The best advice I can give a martial arts student is to find small incremental ways to make their selves a little bit tougher than they were five years ago. Its starts with the physical, then the mental, then the spiritual. It usually has to deal with sweat, and losing, and trying/wanting/working to win every once in a while. If you dont try to win, then you never experiment, and by that you really don't experience anything.
I am pretty convinced that there is no better fundamentals to the martial arts than what are found in Judo, or BJJ. They both start with the notion of that there are two undisputed laws of the universe. That there is solid ground underneath your body, and that living beings have to make an effort to keep from falling on it. BJJ expands the picture in that when you accept those two laws then every part of the body seems to matter.
They both have a system of relatively safe competition that hurts just enough to respect it. That allows you to dumbass your way into kinetic enlightenment. That allows you to lose to the strong, and see the strong lose. It allows you to find out what works for you, and what for sure the hell doesnt.
I started doing Aikido "wrong" a couple of years ago. I realized that Tomiki Aikido was the barebones basics, and that it was meant to start in dumbass mode. The wrist wrasslin' that I did made my body stronger. Taking atemi shots made me resilient. I did the solo exercises "poorly" with speed.
I stopped trying to move like Marsha Brady, (or maybe it was Jan), in that episode where they walked around with a book on their head.
Eventually I could do somethings better than Division I football players. I'm not saying that I could kick their ass, I'm just saying that I could do a couple of things that they couldnt, and it stumped them.
BJJ has been pretty good to me so far.I get my ass kicked repeatedly in a good way. It makes me laugh how many ways it can kick your ass. In fact I laugh everytime I tap and call uncle. Its so ridiculously simple. I
ts starting to tighten up the muscles that I didnt know I had. It also has taught me some things about that over used word kuzushi. The closer to the ground you are the more ways you can be jacked with.
I'm pretty convinced that all that kuzushi/aiki stuff relies on some fool on the other end not knowing what the hell is happening to him. It's like trying to recall what your wife told you to pick up at the store, in the middle of a hail storm, while two maladjusted chimps all over your body arm pitting your face.
That whole budo is love thing is not about being " that guy." The guy who everybody knows can kick ass. Its all about cultivating that, " I didn't know he had it in him." persona. Its more Rodney Dangerfield than Royce Gracie.
If you follow the peace and love routine you'll never get a chance to settle the score with the Judge Smails of the world. Winning is important, but its more important on who you choose to win against.
Saturday, September 13, 2014
Recently, I saw one of those not so easy to watch videos where this guy got jumped in a subway or something by what appeared to be a gang of a dozen or so attackers, maybe less, I didn't count. The guy got swarmed and pummeled, and kicked, and thrown down. He had his girl with him, and she got it too, trying to step in and save him, but not like the guy who was the primary target.
There was no amount of judo, BJJ, Aikido, whatever, that would have helped the guy. It was one of those wrong place, wrong time things.
It got me thinking about some old school stuff, about what if the guy had a sword? A four foot razor blade strapped to his side. A distance weapon with fries, and a coke. The guy wouldn't have been jumped at all.
Then I started thinking about the modern martial arts.
I started taking a BJJ class, and the class is pretty much all mat time. Rolling, they call it. Randori.
I read up on whatever I'm studying, which means I read something over and over about a hundred times. I read how Jigoro Kano, the Judo founder came up with randori methods or training. How taking out the dangerous techniques, and setting up a system where techniques could be practiced against full resistance, the safer techniques, actually produced better fighters. Folks that could handle them selves pretty darn good.
I think that BJJ, or just Jiu-Jitsu, takes that safe technique angle, and brings things right to the mat. Not a whole lot of break falls, just submission wrestling from day one. A lot of things that I have heard in Aikido, are also said in Jiu-jitsu. So some intangible things I can absorb, but fundamentally I dont know up from down. I have learned to tap out a lot.
I got this book by a guy named Saulo Ribeiro. And in it he talks about teaching beginners how to survive. How to close off holes where they can be attacked. To prevent being taken out by submission. The reason he does this is so that they can last longer against the upper belts, so that the upper belts get pushed a little harder to find a technique.
Kinda a reverse, backasswards way of teaching, but it works. Here is what I'm trying to do to you, this is what you do to keep it from happening.
I got thinking about Tomiki Aikido. Tanto randori. I think that my disillusionment with the Karl Geis line is over the omission of tanto randori. I understand why folks can take it or leave it. Not a whole lot goes on, and when it does it looks pretty sloppy. My philosophy is that that is pretty much life in general. You can be a perfection hound, and only do things that look sweet to impress the chicks, then you get over it. or not. Slowing it down, thus slowing down who ever is getting grabby on you, Doesnt do it for me any more.
I guess I'm okay with sloppy.
The thing that makes tanto randori such a slop fest, is that the beginner has a much easier time learning to survive. Aikido is basically about jumping on over extension, Tomiki knew it, and that is where all that stiff arm uke stuff comes from. To survive in Aikido, all you do is not over extend. Don't attack all in, set your feet, put up your paws, and go into sparring mode. Not a lot will happen. Some body grabs your wrist, just tighten up, bring it to your body.
The thing about randori is that somebody will get tired, somebody will get something. It may not look like a college girl running on the beach in a bikini, It may not be hakamatastic, it may not address kuzushi, or musubi, or whatever the japanese word of the week is. But somebody is going to give it up.
Going back to that incident, the guy getting jumped, if pulled a sword what is the things the idiots could have done to survive? How easy is it to teach someone how to survive against a swinging sword? Not too damn easy. Thats why spears and guns and arrows were invented.
