Senta Yamada, How deep is your Hineri, and Tsukuri no kata.

My frustration the last few months is that my repetition time hasn't synced up with the concepts that I have identified.  I suppose that's the modern martial arts condition of  downloading information and motor patterns at a rate of 2 to 3 hours a week.  A lot of my writing on this blog is trying to identify concepts and origins of concepts.  A majority of my posts are dead ends, but make good fertilizer for something else to grow. 

Anyway,  a lot of my lightbulb moments here lately has been looking at whatever I can find on Senta Yamada.  This guy is the Rosetta stone of Tomiki Aikido. Yamada was a student of both Morty and Tommy.  He was a pre-17 kata, pre tanto randori student of Tommy.   There are basically 3 resources that I have found on the web that relate to Yamada.  

1.   The first is his style of walking/tegatana which is the closest I've seen to our style.  There are some telling differences.   Notice especially the posture of his feet how they are prepared to to turn.  Also his 180 degree turning movements are related to the first two hand motions and are not separate ideas.  Who knows why our version is different.   Occam s razor says that somebody got it wrong, or  maybe that our modifications were an attempt to wed a specific action to a specific technique.  We also trace an X pattern, and this has been described as judo extending footfall kuzushi but there is also ample evidence that this manner of movement can be seen in mainline aikido as well. ( see later)

2. The second resource is a booklet:  http://www.aikido-aid.com/aikido-a-dialogue-of-movement/
Looking at this with the film provides a pretty clear interpretation of the tegatana walking movements.  And really, given the source, they are exactly the movements detailed in the tegatana/walking. 

3.   This is a film( a larger version can be found) of  Yamada providing further  technical details.  

Yamada is showing is sweeping motions of the tegatana kata.  He is doing hand sweeps that distort his ukes posture into a hineri bent forward/of gaeshi bent backward.  He shows the sweeping functions, and then the hand grabs with first and second releases.  Also, He shows the prototype for our sheering off-balance.  Which could be interpreted as an ikkyo offbalance.  the mirror off balance is interesting because it travels down and circles back as if to trap/capture ukes other hand. 



What is the tegatana/walking kata?    I would say that it is the tsukuri motions of aikido, it could very well be called tsukuri no kata.   Our diagonal stepping aligns with our sheering offbalance, but it is also the footwork on an ikkyo omote technique which also happens to be a form of off balance.  Our oshi taoshi can actually be interpreted as a counter move to ikkyo resistance.   

 Here is morihiro saito performing shomenuchi techniques.  Most of these techniques key off of a hineri state of kuzushi.   Notice the diagonal stepping( its especially apparent on shomenuchi nikyo omote where i'm guessing that nikyo functions better the deeper the hineri posture is).  The diagonal stepping produces an intial offbalance, but it also opens up a lane of movement, and it exposes the elbow to control.   This is one of my dumbass epiphanies but I was bitching about the sheer offbalance a couple of weeks ago,  I got a lot of this related to judo insight, but really it cal be filtered through aikido as well.   also, want to point out that tomikis stiff arm uke approach is a way to maximize reps, and highlight offbalance.  It cuts to the chase by getting rid of the ceremonial/ demonstration friendly/ daito ryu sword stand in/  shomenuchi and yokomenuchi.  Saito is basically doing the same as Tomiki here. 

Mainline aikido teaches the  Ikkyo, Nikyo....1, 2, 3, 4 frame work.  Yoshinkan calls their sets ikkajo which is first control and so forth.  Much like our sheer off balance tsukuri,  they provide a framework of counter actions(what to use,when, why).  Really they all key off of the question how deep is your hineri?   Its especially apparent in the ura waza.    ikkyo operates off of forward extended stepping/diagonal stepping.  It controls the wrist, elbow, and rolls the shoulder.  notice that Saito's foot is turned to anticipate resistance(look at yamadas footwork) and a step through foot to supply power(so much for same hand same foot principle)  This is the frame of reference.  Nikyo focuses on a deep hineri that uke stops short of the pin, rolls out of shoulder control and attempts to stand up.  Sankyo is a shallow hineri where the shoulder didnt roll into ikkyo control. (look at yamadas hineri) and  uke possibly turns to face tori,  Yonkyo is also a shallow hineri where possibly uke turns away from tori.  Gokyo is a shallow hineri raised high.   The iriminage, shihonage, kote gaeshi are where balance is broken between hineri and gaeshi and cycles into gaeshi offbalance.   Any way all the tsukuri motions can be seen in Yamadas walking/tegatana in some form:  from feet pronation/supination, turning, offline movements,  sweeping functions.   Mainline aikido can be seen as omote( the mechanics of a technique) and Ura( the mechanics executed with aiki).

Here is yokomen uchi.  Reference Yamada applying the mirror hand off balance.  Also notice the sweeping motions of the walking/tegatana kata.  The sweeping motions are illustrated in the dialogue of movement book,  but when you perform the walking you have the second and third hand motions.   You have sweeping ideas from above the attacking arm and below.  

When Tomiki said that the Tegatana kata contained all the movements in aikido he wasnt blowing smoke.   If you perform your Tegatana from a ritualistic stand point you'll never see it, but when you start to combine ideas from the walking then it becomes clearer.  The tegatana no kata are the basic tsukuri motions of aikido.  

Kuzushi is highlighted in Yon kata or in what we call the 8 releases except the eight releases cuts out the first two critical motions for some odd reason. 

Here's Dr. LOI  showing Yon kata kuzushi:   skip to about 34:00.  What the Yon kata kuzushi ideas illustrate is two hineri, two gaeshi, two in between, and seventh idea.  What people pick up on is the throws, which have absolutely nothing to do with the real ideas here.  These postural distortions are where aikido techniques arise.  The Tegatana no kata are the tsukuri movements whether grabbed or not grabbed that lead to the kuzushi.  The 17 kata or any other technique(Ikkyo, or whatever)are the kake.  I think we try to put a little bit of everything in our basic kata.   Its just the mechanics. 


I think a lot of what Tomiki tried to lay out for everybody got lost in the shuffle.  I blame Tanto randori.  My mistake in watching Aikido Kyogi was that this was Tomiki's way of doing things.  If you look at his tegatana development, its clear he shortened it up so that it could apply to tanto randori.  That's basically smaller circles, less turning.    We aren't modeling classical aikido the way the Yamada tegatana is doing.   It's adapted ideas.    I think the shift screwed with everybodies bearings.   You have a lot of ritualistic practice done solely for promotional purposes that within two generations of instruction you have very few people that can answer why anymore.   You have ideas that were adapted to tanto randori intermixing with ideas from classical aikido, and sometimes it just seems like a mess.  Its an interesting mess, though.   But I think tegatana should be called Tsukuri no kata.