Tomiki's solo taiso for judo and aikido

For the past couple of weeks, some of my blogging buddies have been helping me beat to death our footwork and coordination exercises that Tomiki gave us.  Alternately named judo taiso, tandoku renshu, unsoku and tegatana dosa, or tegatana no kata, these exercises are widely used in the Tomiki lineage to teach the types of movement that are thought to be useful in aikido and judo practice.

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There are many versions of these exercises, each with different numbers and orders or movements as well as different emphases.  In the version that we do in my club, there are twelve exercises, and I find them easiest to keep in my mind if I divide them into three groups...

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3 Steps

1.  nanameashi (diagonal step) - more info here. VIDEO
2. wakiashi (side step) - more info here. VIDEO
3. tenkanashi (turning step) - more info here. VIDEO

4 Pushes

1. shomen tegatana (push forward). VIDEO
2. soto mawashi (over the top). VIDEO
3. uchi mawashi (up the middle). VIDEO
4. uchi-soto gaeshi (reach around-push up). VIDEO

5 Turns

1. uchi mawashi gaeshi (release #1). VIDEO
2. soto mawashi gaeshi (helicopter pivot). VIDEO
3. koshi kaeshi (hip switch). VIDEO
4. omawashi (backward turn). VIDEO
5. yoko omawashi (big side circle) - more info here. VIDEO

The English names above are our nicknames, rather than literal translations.  The videos are of the incomparable Nick Lowry explaining how he teaches and practices these exercises.

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I have, in prior posts, given some general hints for walking kata, as well as this post which has become a classic reference... 100 Things to try in Tegatana

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The Walk - 12 - yoko omawashi

Last (and yes, least), here is a video of yours truly doing The Walk.  Sure, it's not a great video - none of my videos are great productions, but you can tell that I'm a really tough guy because you have to be tough to wear a shirt that says your name is SUE! 
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Links to previous articles on The Walk - nanameashi, wakiashi,  tenkanashi,  shomen tegatana, soto mawashi, uchi mawashi, uchi-soto gaeshi,uchi mawashi gaeshi, soto mawashi gaeshi, koshi kaeshi, and omawashi.

Last, but not least - Yoko o mawashi - the big side circle

• If you're looking for practical techniques that look like this, sometimes kotegaeshi looks a bit like this, and this also greatly resembles a cool way to splatter someone that is shooting at your knees for a leg pick.
• More than looking like particular techniques, I think that we use this motion as a contrast to the other movements - we usually do all the other motions small and conservative and this one shows some of what happens when you take a much larger than normal step.  It also suggests to us that we should every so often practice all the other stuff in larger-than-usual mode.
• This is an experiment to see all the places that we can put our centered, unbendable arms by moving hips and feet instead of arms.
• I also like to use it as an experiment to see where you can move shoulders and arms and hips without moving feet. 
• Yoko omawashi also serves as a no-impact strength and flexibility exercise for the legs and hips.

That's the last of the move-by-move breakdowns, but hardly all that can be said about The Walk.  I figure to have a couple of summary posts, so stay tuned and I'll try to get this thread finished this weekend so we can go back to talking about how to trash bozos properly.

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The Walk - 11 - omawashi

Links to previous articles on The Walk - nanameashi, wakiashi,  tenkanashi,  shomen tegatana, soto mawashi, uchi mawashi, uchi-soto gaeshi,uchi mawashi gaeshi, and soto mawashi gaeshi, and koshi kaeshi.

The penultimate movement exercise in The Walk is O Mawashi - the big  turn.  Our nickname for this is "the backward turn."  I actually don't have much to say about the backward turn today - I'll have a bit more to say about all the turns in a couple of days, but I suspect that my lack of discussion material for this movement means I need to spend more time working this thing over.

• We usually think of this motion as most closely resembling the tsukuri (turn-in) for seoinage or koshinage, but this motion also shows up in various other places, like release #6 or the tanto shomenuchi ushiroate from Sankata.
• Like the other 180 degree turns, If we start in shizentai, it takes 3 steps or weight shifts to turn 180 degrees.  You want to be a bit obsessive about counting these steps (on all the turns) - make sure that it doesn't take you 4-5 steps to do this 3-step motion, and also make sure you're not blurring two of the steps together so that it appears to take 2 steps.
• To the degree that this represents the turn-in for koshinage or seoinage, you want to get your mind straight that you are not lifting and pulling with the left arm as your right side steps in, because lifting causes you to root to the ground and pulling with the left arm prevents your right side from entering smoothly.  Whatever it is that we are doing with that left arm, it is not lifting uke or pulling tori in.