A lot of randori, tanto randori that is, is about grabbing the extension, and preventing it from coming back at you. It can go this way and that way, but there are really 4 or 5 techniques that keep popping up. That tend to work within the framework of the match rules and space.
The Tanto player is a all in player, the rules only allow him to do a one thing, and a couple of others if an if and or but is answered first. Then time runs out. The fact that there is a timer, dictates how things go. The fact that both guys take turns with the tanto, dictates things. Going first, or second tend to dictate things. A whole lot more goes on than just two guys trying to do 17 techniques on each other. The conditions to get those techniques are restricted by mat space, time, rules, conditioning, and who does what first. There are a lot of non-technical things that help someone survive, and prevent a technique.
The guy who has the best relationship with the mat is going to win. If you aint afraid of falling down you have one up on the other guy. If you know what to do when you get there then that is just a bowl of cherries for you.
2. Ukemi principle
Receiving end education, or the school of hopefully not so hard knocks. Every technique needs to be be felt in from begininng to end. So a guy has to ask how much training up does it actually take to actually learn something. BJJ has a little ukemi and a whole lot of rolling around. Thats why those guys get very good very soon if they show up to class, because its all mat time. And most techniques can be felt on the first day in the door. Judo has a lot of learning how to fall, and I cant actually say how long it takes before you can be tossed all over to be educated, but I would assume its a little while. Aikido has the longest train up to it, the longest ukemi maturation process because you are getting thrown by the joints. Thats why I have been really hard on Aikido on this blog, especially geriatric aikido, that should have gone Tai Chi 20 years ago.
3. The Anti-fragile principle;
Little knocks and bumps and bruises make you stronger. The human immune system is made to absorb small problems and become better. A joint lock here, a shomenate 17 style there. A misfit on gyukugamate that bumps your snout and makes you tear up just a little. Everything done in a controlled way with a mat, under the agreement of everybody gets a turn. So if you do it to me, then I do it to you.
4. Slowing Down is seeing, but not living principle
You slow down so your hands and body can feel what is going on, so your Intuition can "see." But speed and variation in timing is what has always killed the cat, not so much curiosity. At least on the Interstate. Slowing down is not a permanent state, and expecting everyone to slow down so things work is cloud kookooland thinking.
5. Bullshizznit detection principle
Beware of hero worshiping, and name dropping to justify things. And avoid the I'm awesome because I learned it in Japan or from an actual Japanese guy. Going to the horses mouth is usually the best policy, but going to any horses mouth and trying to pass them off as Secretariat, or Seabiscuit is the same as being a fudging liar. Also, beware of the folks who dont want to post videos because its way too secret. Nobody cares. And odds are some teenage MMA fan will troll it anyway. Thats a fact of life. ( I would really like to see all of Karl Geis videos put out there on the Youtube. The world deserves it, its a unique take on things. And if 15 people dig it then its worth it, but it will be more than 15. Otherwise, nobody is going to know, and nobody is going to care.)
6. Anti-certification principle/Anti-obi wan kenobi principle
Think of years on the mat instead of Dan rank. And also pay attention to how fat they are. If they can't muster up the spiritual power to say no to a second helping, then evaulate authenticity from there. Their wife may be an amazing cook, so give them a pass. If they are fat and still believe in punching the guy then listen, they are a realist. But they are fat and like to talk about ki, and connection, and internal power, effortless power, or other nonsense then ask them how effortless was their last trip to the bathroom? If they can still pee over a tall fence, and take a dump two or three times a day, then they may have truly found some sort of internal power secret. Give them ten percent of your paycheck and move into their garage and become their man servant.
7. Technical History principle
If you are teaching Tomiki Aikido then there are no mysteries. This guy named his techniques push down, pull down, and arm turn, not dragon breathing fire, or horse whips tail. Know how one things relates to another because your student can look up it up on Youtube. New sacred scrolls dating way back to 1962 get unearthed all the time.
8. Ignore the Third Rate principle
Never put up with a guy who is trying to be a third rate Morty Youshiba, Karl Geis, or Tomiki. Don't hang around someone trying to cook mexican food who has never ate mexican food. A guy who gets pissed when you call his burrito an enchilada, and you know darn good an well its a enchilada.
9. Kata aint practice principle
Kata is a method to preserve historic techniques from another country. If you practice kata then you can call your self a martial artist, but dont try to sell me on anything.. You do things for the look and the feel, and the presentation. You may like dressing up in a dress and this is the only socially acceptable way to get away with it. I can't speak for you. But at the end of a the day you might as well be ballet dancing. Longterm kata training helps you improvise when the shizznit hits the fan, but most folks that swear by kata like improvising as much as Rainman liked missing the "Peoples Court". And any white mans kata is automatically bullshizznit in my book. And doing kata over and over and over is like preparing for a day that never comes if you think they have some sort of combative, self defense benefit. Best just do em cause you like em and leave it at that.
10. If you keep making that face it will freeze that way principle
Just because you teach something and people actually repeat the movement doesnt make it real, or effective. The more you say things out loud over and over and over the more they become real. Remember it all works if people are trained to make it work. This why randori must have rules, and a way to "win". A Tomiki Tanto Randori player may be as much of a badass as a badmitton player, but the guy is going to know when he gets better, and what works over time. Same or Judo, or BJJ. A structured randori system is the best thing you can have, and the worst thing thing you can have. But it has to be allowed to go that way person by person.
There was a lot of talk about Principle when I first started my Aikido study. Same hand, same foot. Unbendable arm. Keep your hand in the center, blah, de boring blah. The principle based argument is that you can go into a pool cue and broken bottle problem and solve it like a nerd with a calculator. Just because you are aware of "principle", and can apply it. On this I will have to pull the Bullshizznit card.
