to get into a fight with us. They were feeding off each other and escalating. Finally one of them pointed at my roommate and yelled, “Hey, that fat guy called me ‘boy’!” Well, that perceived racist comment pulled the trigger on the teens and one in a green hoodie ran over, pushed my girlfriend’s face into the table, leaned over her, and slapped my roommate. The others jumped on my friends across the table from me and my roommate.

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We were in shock and the rest of the fight is sketchy. I was standing in shock doing nothing and I remember my girlfriend shaking my arm and shouting at me, “Do something, do something, DO SOMETHING…” My roomie and I turned the table over to get out of the corner and the melee was general.

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I faced off with green hoodie guy and said something cool like, “You’d better take your friends and get out of here!” Not appropriate at all since my friends were already getting their asses kicked. So Green Hoodie responded the only way he could, “Or else what?” I retorted by front kicking him so hard in the nards that he came off the ground.

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Hey, that’s a pretty good start for things, I thought to myself as he landed on his feet and proceeded to jump on me. I managed to duck aside and caught him over a shoulder and he started biting me on the back. CHEWING on my lats! That wasn’t part of my TKD training! I punched him in the nards enough times that he let go of my back and I rammed his head into a plate glass window (it didn’t break). He ran away.

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By the time I was through screwing around with my guy, the fight was breaking up and the other guys were running after Green Hoodie. But we probably took the worst of it. Discussing the fight afterwards, we figured out what each of the others were doing. One of my friends had grabbed two of them in rear chokes and just lay down, using them as shields and keeping them out of the fight. Probably the most sensible group tactic executed that day.

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Someone told me that I’d had a chair broken over me (and these were no wimpy chairs). I never knew. Someone had picked up a piece of that chair and clubbed my friend who was choking the two guys. My roommate (the fat guy) had been STABBED in the chest and back and neck seven times and had done virtually nothing to defend himself (still in shock). My girlfriend accidentally got in Knife Guy’s way on his way out and he stabbed her in the side of the chest in passing.

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Cops arrived moments after the other guys fled. We filed our reports. The cops’ response was, “You know, boys will be boys.” Krystals employees wanted us to pay damages. “Hell no,” was our response. We went to the ER and the doctor insisted that we spend the night. “Hell no,” We didn’t want to stay at the hospital. The ER doctor (the most noble and kind experience of the night) even offered to pay for us a hotel room so we wouldn’t have to drive back to Starkville that night. “Hell no,” we weren’t about to spend the night near Bessemer.

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For a couple of years after that I would wake up shaking and sweating and fists clenched dreaming about Green Hoodie. I imagined things I could have done to Green Hoodie. Worried over things I should have done to Green Hoodie. For a long time I puked at random times during car rides. I didn’t realize till later it was PTSD. It took me a long time after that night to forgive Green Hoodie so he would finally stop chewing on my back and my gut and my heart. I hope Green Hoodie and his friends have made something positive of their lives and I sure hope that he and his friends have forgiven us for the things we did and said to them all those years ago.

Six take away lessons:

• Drive through Bessemer faster than the speed limit with the doors locked.
• Don’t get in fights – there is no positive outcome.
• Don’t sit around with a burger in your mouth while folks are escalating nearby.
• When attacked, do SOMETHING instead of nothing.
• Front kick to the nards is not a fight ender.
• The only real fight ender is forgiveness.

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