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Large kihon, large spirit

Bear in mind I'm not criticizing or disrespecting anyone's practice. As I've said before, The Walk is largely auto-didactic - it has different lessons for each person, and what works for one person may not work for another.  What works for you will even change throughout your lifetime of practice.

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But, watching these two videos of similar versions of The Walk reminded me of a great quote that Sensei Jack Bieler told me a while back.  Apparently one of his Japanese Jodo sensei liked to say something to the effect of, "If you practice kihon small you will have small spirit, but if you practice kihon large, you can have large spirit."

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I've noticed this in my own practice - sometimes I get preoccupied with not making mistakes and not making any extraneous motion, and pretty soon my practice has a cramped feel to it.  At other times I do my practice with great, sweeping motions (big ice-cream scoops we call them) and my practice ends up feeling expansive and inclusive.  It's probably a good thing to practice exercising your spirit in small spaces as well as in large spaces.

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The Walk - 10 - koshi kaeshi

Links to previous articles on The Walk - nanameashi, wakiashi,  tenkanashi,  shomen tegatana, soto mawashi, uchi mawashi, uchi-soto gaeshi, uchi mawashi gaeshi, and soto mawashi gaeshi.
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The next motion in this set of exercises is koshi kaeshi - the hip switch.  Of all the motions in the exercise, this is probably the most universally applicable.  Hip switch is absolutely everywhere in aikido and judo.  I don't think it is possible to do any technique or action without using koshi kaeshi to adjust the direction or facing of your hips.

• In virtually all of Tomiki aikido, techniques are performed from shizentai (natural posture) instead of Ueshiba's hanmi (half-facing stance).  From shizentai it is not possible to hip switch more than about 135 degrees and still end up in shizentai.  As you switch farther, you start to get into hanmi.  If you start in hanmi, though, you can hip switch 180 degrees and end up back in hanmi.
• This is not "doing the twist" or "stomping roaches."  The weight does not stay even between the feet and heels twist to face a different direction - this is weak and endangers the knees and is difficult to do with grippy shoes.  The feet move at different times, with the front foot turning, the weight shifting to that foot, then the hip and the other foot switching.  The weight shifts slightly to the new back foot leaving you in a shallow hanmi or back stance.
• The kata form of this hip switch is sort of generic.  When it shows up in specific techniques, like shihonage, it looks different.  It is good to practice the hip switch in different configurations, like Adrian and Eddy do in the first few segments of the above video. And this applies to all of the exercises - it's good to tear this kata apart into individual chunks and practice each chunk in different configurations with different emphases or exaggerations.

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Whoever said it?

Whoever said it and made us believe it,

That we have to all look like the ancient masters and each other to be doing legitimate budo?

That we have to do the same exercises and kata the same way month after month, year after year, hoping one day to transcend?

That a bunch of old dead guys from another part of the world should know best how we should express our artform here and now?

That there even exists one right way to do an ARTFORM, for goodness sake!

Who was it? Because we should hang them up in effigy and fling our poop at them!


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The Walk - 9 - soto mawashi gaeshi

Links to previous articles on The Walk - nanameashi, wakiashi,  tenkanashi,  shomen tegatana, soto mawashi, uchi mawashi, uchi-soto gaeshi, and uchi mawashi gaeshi

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Next comes soto mawashi uchi - the outside sweep&turn (our nickname is "the helicopter") - and like all of the moves in this set of exercises, there are several interesting points to be made here...