Principle only enters into the picture when you cast aside all the ifs, ands, or buts. Take Judo for instance. I have been thrown around by Judo folks, and a good judo player can make you pay for every step you take. My only solution to a judo player is to hit the guy first, probably in the nuts, or knees, or some other dirty play that you wouldnt do on a dojo mat.
Because the Judo guy trained in an environment where he didnt have to worry about getting his nuts caved in, he is free to get sensitive in a way that he can feel a weight transfer going on. He was given the luxury of not getting slapped in the face or across the ear hole every time he came to grips. Because he didnt have to deal with that sort of thing he became good at that sensitive thing that judo guys are good at. He started identifying triggers, and bad situations, and potentials.
I suppose, if the judo guy was facing Cleetus in the trailer park who isnt a trained puncher, yet wants to punch, and chooses punch poorly, the judo guy could probably have an easy go at it. But line the 2 day a week for six years judo player against Mike Tyson in some sort of road rage fender bender event, then the Judo guy would probably take whatever lady luck would throw at him.
The principles would fail him once he recieved a blow that felt like the impact of a white rhino.
So when the principles fail, you look for another principle. And you cast aside all the ifs, ands, or buts that go along with it. Because principles can get contaminated pretty easy. Clear water muddies up the best.
What if a guy swings at you, what if a guy pulls a knife, you cant do that against a judo player( as if everyone you ever will meet will be a judo player), that would never work in an MMA match, what if he uses his elbow, but if you do this then the guy might do that.
Recently, I have started doing some BJJ. It got me thinking about where is the best place to start learning all this martial arts crap. I asked a guy who has been doing it for a couple of years what he would do here, and here, and here, what if I did this, or this, or this. And on the ground he had a lot of immediately provable, understandable answers. Offbalance is an immediate effect on the ground, putting too much pressure on a guy has an immediate effect, getting handsy has an immediate effect.
It got me thinking about BJJ, about how it was a pretty complex interaction yet pretty darn simple. I started thinking that all the things that happen on the ground, principle wise, would probably transfer to the stand up game, and if they didnt, then you needed to think along another principle line. Because on the ground it is pretty clear cut who knows what to do, and who doesn't. And that BJJ is pretty much all mat time, from day one, everyone can get after it and start looking at things and proving whether something will work or not.
Judo is probably the next best, but there is a lot of time taken to learn how to fall safely in order to absorb a technique and understand the function and effect of a technique. It becomes uke driven. I cant honestly say whether BJJ is an Uke driven art. Anyone can lay on the ground and rassle around. I can say that it is dumbass driven, because once you commit an error in judgement and another guy knows it and knows what to do about it, then you are toast.
So I think I have identified probably a overreaching principle in the martial arts. That is the Recognition of Error Principle, and the, What to do about it Principle.
Like I said, I'm working off of the idea that BJJ is probably the best martial art to access these two principles. Judo functions off of a guy trying to keep his balance, keep standing, so its probably the second best. A guy will have to learn how to fall down safely to explore the neighborhood. I assume it takes a good while maybe a couple of years to get the feel for standing ukemi.
Aikido is probably about the worst to route to explore principle. How long does it take to get comfortable being stiff armed in the face, or fall over a twisted wrist. And from two guys squaring off, separated, how much can you recognize an error, and what in the helll can you do about it.
Tomiki put the atemi waza in as the underpinning of his Aikido. Because they function much like karate. A guy drops his guard and you hit him. Only to score a competive point you have make the guy fall down. I have always had a problem with my Karl Geis Ryu brethren on this point. If you are practicing a non-competitive form of aikido then why arent the atemi waza percussive?
I dont know how many times I have been at a clinic, or get together and some one wants to show yet another take on Gedan Ate and I get paired up with a guy that is way to fat to put a gedan ate on. He is never going to generate the energy to throw a gedan ate. The obvious solution is elbow the guy in his obvious bread basket and work from there. And really I think, that the Atemi waza suck in the KG-ryu because no one wants to take the ukemi for them. The 23 kata lets a guy circle out of them. It kind of takes the teeth out of the entire system.
So the first error recognition is when a guy drops his guard. Just like karate, you hit him. You dont stick your arms out and feel for it like you can in Judo, or feel for it holistically on the ground in BJJ. Otherwise you have to be in reactive mode, dodge at the very barest margin, hoping for a catastrophic miss.
The only reason I do Martial Arts is because I need a reason to get off my butt and get out the house and move around. Unlike Jogging or going to the gym and lifting heavy stuff and running on a complicated electronic hamster wheel, it comes with some pleasant problem solving and frustrations that keep you wanting to come back. But for me its the relaxed feeling I get for a couple of days, the good hangover. I noticed especially when my boy was small and liked to be picked up every five minutes that the day after a good a Aikido work over( as opposed to a work out) that he was lighter.
Taking the tension out of your muscles makes them stronger, who would have thought?
I have started doing Brazillian Jujitsu because of that feeling. Not that I dig MMA, but because it maybe the best martial art that gives you that relaxed feel good. I'm not doing it to shore up weaknesses in my game, or because I find Aikido lacking It just delivers the goods.
Because I always saw the martial arts as a way to exercise I tend to avoid and ignore the common hassles and personality conflicts, and pyschological needful things that people look for in the martial arts. I have been around folks who really wish they were born Japanese, as if that were going to make them better. I think Zen is okay, but the more you want a calm mind the more it aint gonna happen for you. I like that whole shinto there is a spirit in every rock and tree thing. But I think its a laughable thing that turning Japanese will get you manly respect and more chicks. It will probably do the opposite.
