It's All About Atemi, til it Aint.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

I've been studying up on the other side of the tomiki fence a lot lately.  What a lot of folks dont reflect on a whole lot is that Tomiki Aikido is a weapon based system. Really. all of Aikido is weapon based, But Mr. Tomiki really looked at it in terms of weapons.  Look at effing San Kata, man.

I was thumbing through my Nariyama book and found a part where Tomiki held the opinion that sword principles were absorbed into Jujutsu and consequently Aikido.

  Its all based on sword cutting swipes and getting out of the path of sword swipes.   TheTegatana Dosa moose out in front of Waseda should have told you.   The trouble with Aikido is that you have all this peace and harmony and projecting your Ki to microwave popcorn and related bullshit.  People are always susceptible to that something for nothing kind of thing.   And like studying religious texts they can see justification for smoking pot and wife beating in the unsoku steps. 

In this clip you see Nariyama taking two wooden swords and showing how some principles of sword shit applies to the Atemi waza.   In the Geis Line atemi waza are done for the most part in Kito-ryu mode.  You get some down kuzushi and body rise into a technique.  The guy basically stands up into a technique.   Some  wise bearded Japanese dude with odd religious proclivities once said that atemi is pretty much all there is in Aikido, except when you get something else.  And in Tomiki Talk, something else is kansetsu waza, and Uki waza. 

People tend to fixate on the something else.  The Sex, Drugs, and Rock N' Roll pretty much take up an hour or two in the entire week. The rest of the week is showing up to work and doing seemingly pointless shit that gets you nowhere and sure the hell doesnt impress chicks.   Expecting Aikido to be all Hakama's  and harmonious Iriminages is like expecting Jimmy Hendrix not to be dead.  A hand in the face isnt that impressive because you can teach it in two minutes.  Just like flipping burgers.

So Atemi waza is pretty much what you are going to see all the damn time, until something else decides to happen.   Here's Tomiki Toshu Randori that has centralized the Atemi waza.  Here's a link. I'm not saying you are a pussy if you don't like it.    But I am saying that this is a pretty good take on Randori.  It's all about Atemi, until it decides to be about something else.  It cures the Hip throw phobia problem in Tanto randori. It does make me wonder why they dont allow head shots in Tanto Randori, because its looks like the tanto is widdled out of a nerf ball.   Either way an enterprising guy can combine all of this shit together and play around with some interesting Randori.

A lot of guys talk about principle.  Most of the time they are just preaching a methodology of the old dude with the most impressive resume that they hung around with the most. It boils down to setting the environment so the old connected dudes moves work all the damn time.  And it usually helps if the dude is Japanese or hung around in Japan for a while in the sixties and seventies and Eighties when people were easily taken in by all things Japanese.  While the world was still susceptable to mass consumption of  stereotypical cultural bullshit.

But constructing a dojo culture to where some old dudes moves work all the damn time, doesnt exactly mean you are teaching principle.  It may mean you are teaching bullshit.  That's why I don't mind the Competive Randori as stupid as it looks sometimes. Because the Competive randori has rules that deal with space and legal movements and what looks like a point and what doesn't.  Success comes in degrees and in a relative sense.  I just wakigatamed you, or I almost wakigatamaed you.  My almost only counts if relatively speaking you suck worse than me.  I dont have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you.  Its honest because it constructs its own universe.  It's old dude proof. 

The five atemi waza have principles to them.  They were constructed as a safe way to hit somebody.  Legal movements to be observed and scored.  But in principle they follow sword swipes for the most part.  Slide one way, hit the guy( shomenate).  slide the other you can hit guy( and if you do it nariyama style you have a hineri movement( aigamae ate)   Go over the guard and hit the guy.  Go under the guard and hit the guy.  Gyakugamae/Gedan ate.  Ushiro ate a guy  Nariyama style you have a gaeishi movement that relates well to the whole sword swipe thing.  And it makes everything real symmetrical and easy for ignorant Okies like me to wrap their head around it. 

If they wind up in a throw with some guy looking at the ceiling  then they are worth big points.  If they dont then they refer back to the " who sucks the least" principle.   

The Geis Line Tomiki doesnt fit the sword swipe principles.  It just has one principle: the ol' kito rise and fall.   Shomenate is about the same, unless you do it in a Kihara circle.  Aigamae ate doesnt have a hineri idea attached.   Gyaku and gedan ate are just down up affairs.  Ushiro doesnt have a gaeishi idea attached.  The theoretical sword is pretty much removed.  

 I can pretty much say this.  That the Unsoku steps are pretty much irrelevant in Geis line Tomiki.  I say this because we arent dodging anything.  We dont do the 17 in Tanto mode.  The Prerequisite dodge isnt exactly needed.  We do matching timing, and matching things up is pretty much a requirement in kuzushi.  And when you match times, the feet do what they need to and dont follow concrete get your ass out of the way patterns.  

Tomiki Aikido is pretty much about Tsukuri.   And in this particular definition its the fit on the chin, or wrist or elbow that takes it all the way up until the completion of the technique.  Kuzushi may happen on the way to tsukuri but it doesnt precede it.   The exception to this are the seven methods of kuzushi which start with a hand grab connection that takes Ukes momentum and swings it up into tsukuri.   Anything thing else you dodge a weapon, and place your hand and move your body in a way that limits the weapon from performing the same action again. 

  

 

The front part of this video shows Atemi waza Tsukuri exercise from the "hit first" timing.  It also serves as an exercise in basic Ukemi from an atemi waza.  There is also an element of reading footfalls from a separated state.  The Uke looks like a crash test dummy, but these things can be slowed down into practicality.  

At the back end of the video there are some Tsukuri exercises  with the joint techniques.  They have the same rationale as the atemi waza tsukuri.   They typically do a technique up into Tsukuri then then they complete the technique on the next go at it.   Yon kata highlights the kuzushi/ tsukuri from a matched timing. It almost implies that kuzushi is dependent on a state, no matter how brief, of matched timing.

Here the Tsukuri is either before the stab or after.  And the aikido takes on a  different look and feel. There is a high emphasis in the Japanese line on the practice of Tsukuri at speed.  This is how they prepare for a more physical randori.  I could say that in the Geis line the premium is on kuzushi studies, and in the Japanese line it is a study of Tsukuri.  In anycase it is matter of timing and not over all philosophy. But there is a divergent idea in the Atemi waza.  Japanese Atemi waza are based on weapons principles.  Geis line Atemi waza are based on Kito principles. And really one can argue that they aint really atemi waza.  They look at things in more of a Koshiki frame than anything else. 

Things get muddied with Judo entering an Aikido Conversation.   Aikido assumes you are going to recieve an attack where the attacker wants to maintain his distance.  A guy with a weapon in other words, who is using the weapon as a distance regulator and for a reach advantage.  The response to this is a weapons based response where you get at a dead angle, or an angle where you can hit but not be hit, and also at a distance where you minimize the secondary attack hazards.  Either in with a Tenkan or an Irimi.   Judo for the most part doesnt function like this.

Anyway, Its about Atemi waza until it aint about Atemi waza.   And thats pretty much Aikido.