• This motion most closely resembles release #4 - the basic idea is that you have stepped offline but engaged (blocked maybe) with the opposite hand.  Finding yourself in an inside condition, you sweep uke's arm down ans across and turn to place yourself behind uke.
• Prior to this, all of the motions have been same-hand-same-foot.  After this, all the motions are goofy foot - that is, the left foot and the right hand are operating together (or vice versa).
• In this motion the arm rises up the centerline, drops off to the side, and sweeps back into the center.  All this happens prior to the turn to illustrate that you cannot sweep and turn at the same time.  So, your hand comes back to center before you start the turn.
• Likewise, you cannot lift and turn at the same time.  The turn occurs - then there is the extra body rise that Nick talks about on the above video.
• Incidentally, one of my favorite applications that features this motion is kaiten-nage.  Tori steps offline outside uke's punch, sweeps the arm around and trades hands.  Then the same sweeping hand repeats the same motion again except it strikes the back of uke's neck and sweeps his head around under his own armpit - similar, but not exactly like this one...

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The Walk - 8 - uchi mawashi gaeshi

Links to previous articles on The Walk -  - nanameashi, wakiashi,  tenkanashi,  shomen tegatana, soto mawashi, uchi mawashi, and uchi-soto gaeshi.

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Previously we have discussed the three footwork actions and the 4 pushing actions in The Walk.  Today is the first of the five turning actions (wherein we turn more than 90 degrees during a step - 90 degree turns are covered in the previous work.)

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This first turn has been called uchi mawashi gaeshi - the inside sweep&turn...

• The action of this turn most closely and obviously resembles release #1 - alternately called hon soto hanasu or chudan aigamae in different clubs.
• This action begins with a drop step and an outward hip turn.  Make sure that the knee and foot are pointing the same direction and working in the same plane by the time that foot is weightbearing.  This is important for knee safety and strength, and it is also probably the most common mistake in this motion.
• As the body turns, the unbendable arm rises straight up the centerline and does not arc off to the side.  This sort of feels like pushing something upward and stepping under it or wedging your own hand and foot apart as you step your center between them.
• At the end of the turn, you rise up onto your toes and emphasize the upward push.  This serves a couple of purposes.  First it is a simple momentum/balance check - if your momentum is out of control during the turn and you raise your center like this, you will fall over or have to make an extra step to catch yourself.  Secondly, it illustrates that you cannot lift and turn at the same time - if you are going to lift, you have to make the turn then lift.
• Interestingly, we were taught to do 4 reps of this turn but only 2 reps of all the others.  I've asked and gotten a couple of different answers about why - perhaps this was to make this turn conform to a regular 8-count like the rest of the kata, perhaps it was some extra practice for some class in the past that was sucking at that movement and the extra reps just became codified in the exercise.  I personally like to think that we do twice as many reps of this movement because it represents release#1, which is the basis of all the releases, which in turn are the basis of all of our aikido.  So, in my mind we do twice as many reps of this exercise because it is the most important turn.

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The Walk - 7 - Uchi soto gaeshi

 Links to previous articles on The Walk -  - nanameashi, wakiashi,  tenkanashi,  shomen tegatana, soto mawashi, and uchi mawashi.

The next movement in The Walk is uchi soto gaeshi - the inside sweep&turn...

• This illustrates an interesting thing about the structure of The Walk - the exercise as a whole is constructed to lull you into a rhythm and then break that rhythm to trick you into a mis-step.  This happens often in this exercise  For instance, in the three previous pushes, we get into a left-right-left-right rhythm (for 12 beats) and then all of a sudden, uchi soto gaeshi is left-left-right-right.  When the exercise changes rhythm, watch carefully for extra footsteps and awkward pauses.
• Uchi mawashi gaeshi represents pushing with the shoulder.  The contact point is not the forearm or hand, but the upper arm or shoulder.  This feels to me like the pictures you've seen of olde timey football players turning the arm inward in order to hit with the shoulder.
• This movement is most commonly seen as representing parts of iriminage or kotegaeshi.
• Instead of pulling uke's head to your shoulder in iriminage, try pushing it in an arc back toward your own shoulder.  Sounds weird, but uchi soto gaeshi can teach you how to push toward yourself instead of pulling.
• This motion also illustrates the entire range of motion of the arm all the way from hineri to gaeshi.  This sort of motion can be an interesting kuzushi induction - before you contact uke, place your own arm into hineri, then as you get a connection, relax and allow your arm to rebound back to neutral or even into gaeshi - that twist will be transferred into uke's body.  This is useful in the tenkan version of kotegaeshi  This is similar to the beginning of Koryu dai ni.