I have also tended to ignore the self defense side of things. Rory Miller said it best when he said that folks expect Martial Arts teachers to be experts on violence. And this is not the case. Self defense wise, I think that martial arts helps in self in an indirect way. Being used to contact and folks being in your bubble,and understanding how the body bends and reacts here and there is a useful thing. It gives you a 1up, but it doesnt make you an expert.
I don't know how many times I have heard an aikido guy explain to me how to handle a puncher or a kicker, and they have never been punched or kicked in their life. Head shots you tend to see stars, body shots hurt like hell and make you want to take a step or two back, where you get the head shot. It is an endless deep shizznit cycle from which there is no easy technical solution, except do it to the other guy first.
I also lament the misunderstanding and omission of Tanto Randori in the Geis line Tomiki Aikido. Karl Geis made a decision for everyone when he decided he wasnt into it. While technicaly it isnt pretty, it provides an avenue for sweat and struggle. I think that he had concerns that it wasnt effective way to teach self-defense because it didnt address the cutting function of the blade. But its always been my opinion that any knife self defense "expert" is full of crap.
The knife keeps cropping up over the last several thousand years because it is a hard thing to defend against. Before law and justice, packing a knife was a pretty good idea. And at most any one who survives a knife, especially a martial arts person, is probably aligned with the 80/20 principle. The reason why you get out of a hairy situation is because of 20 percent training and 80 percent dumb luck.
Tanto randori is the fun strength and conditioning tool. You get stronger by doing it. Folks tend to forget that Morty Youshiba was a fitness fanatic before people even had a need for fitness. He liked farm labor, and did Aikido as a "break" between bouts of farm labor. How much of his "aiki" was that he was a natural athlete that was in incredible shape? If he truly was as good as folks say, you may be looking at Micheal Jordan type. A one in ten million type of guy that comes around every 20 years or so.
And because we dont do it, the randori as strength and conditioning, us Geis-ryu folks, I have to get it through BJJ. Its going to be a fun ride, hopefully.
Folks tend to forget the place of physical education, physical activity had on society. To keep people out of trouble you needed some sort of avenue for them to get energy out of their system. Kano, if I recall it right, was influenced by western educational ideas as was Tomiki. Randori is a western idea. Take your kid to soccer practice, or basketball practice. How much of it is drill and skill, and how much is some sort of smaller game that relates to the game?
You never see an athletic team doing a kata to get better at anything. Kata was a way to supply that 20 percent in the old days. Life, especially in hard times, tends to be 80 percent dumb luck. Kata is a method for preserving a set of techniques and movement principles. Its the slow road to building skill. But it provided a jumping off point for folks to improvise their way out of trouble because they had numerous models of interaction socked away.
But nowadays, people tend to get frozen in kata. They think that the kata speaks directly to a situation like a recipe for making biscuits. All a kata provides is the motion of making biscuits in a straight line. Walk two steps forward, grab imaginary bag of flour, pour it into the imaginary bowl. In two man kata, the linear situations are the imaginary. People tend to move all over the damn place in real situations. And you can also confuse a making the biscuits kata movement with a "knife defense" kata.
Most of Tomiki's weapon kata spoke more to timing than actual make the biscuits application. Folks who try to fix san kata, especially the tanto parts, run the risk of making a situation worse. Putting a realistic response to a silly looking attack. Where the silly looking attack was just a creature of timing and not an actual attack. Its like the kata is saying, " you know that timing is important don't you?" over and over and over.
I have had folks say that the koryu kata are not neccessary because they were a product of Hideo Ohba. And they tend to get on me about studying books and film so much, but if they bothered to crack a book and look at these films over and over they would understand that the Tomiki parts of their Aikido besides San Kata are the drills and methodologies that train up to Randori. Obha was actually the more classical thinker of the two. Tomiki was of the sweat it out school of thinking. That making Aikido into a sport would give more folks an avenue to get better at getting along, and going along.
The one thing about BJJ, I dont think there are any kata to slow things down. Not two many points to argue about, justify, explain, or ponder on. Just shut up and wrestle with a guy for two minutes, and then wrestle with another guy for two minutes.
The physical activity has been replaced with distraction. Instead of focusing a persons energies on doing, there are numerous ways nowadays for people to get distracted by looking. I have told young folks that there isnt much difference between cigarette smoking and smartphones. And if everybody would go back to smoking cigarettes we would get a lot more done, and I wouldnt be afraid to walk accross the parking lot at walmart. and I really dont know which is worse.
Fast food is killing us. Millions of Cow farts may be the death of us. Folks try to blame obesity on the lack of willpower. But you can't blame a fish for swimming in polluted water. There are less reasons to move, and more reasons to stand still, eat, and look at something. This is why I get kind of irritated at the folks who think they can master things by moving slow. Moving slow for an hour is great as long as someone doesnt want to stop and talk about it.
Moving at a good pace helps you sweat out the crap, and also gives you a reason to want to slow down and talk about it. The rest is the best part of the hard work. A cold drink and good conversation. Not I'm going to talk about it to justify it or avoid doing it.
The guys that appear to move slow, and complete techniques with out a lot of hassle are also the ones who have probably done it longer than anyone else. Its another bone I got to pick with the Geis Methodology. Its a noble effort to try to teach soft from the get go. But there is a difference between faking soft and becoming soft. You become soft by learning the hard way. Thousands of hours. Dozens of lesson learned. hundreds of asskickings.
