A guy on the Tomiki Branch of the tree has to realize that he has more in common with a Judo player than he does with an Aikikai practioner or a Yoshinkan practioner. Obviously this is because Tomiki was a Judo guy, and he filtered everything through a Judo filter. Everything was either similar to Judo or different. And everything thing he learned from Morty Youshiba was classified as degrees of similarity and difference to what he already knew, which was straight from Kano, Classical Judo.
The Kito Ryu influence is absolutly everywhere. It's the tick tock sound that tomiki aikido makes. Especially Tomiki Aikido that got settled into itself before the Tanto Randori hit the scene. Akikai flavored Aikido doesnt operate on rise and fall/footfall ideas, but resistance on the horizontal plane. Everything spirals around how a guy responds to ikkyo. That's why its techniques are classified as omote and ura. One of the central lessons of Koryu Dai ichi is Horizontal resistance. You put oshi taoshi on a guy and he doesn't like it so you just let go and turn. I have a feeling that there are some aikido schools that do not understand this. They see omote and ura as two different techniques. These are the Air Yoga schools. They have great posture, can flip and fall all day, and don't have a problem with constipation.
Daito ryu is there too, but you have to look a little deeper. And it exists in a what is there, yet not said manner. If you look at the Tomiki bigfoot video from the late fifties, you are going to see sotai-dosa. 12 movements that appear to be forerunners of the eight releases. you may notice that they are very sharp and to the point. That they go right up the gut, almost like suwari waza. Its taken that these were original rough drafts, that were scrapped for some later refinement. But by my ignorant Okie estimation, these ideas are the daito ryu things that are not said in the 8 releases. Take the #1 and #3 release set up in the film. Looks a whole lot like shomenate and aigamae ate to me. They are educated pushes/strikes that jack with a guys posture. Okay, what if a guy resists or pushes back? If you look at how the first four releases are taught nowadays they make perfect sense when seen as countering resistance from sotai-dosa ideas.
I alway's thought that the cross stepping on release #1 and # 2 was pretty stupid, because anybody could shove your ass over when you cross your legs. Okay, buddy I'm going to turn in a big wide circle right in front of you so you can see me do everything.
I never really understood why these were forms of kuzushi or why in the hell they were called releases when we really weren't trying to get our hand away. Sure if a guy took a step for you then you could do something, But they had to take the step, and what in the hell was released?
Well, do #1 release and push in like tomiki does almost like you are trying to shomenate the guy. If they other guy interupts the action, then do it exactly like you've been taught cross-step, and turn. You should see a guy released into some sort of kuzushi.
Here is a judo video about kuzushi.(note: the opening illustration looks like the #3 release as presented in sotai dosa) I could have wrote half of it because I have heard a lot of the same ideas and I don't even do judo. But like I said pre tanto Tomiki schools have a lot in common with Judo. They are Judo. What I like about this video is that it talks about 4 kinds of kuzushi. Natural Kuzushi is where a guy just steps into a technique for you. The light slow randori that we do is pretty much a study of natural kuzushi. But for new folks its effing frustrating.
A lot of this blog is to do some archeology of my own school of Aikido. We come from a Judo background, we didnt go the Tanto randori route. From what I can gather, the folks that wanted to study aikido didn't want to rough and tumble it. If they wanted to rough and tumble, then Judo was the better option. If they were tired of judo, then they did aikido. It's pretty common. But the thing about the formation of our aikido is the level of judo player involved in the initial formation of ideas. My educated guess is that they were at the level of natural kuzushi. They could tell where a guy was going, let him go there, and walk into a technique. What our randori developed into was a soft form that looks a whole lot like tai chi push hands, except that both players move, and dont remain static.
What the video describes as a bad habit of Judo instruction, that is only teaching direct kuzushi. That is where you push and pull a guy into it. Eventually a higher level player will eat up a guy who only understands the direct kuzushi. I think the frustrating thing about thing about Aikido is that direct kuzushi isn't taught. At least not intentionally. What we do is a light touch sheer, or a no grip ikkyo. Pretty high level stuff. Pretty effing frustrating to a beginner. off that sheer we try to catch a"natural" rise and footfall. Pretty high level, pretty damn frustrating.
I noticed that the best light touch Toshu randori players seem to have a judo background. They have a masters degree in kito and feet. At 42, its hard to subject myself to judo except where it applies to Aikido. I'm pretty hard headed, but I had an epiphany when I let a guy do a double footsweep on me a few times, allowed myself to turn horizontal and slap the mat. I realized that this kind of education was essential to the importance of kuzushi. That feeling someone throw you like you weighed nothing, based on foot movement and body rise was important.
We emphasize a lot of natural kuzushi and very subtle indirect kuzushi. That's why we do the slow randori, not because we are a bunch of pussies. But I will be perfectly honest that throwing people into light touch without a study of direct kuzushi will cause problems. Judo doesn't do this. The fundamentals are: if you get a guy like this, then you can do this. Later, you can teach the ifs, ands or buts.
So why not teach direct kuzushi? I think Tomiki did. You have sotai dosa which can be seen as direct kuzushi forms( that work well with a person stepping into a natural posture instead of stepping from.) Then you have the indirect kuzushi forms shown in the 8 releases. Tomiki wasn't an idiot, he was a judo guy. His system was teach the failure first, but he let you figure out what the failure was, or he assumed that you already knew it. If the releases seem stupid its because they all represent some sort of failure situation. They aren't the initial solution to the problem. My idea is the first solution is to run it right up the gut. The releases are counter plays. They release from one idea to the next.
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