A tsukuri and a kuzushi walked into a bar....

"throughout history, the most famous exponents of arts such as karate and judo have typically employed set-ups(tsukuri)well matched to their own bodies, taking advantage of their particular physical characteristics."   --Shoji Nishio


I have been told that all successful techniques have three things going for them.  They have kuzushi, tsukuri, and kake.   I've been told they mean off balance, fit, and execution.

 Kuzushi is where you got a guy either mentally a step or two behind you.  He's trying to identify the source of his problems, and these problems tend to multiply quicker than he can identify and deal with them.  They usually have to do with  joint lock pain and that sloshing fish bowl feeling you get in your gut that tells you you are falling. Structurally it has to do with your hips and head getting jacked with to the point of where they seem to be working against each other.  The feet tend to feel around like a person lost in the dark. It's more of something to be exploited rather than something that is made.    The Sun Tzu  Art of War says something along the lines of, "victories can be known, they can't be made."   This is a fact about kuzushi. 

The 4 releases and their related 14 movements in Koryu Dai Yon kata are actually studies of tsukuri/ kuzushi/kake.  Especially if you take them out of the kata and play with them bit and piece and in connection with one another and apply them to the 17.   

T
he foward sheering offbalance (tejazushi) idea that I've bullshitted about is somewhere in the motions of Yon Kata especially crosshand grabs that cycle into an iriminage motion. It's been said that this forward sheer is related to a judo technique.  If we use Shoji Nishio's definition its not an kuzushi concept at all, but a Tsukuri concept.  In nishios words, it is a "set up."  

When you look at the schools of Morty Youshiba they teach their basic techniques in a joint restraint framework.  They have the ikkyo, nikyo, sankyo, yon kyo, gokyo format.   The tsukuri and kake are  emphasized.  The tsukuri is a matter of stepping offline and clearing a workspace where tori can exert a joint manipulation from a position of strength.  The Kake is the pin.  Techniques are often divided into an  omote/ura.

In my continuing quest to try to figure this shit out, I can tell you that I'm more impressed what Tomiki and Ohba actually put together for us.  Our   8 releases and 14 Yon represent kito-ryu/rise and fall points. Nick Lowry describes it as hanging a man on a wire. In Yon Kata the Kito points are marked by the rise and fall projections of the first 7, they are then "released"  from the same point in the second 7. They separate the Omote and Ura of other schools, because there is a Kito ryu pause that registers whether a technique is going one way or the other based off of feedback. 

Tomiki folks are omote and ura blind.  We understand the point in between and wait to see where its going.  We learn that through Randori. 

Imagine a Yon Kata overlay on these iwama ryu techniques.   These are the releases but they aint the releases if you get my drift.  They have some set ups/tsukuri, in that a workplace is cleared by using footwork.  If you can imagine a yon kata movement before a technique then you can see possible kuzushi points. 

I have often had the suspicion that Tomiki Aikido was about the midpoints.  Shoji Nishio said that all aikido techniques have five or six ways to down an opponent.  And Tomiki seems to have worked this concept in under the radar.  There are branching off points in aikido, and Tommy seems to have mapped those out for us.  If we pay attention to it.