There are plenty of upper dan's out there who have never even tried to go at it. They weren't allowed. So instead of getting a sense of been there and done that confidence, they look for answers from stupid human trick peddlers. Who try to sell the no sweat, move less, approach which goes counter to what Kano or Tomiki wanted. A wrung out society that wanted to sit down with a cold drink and visit, instead of complain or argue, or look for a a reason to get their feelings tromped on.
Next time you are about to get into an argument in the 12 items or less line, think about how things would go if both parties were physically wrung out from some good sweat. Not exhausted, just wrung out real good. How less of hurry you would be in, how the little things dont matter. why in the hell do i care if this guy has 14 things in his basket? That is the lesson of slow and easy. A stressed out person can't become soft by just rule and philosophy alone. People become soft, and easy and agreeable. You can't fake it. Or replace it with distraction. Its something you get from sweat.
I have been doing technical archeology of Geis -Ryu Tomiki for a couple of years now. I have always said that a real Okie has to tell a couple of stories before he gets to the point. Well, this blog was the couple of stories. And this post is the point. If I offended folks, especially Geis-ryu folks, I want to apologize here. When somebody tries to digest something new to their system they usually fart a lot. And there was a lot of verbal farting going on in this blog. Sorry for cropdusting your room.
I have always enjoyed Aikido. What I have had a problem with is the Judo model to explain the motions. This isnt because I don't respect judo, in fact I would rather be thrown with Judo than talk about it. Getting thrown down tends to be enlightening and sometimes fun. The simple reason to why I watch birds on most Geis-ryu Aikido analysis is that I don't do Judo. I think that I have learned somethings by osmosis, but still at the end of the day I am not a Judo player. As a school teacher, I recognized that all the Judo talk was an attempt to supply common knowledge and a point to where things can be explained and further expanded on. When two farmers get together they talk about farming. Judo players tend to talk about Judo. In the early days of Tomiki, every student was a Judo player.
Judo motion, however, doesn't explain aikido motion. There are points of convergence, and Geis-ryu players are masters of this convergence zone, with the caveat that a lot of prior Judo knowledge must be present to master this convergence zone. I recognized that I was never going to be able to access this prior knowledge. So I had to do some digging..
The walking kata, the way Senta Yamada performs it, supplies a method of installing a prior knowledge through motion. It supplies the motions to be discussed and labeled, and then practiced. It should supply the reference point of connection: "It's like in the walking kata when you...."
I am becoming set in my opinions in that I think that the Judo Taiso Era Tomiki, the Miyake/Yamada era was probably the Golden Age of Tomiki Aikido. It is the best model to supply and understanding to what that crazy wizard Morty Youshiba was up to. I am of the opinion that the system rapidly jumped the shark once competive Tanto Randori was seen as the primary point of emphasis.
Geis-ryu folks also jumped their own sharks, when they reduced motion on the basis of Judo analysis and confined motion to a set of principles that were more instructional talking points than actual principle. The shark jumping on their part had nothing to with their Randori model which can be seen in other systems like Tai chi, wing chun, and other chinese arts that have pushhands/sticky hand exercises. Although I don't think the explicit intention was to make randori into a Chinese Exercise, that is essentially what happened. It was a moment of serendipity.
I think that the Judo Taiso era aikido is composed of these elements: The walking kata, the 8 releases, the 15 kata, proto-san kata ideas, and proto-yon kata ideas. Also, I think that the system revolves around the principle of hando-no-kuzushi: resistance of one technique leads to an opening on another technique.
The walking kata
Instead of doing a blow by blow analysis I'm just going to broad brush it here.
A)The unsoku teach tsugi ashi. It also teaches foot work to drive an offbalance, to position to employ hiprotation as an offbalance, and to use body turn as a method of offbalance. I think that the omission of the forward tsugi ashi/backward tsugi ashi is a terrible decision by the Geis_ryu folks, but the inclusion of the diagonal step is a master stroke. I don't believe that it was a change made by Geis, it think it was always there as an obvious reality especially in the application of Oshi taoshi.
B)The walking kata links to the 15 kata, not the 17 kata. The 3 attacks appear to hold a strong relation to the first three hand blade movements. Shomenate/ gyukugamae ate/ aigamae ate. The key to seeing this is that on the handblade movements(the circles) yamada starts with his hand palm up( the initial touch in shomenate. The second motion is palm down. Both ideas circle into their technique. Aigamae ate can be explained when you perform it in yon kata style as a counter to the first release movement. but it happens to be represented in both the 15 and yon kata with the same motion and offbalance position.
C) The second and forth release motion appear to be the primary idea of offbalance in the walking kata If you play with the motions starting from palm down or palm up, and reverse motions you will see it.
D) Also hipswitching positions can be seen by simply taking a stepforward from same hand same foot postures.
E)The first three motions describe 15 kata" attacks". And when combined with forward chalice stepping they describe what you see going on in Yon kata the way that the rest of the tomiki world does it, not in the Geis-ryu interpretation. The first sweep/second sweep is an aigamae movement where you chalice step forward and perform a high second release. In gyukugamae it is a chalice step combined with a high fourth release. You can always drop to your knee.
F) The turns or the pet the dragon/deliver the pizza motions are multipurpose. They represent an Aigamae ate relationship. They also represent a tactical turn when an uke has recovered from a second/forth release and attempts to reorient his center on yours per yon kata. The missing peice on these motions are that they describe the wrist techniques when you combine them with a hipswitch. Both mawashis/ both kote gaeshis are in the 15 kata but not the 17. If you watch Tomiki on his Aikido Kyogi go through the wrist techniques you can see suggestions of this idea.
