Band of the Hand

My last post I talked about Musashi and his concepts of time.   My mental picture of this mythical dude is that when he hit you first then he was ahead of (your) time, if he hit you when you  wanted to hit him then he was on (your)time, and when he hit you while in the middle of  your  "I gotcha--I score!!" moment then he was behind (your) time.  We try to mystify a lot of concepts in the martial arts, especially when it comes to awareness and timing.  One common screw up we walk around with this impression that in Medieval Japan people of great import had an unnatural fear of each others hands. And consequently, most modern Aikido dudes have joined the BAND OF THE HAND. Its been described by many that people tried to grab a hand to prevent some sort of ginsu treatment by a samurai.  I would postulate that if  you had that much of a jump on a samurai why waste time with his hand?  Why not hit him on the head with one of those ornate teak tea ceremony boxes they had lying all over the place back then?

  I'm going to post the 4-5 of Koryu dai Ichi again.  Its one of those throw away moves that doesn't "apply" to anything.   Its a heaven and earth throw. It's on "I gotcha" hands down timing.                                                                                                    

Here's a karate guy I follow.  Doing a knifehand  drill,  we call it a Tegatana--handblade, but outside of wrist positioning on releases its a high reward/low risk forearm smash to the neck.  (Before you say it aint  tommy key aikido. go about 9:45 minutes into aikido kyogi I (below). and then go back and review Atemi waza 1 and 2 and imagine screwing them up in a good way )  At the end of this screwed up shomenate drill we see the guy take a heaven and earth posture and he leads right back into aikido country again.



What I see in the Koryu kata after 4-5, is projection that has veered off center and been "pressed" down.  Once your arm is being pressed down in a low(grab my hand because now its easy to grab and control) position, the rest of the kata makes sense in a non-hand grabbing sense.  Especially with all the hand positions starting high in a mutual confrontation and then for no reason we are getting grabbed while  walking down the sidewalk in our hakamas and carrying a bag of chicken mcnuggets and someone is trying to grab them.


check it out from #2 in ICHI

 

Imagine the guy pressing down and your arm and his wind up in this kind of  strange little seen before entanglement.  

    

This next one can be a press down with elbow control.  

  

Anyway,  Try to think outside the cottonballs and footfalls kuzushi models, and think about  headshot/nutshot kuzushi and you can see a lot more in these koryu katas. Hand grabbing absent atemi relies pretty heavy on the cottonballs and footfalls approach.  We do the cottonballs and footfalls because its practical, verifiable and repeatable .  You can't go up to your uke and say, " let me stick my knuckle in your eyeball and see if I can get a #6..."  but we have to look at things from the angle of the guy who wants to hit us, and why our hands are low and extended (how did they get there?)   try not to be a member of the Band of the Hand....