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The Walk - 6 - uchi mawashi

 Links to previous articles on The Walk -  - nanameashi, wakiashi,  tenkanashi,  shomen tegatana, and soto mawashi.

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Q: How many Tomiki aikido folks does it take to do The Walk?

A: Twenty - one to do the thing and 19 more to watch and say, "That's not how we do it at my dojo ;-)"

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But anyway, today's discussion on The Walk is on the 6th movement - uchi mawashi, or as we call it, "The up-the-middle." 

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As I've said in a previous post, The Walk is a very auto-didactic practice - it has different lessons for different people in different parts of their lives.  It's not possible (probably) to do the thing wrong, but different types of practice will yield different types of lessons.  Uchi mawashi is somewhat de-emphasized in the above rendition of The Walk, or perhaps I should say, he places emphasis on a different aspect of this movement than we do.  Some of the things that we are working on here...

• The beginning of the motion is sweeping an unbendable arm upward along the centerline from hip-level (gedan) to above and in front of the head (jodan).  We usually think about this as a flying wedge, or cowcatcher motion.  This is the part that we call the "up-the-middle."
• Next, the arm comes offline to the side, drops, and turns over in a small circle.  The drop of the arm is timed to coincide with the drop of the center.  This can be interpreted as release #4 similar to Yon kata #9).
• Some people (as in the film above) de-emphasize or skip the cowcatcher motion in this exercise (they may get the cowcatcher elsewhere) and emphasize this as a dropping diagonal chop timed with the drop step.  This is another good element to get in there.
• Notice that after any drop step, there is a recovery step, in which your feet come back together and your center rises.  After the drop-chop, there should be a slight rising push so that your arm stays synched with your center.
• This and the previous movement (soto mawashi and uchi mawashi) are actually very similar to the two arm PNF patterns (to put this exercise in geek speak), and one of the interesting things about these two motions is that you can construct any arm motion from pieces of those two motions.

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Infectious self-discipline

What is it, exactly, that we are doing in aikido and judo?  Ostensibly, we are learning to trash bozos, right?

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Well, best as I can tell, at least my working thesis right now is that what we are actually trying to do in both aikido and judo (real judo - beyond competitive sport application)...

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We are trying to develop the ability to retain such exquisite control over the self that not only can an opponent not exert control over you, but you can use that self-discipline to lead the opponent back toward balance and sanity.  Aikido (and good judo too) is supposed to be infectious, winsome self-discipline.

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That sound's kinda crazy, doesn't it?  Sounds like some of the nonsense that Morihei was always spewing, doesn't it?  Sounds like a Utopian dream to me.

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But lately, I've been seeing more and more ways that this is both foundational and practically applicable in both aikido and judo, and it's been suggested to me that jodo is the same way.  It's funny how all our bozo-trashin' crash&smash death waza get right back around to Morihei's hippie poetry.

By means of the way

Call out the misguided enemy

Advance and persuade him with words of instruction

Through the Sword of Love.

[photo courtesy of Yupa]

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The Walk - 5 - soto mawashi

The Walk as is familiar to us doesn't begin on this video until around 1:30.  Before that are some interesting ashi sabaki exercises that are either not part of The Walk or are extrapolated from The Walk.  Links to previous articles on The Walk -  - nanameashi, wakiashi,  tenkanashi., and shomen tegatana.

The next movement that we work on in The Walk is soto mawashi - the outward sweeping motion, also known to us as "over the top".  This is a large arm sweep upward to the side until the hand comes into center above the head, then it drops down the centerline to face level.  

• The up-down-up rhythm of the sweep of the arm should be synchronized with the down-up rhythm of the center of mass during the drop step. This means that the arm should start moving first, and must be overhead and ready to drop before the step begins. 
• The obvious interpretation of this motion is a strike - a shomenuchi or backwards yokomen sort of chop, but this motion also shows up in numerous grappling situations. 
• This action actually makes your arm longer because of the way it articulates your shoulder - I know, it sounds crazy, but try it ;-) 
• When tori's palm is facing away or down, tori is pushing with his hand. This is the orientation for the strongest push. The pushing surface will change for later palm orientations. 
• On the 90 degree turns, we like to start the sweep with the arm to the side, out of center, and as the hand starts down to face-level, the hand and the centerline converge facing to the side. The hand is moving into the center and the center is moving to the hand.