G)The hipswitch alone also aligns to the two shihonage movements but that is an easy connection to make. The senata yamada 180 turns in his walking kata address the amount of carry/ or energy added by the uke to perform shihonage. They are two of the underarm release motions.
15 kata
This kata has been described by many as Tomiki's rough draft, or just a stage in his evolution of the 17 kata. I tend to disagree, This is the basic kata of Tomiki. Shodokan Aikido still teaches the grips even though some of them are not in the 17. Once Tomiki started playing with his ideas to develop a randori method I suppose these are the ideas he started with. But as he was watching the kids play he saw a lot of Judo being thrown around, so that is where the tanto idea came in. My speculation is that once folks started playing with a tanto he started seeing a lot of the things that eventually found thier way into the 17. Tomiki had labels for all the new things that turned up and put them into the new kata, and took out the things that didn't work or were dangerous. ( remember the old film shows him playing with kote mawashi in a backfall) My educated guess comes from watching Tanto Randori matches on Youtube. The things he added tend to be the only things that you see happen, besides some sort of shomenate. This just isnt a hairy coincidence.
Randori
It gets obscured a lot in Geis-ryu because of the repurposing of 17 kata movements to fit the softer randori model, but both katas the 15/17 are not organized only bodypart, but by the principle of hando-no-kuzushi. That if it doesnt work one way because of resistance turn it the other way, and if that doesnt work then hit the guy. Geis-ryu wants to achieve light touch sensitivity much in the way tai chi push hands works. But since they don't play with Randori in a resistant mode this connection is lost, but eventually found through other means. Things start in small circles of input/output until someone commits an error in movement then the circles widen into techniques and throws.
Another point missed is that the 17 kata is also organized to address backward and forward linear movement by the tanto player, especially in the case of Atemi waza. Since the forward/ and back tsugi ashi movement has been omitted from the walking kata. The butterfly movements are also a product of tanto randori because with a tanto involved techniques need the reinforcing factor of two hands. This two hand reinforcement is not present so much in the 15 kata. Hiki taoshi is often performed one handed, and no butterfly like movements are involved.
In my view there are two models of randori. The softer randori to teach fine mechanics and sensitivity( I have made the observation that Geis-ryu folks seem to be very good at free-styling wrist techniques which I think fits the 15 model better than the 17 model) The hando-no-kuzushi randori should be a more hardheaded randori. There are just some techniques that need a wider range of movement that simply isnt there in soft randori, and once you start practicing hando-no -kuzushi randori the linkages in the kata start to appear very obvious.
The release actions
These can be soft function ideas, but I believe they are an extension of hando-no-kuzushi ideas. what doesnt work one way will work the other way, and if works one way real good then it can go back the other way real easy. A critical insight into the nature or releases can be made when watching Senta Yamada explain actions in a circle. And really working release movements in a circle with either the second or fourth release explains the nature of aikido movement. It explains everything you see in Yon kata, Geis's release chains, and his 23 kata. I have had trouble with both the chains and the 23 because they often pass up a couple of ideas on the way to execution and sometimes contain redundancies. Since I follow the hando-no kuzushi model, I already see the releases and the 17 kata in circular form. It chains naturally and doesn't need much labeling. But if softer forms of randori study are your goal I can see great benefit in chaining and the 23 kata.
The nature of Judo and Aikido
Judo starts from an idea that both players are equal. But with the right Judo guy equal don't last long. Aikido begins with the idea of constantly keeping things non equal. There is no matching timing ideas in Aikido. Tori seeks to speed up the uke, or to turn recieved speed into more speed. And that is nature of Aikido offbalance. Every interaction is predicated on non-equality. My Geis-ryu associates have derided tanto randori sometimes as a whole lot of nothing going on. But it contains a central point of Aikido. The tanto player keeps things unequal. The tanto player is the Aikido player. He can keep things from going equal. The rules restrict his range of movement to linear and he can only counter under a set of slim finely defined curcumstances. But look at how much he gets the other guy to jump, hop, and twist and turn. Now image if the Tanto guy said enough of this crap, dropped the foam tanto and applied a 17 technique. This is how Aikido is meant to function. You always have to set yourself up to keep things unequal, by forcibly controlling maai with movement and atemi. Once you try to control maai in a reactive mode all Aikido ceases to function.
Anyway, I figured out the what is what in my Branch of Tomiki Aikido. Now all I need is about 10 years worth of good mat time with good people. Then I may be qualified to teach it if the accident wills.
There have been many occasions as I was looking up from the mat, looking up at the Judo guys crotch. Pondering the upward punch in the balls technique, That I began to see the Aikido in Geis-ryu as Jan Brady. And the Judo as Marsha Brady. Every time Jan would try to be herself, here comes Marsha, or somebody mentioning Marsha.
Marsha, Marsha, Marsha. Judo, Judo, Judo.
In fact the statement I have heard the most in my Aikido study is: If you do it that way a Judo player will.....(fill in the blank with a Judo move I have probably been victimized by.)
Jan Brady was not a happy camper, and in fact I think this entire blog could have been written by her.
In fact, that subjective feeling, that Wow, oh shit feeling you get when you are thrown anywere on the Judo Menu. That Judo woosh that proves somebody elses well founded point. That"s the way I think Aikido should be.
Aikido should be able to prove somebody elses well founded point. With a wow, oh shit, and a woosh.
I started my Jan Bradyness with the idea that because no one could give a definite reason why we did anything on the walking kata with out mentioning Marsha. That the Aikido that I was being taught was half-assed aikido made better by Judo practice, and Judo insights.
You can hang out with Marsha.
You can hang out with Marsha and Jan.
But never, ever, hang out with Jan. Jan can't carry the story on her own.
Anyway. Look at this old school Tomiki Walk. He tells a story about the walking hand motions. The sword motions say it all. But the part where he makes a point to show his hand held high, middle and low. The Jodan, Chudan, and Gedan. Those are important to figure out the mystery of the walking kata.
Also look at Senta Yamada clip. This is basically the way we in the Geis-Ryu Tomiki do it with a few changes. Here's Nick Lowry demonstrating.
The thing you may notice is the quality of the Geis-ryu footwork. It's slower, much more deliberate. The thing about Geis-ryu is, and this is my interpretation, it chooses not to undo any Judo fundamental or insight. Jumping around doesn't make sense against a Judo guy. And more importantly it doesn't make sense to a Judo guy.
The thing I want to say is that Geis-ryu Tomiki is an older version of Tomiki Aikido. I think I'm correct, or pretty damn correct, when I say that it was given to us by first generation Tomiki Students. That is the first people to actually learned Aikido from Tomiki when Tomiki was trying real hard to find the best to teach Aikido. When he was trying to apply a Kano model to it.
But unlike the Senta Yamada Schools in Europe who absorbed things like Tanto Randori and the if's, and's and but's that go along with it, and entails a departure from an Uke responding like a Judo player, Geis taught Tomiki's Aikido as if a Judo player was always present. Either as Tori or Uke. As observer, teacher, and student.
Take a look at these releases. Here lately I've been reintroduced to doing things this way. I think it helps clear up some walking kata mysteries.
What these guys are doing is three step walking. I went over and did this with the Himes the other night. It is just like that Judo exercise where the guys walk around the room feeling for feet. Everytime a footfalls there is a move made. The releases here don't dial in until about ukes third step or so. There are positions here where off balances can happen. Making the Uke take a step he doesn't want to take. That is make him move his foot to where he places it off the line of his walking. His footfall should have been here, but now he's taking it there. It took me five fudging years to figure that out.
Notice the under the arm movements. We call them release 5, 6, 7, 8.
Now check this out. It's my favorite dude Nariyama. He is demonstrating what appears to be the same thing as in the release movemnets. But instead of the uke walking it out. Nariyama dials it on the first motion or step. Also, notice that the first two movements are omitted in the Geis version. They appear in Yon kata, which is what Nariyama is doing here. But the omission of the first two release motions make understanding the walking kata and explaining it a little more difficult.
Look back up at Tomiki remember the low, middle, high. What Nariyama is showing is the high, movements first. Jodan kuzushi. The two things omitted from the Geis releases. They are represented in the walking kata by the overhand and underhand circle movements. I always wondered what the Jodan, Chudan, Gedan was. Jodan is in reference to your hand, here it is overhead. It also represents diverting a sword up out of center.
Chudan releases are next. That's the pet the dragon , deliver the pizza movements. They are the first two releases. It's important to point out that the instructional emphasis appears to be the hand motions straight from the walking and the hips and upperbody working in unison. Chudan means the contact point is in the middle, and the that the sword is diverted from side to side. By doing so it off balances the uke.
Gedan is the next two motions. The hipswitch motions. Its a sword struck down out of center low. And with the diversion offbalances the uke.
If it doesn't match the walking kata exactly its because the first part, the movements 1-7 are the first part of the motion. The second part of the motion is in the counter techniques.
Here is some European folks showing both parts slowly. Its the walking hand motions. Also look for positioning that the Senta Yamada version of the walking kata illustrates. All the side movements and turning are there.
The walking kata was made more basic. Geis Ryu folks got the Cadillac version that attempted to show the whole circle of possibility.
It's said that Tomiki Aikido is a combination of Daito-Ryu and Kito-ryu. The release actions are the Daito ryu. Movements made to strengthen your structure while at the same time weakening the other guys. I hear a lot about kuzushi on first touch. I have mistaken this for some sort of lightness. It can be. If you are super damned good. But the releases done the way Nariyama demonstrates show that Kuzushi is brought about with one unified body movement, at first touch. I think that is the point. The Throw in the Kata just illustrates where the structure is weak. The actual "release" is the action that simulates the sword cut. It throws the opponent in to another kind of kuzushi a released kind.
A unifed body movement at first touch as opposed to kuzushi brought about by disturbing a planned stepping pattern. That is the difference between Geis-ryu and Shodokan interpretations of Tomiki's movement system.
There are other things to consider, that we know, but don't explicitly teach because they lay out of the fundamentals of the curriculum. The accepted way of explaining things and demonstrating, and advancing understanding. The hand sweeping ideas, for one, are fundamental part of Kuzushi. The pretty boys in the Hakama's do it all the time.
When kuzushi is considered deviating a sword, or arm out from its center things change in Aikido movement. The fact that they are combined with body movement from the center in the walking kata is a principle lost and only found in a cool variaton that no one has to demonstrate to make rank. I think that the way Geis ryu illustrates this, the cross arm sheering offbalance, is correct. But I think it is a pedagogical adjustment to keep folks from shoving an arm out of the way expecting to disturb someones balance. The sweep gets lost.
Also, You have to consider the way kata is taught. Geis ryu tries to teach as many things as possible in kata.. It may not represent the spectrum of movement, but it tries to address the spectrum of principle. Shodokan chops up the principles one kata or exercise at a time. The 17 kata in Shodokan is about the first contact twisting of the arm, or body on first contact, with one motion. Body manipulation mechanics.