In some older forms of The Walk, soto mawashi is paired with shomen tegatana as a combination. You will see folks do shomen tegatana, then retreat a bit and then drop in the strike from the top (or sometimes you see it in the opposite order - soto mawashi then shomen tegatana). This feels like a distinct tie-in to sword work. With a sword, this would be a tsuki-gyaku-yokomen combo.

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The Walk - 4 - shomen tegatana

The Walk (as we usually do it) may be divided into three sections - footwork, pushes, and turns.  In our dojo we commonly practice 3 footwork movements, 4 pushes, and 5 turns.  Previous articles on the three footwork movements can be found here - nanameashi, wakiashi, and tenkanashi.

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The first of the four pushes, shomen tegatana, is a direct forward movement of the hand to face-level.  This movement illustrates several of our fundamental movement principles or preferences or heuristics...

• Same-hand-same-foot - whenever the right foot moves, the entire right side of the body moves with it (arm, hip, leg) and vice versa.  This is not universally applied this way in aikido, but it is a pretty good rule of thumb for power transfer.
• Another way of thinking about same-hand-same-foot is to conceptualize it as stuck-hand-stuck-foot.  Imagine, in this first exercise, that uke has grasped you by your left hand and has anchored it in place.  This heuristic says to anchor your left foot to the ground and throw your right arm-hip-foot at uke.  So, whichever side is stuck, that entire side is stuck, and whichever side is free, that entire side is free.
• Unbendable arm - Notice this does not mean, "straightarm." The arm is gently curved, but during the power transfer the arm does not bend because this either cause you to use arm muscle to generate power or it acts as a shock absorber.  Whatever shape the arm is in at the moment of power generation, it locks in that shape and the weight of the body drops into it.
• Ki hand - different practitioners form their hand to deliver power different ways.  We usually pull our fingers back to deliver with a palm heel.  Tomiki seems to have preferred to do this action through a kite, or spear-shaped hand.  Some folks (like the above film) choose a handblade sort of inbetween the spear and the palmheel.  Interestingly, Gichin Funakoshi, father of Shotokan karate-do, made this shomen tegatana the first four movements of his 10-movement Tennokata (Universal forms) - he just did it with a fist. In any case, the hand position is not arbitrary.
• Arms and center move together - This is a heuristic that is probably somewhat peculiar to our dojo and those near us.  In theory, you want your arms to move in synch with your center.  This means that you don't want your arms rising when your center is dropping.  One practical reason is because, if you raise an arm as you drop your center, and that arm encounters resistance, it drives you into the ground and tends to stop you.  So, we are kind of particular about drop-stepping wherever we are going to move and then raising the arm with the recovery step.  Whether you take this idea to these extremes or not, you want your arms and your center moving in a coordinated fashion.

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The dirty dozen

A thing I've been working on lately - a standard set of follow-ups to the releases...

1. r1 - oshitaoshi
2. r2 - maeotoshi
3. r3 - wakigatame
4. r4 - kotegaeshi
5. r5 - tenkai kote hineri
6. r6 - shihonage
7. r7 - kaitennage
8. r8 - iriminage
9. yk1 - r2 - maeotoshi
10. yk2 - shomenate
11. ryotedori tenchinage
12. ushirowaza jujigarame

These sort of represent the first techniques to pop into tori's mind after each release condition.

Sure, Tomiki has already given us the 17 as a condensed intro to randori, and sure, JW has suggested to us (flat out told us) that we should be able to get from any of the release conditions to any of the Junana terminal points... but...

• I think this provides kind of a nice intro to that idea of chaining techniques off of releases
• this provides an intro to the 17 as well as some techniques not seen in the 17
• notice, that these are mostly the first techniques in the renzoku chains, so it serves as a nice intro to that renzoku practice.

I do think, however, there is some potential to turn this into a sort of a minimalist fundamentalist aikido, so if we'were to decide to start working this set of techniques regularly as a followup to releases, I'd suggest we continue running thru the releases on their own, with attention to them alone a time or two before we work this set each class.

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