Anyway, I figured out the walking so I probably won't worry about it so much anymore.
Once you start doing things the same way a few hundred times or a few thousand over a span of years you start thinking that this is the only way. It becomes the way you see the world. Its the way the water runs off of you. Like a rock that has been shaped by centuries of water erosion. You accept it, try to teach it the same way you see it, and argue against anything that goes against it. Because water can only run off of you one way.
Out of all the big wigs of Aikido, the Youshibas, the Shiodas, Tomiki is the least impressive on film. Even when he was younger. Thats because what he was showing and demonstrating was principle based. Principle based means, at least to this Okie, that it can look like shit and still work.
Tomiki and Ohba set down some basics. But they didn't have a commentary track on why they did this or why they did that. The other day I saw some thing on the facebook. It said, "A good teacher tells you where to look, they don't tell you what to see."
And thats basically Tomiki Aikido. Tomiki told you where to look, not what to see.
You have to look at it like that scene in The Usual Suspects, the messy detective office with the messy bulletin board. There are a lot of bits of information that can be woven into ten thousand forms of bullshit, and their are people who really want to hear the bullshit and base their actions and explanations off of bullshit. But the bulletin board is supposed to be seen from a distance and taken as a whole. Its principle based. Because it works even if it looks like shit.
The first lesson I got in Tomiki Aikido is what we call the 8 releases. The other schools call them the 7 forms of Kuzushi, or Nage no Kata omote/ura. Or maybe the first 14 moves of Yon kata.
My first impression was that they were some kind of way of getting out of a wristgrab, but you had to practice them like you were two french aristrocrats in Versaille doing one of those tip-toey finger touching dances to harpsicord music. There was a part where you sync up with the guys footfalls, and eventually that led to a discussion of Judo, which I always filtered out because I was never going to get a chance to do judo and judo people have a whole lot more simple ways to practice footfallogy than harpsichord handgrabbing.
This is an example of telling a guy what to see, not where to look. The judo footfalls, the handgrab escapes, the maybe it has to do with knives, or drawing a sword. What I was seeing was an exercise that seemed to relate to nothing but itself. And I could say the same thing for the Walking Kata/Tegatana Dosa.
After awhile you start wondering why you'd go to all this trouble to keep a guy from putting his paws on you. And then you wonder why anybody would just grab you and be absolutely content with it, like there was nothing to do to you after that.
Then you start looking at the Shodokan side of things and they start calling it the 7 kinds of kuzushi. Kuzushi is a way that you crumple a guys posture in a way that whatever he does immediately after is done in a halfass way. You watch these things and you begin to think that Tomiki was smoking crack because you dont see any damned kuzushi at all. You just see a dumbass thats being worked in just a faster, flashier way then what the Geis Tomiki folks would do.
I read in The Nariyama book that Tomiki was operating from the assumption that sword concepts were absorbed into Daito Ryu Jujutsu. If you watch Tomiki to his Tegatana Dosa/Walking kata. He put these sword motions together and made everybody do them. He also put together some footwork patterns that literally represent dodging a sword swipe. And then you do the 17 kata. and none of the shit makes sense or even relates.
then you watch a tanto randori match on Youtube and see absolutely nothing related to anything that is practiced
And that's how I felt about the entire curriculum. You had the walking kata/Tegatana/unsoku that didn't relate to the 8 releases, and the eight releases didnt have anything to do with the 17 kata. I had heard the story about the consonants and vowels and shit. But the words coming out might as well been in Swahili And then you had Randori which people say contained all three exercises but really randori was its own separate animal as well.
Then you watched Tomiki do things kinda sorta like all this, but at the end of the day, you figure that the color of the sky in Tomiki's world was vastly different than the color of the sky in the world of the people you've been hanging out with.
While I was practicing 4 unrelated things that several different kind folks assured me where both related and beneficial. I was showing up early to watch Jodo class. Jodo is an odd ball martial art that deals with a guy holding off a sword guy with a hard wood broomstick. Normally you see Aikido schools picking up swords and sticks because they some how relate to something. But just like anything else it could just be practicing something that is suppossed to relate, but doesnt. But since I dont do Jodo, I just watched it,looked at it, but wasnt told what to see, and I began to make connections on all the seemingly unrelated exercises of Tomiki Aikido.
Anyway, I have a theory and Im going to stick to it. I was told to look at something and told what to see and it didnt relate. But I'm going to tell you what I think I see.
When Tomiki talks of balance breaking it has little to do with what the feet are doing. A judo guy will find feet, and anybody can see it if they have a judo guy telling them what to see. It's easy to see it, because everybody knows Tomiki was a Judo guy. But its where to look, not what to see.
Look at Tomiki Aikido from this perspective
Unsoku steps= This is how you deal with movements directed at you
Tegatana movemets: these are the movements you are dealing with
Releases/nage no kata omote: these are what happens to someones posture when their balance is broken during or at the end of these movements
17 kata: these are actions taken when you have kuzushi. They are ways to exploit broken balance.
Watch anybody do tegatana movements, then watch them partner up with some one to pull and push those same movements one direction into kuzushi and sometimes a recovery direction. Call it Yon kata, the releases, nage no kata. Ohba is playing a sword guy doing a tegatana movements and having them pulled through until he is forced to recover. The hand grab is just the swing point.
You can classify kuzushi in two ways. That way you get when you get put into the 1st release( 3rd movement of Nage no kata) that makes you a prime candidate for something like a oshi taoshi/ikkyo type movement. Then you get the sway back like when you do the 2nd release (or the 5th movement of nage no kata/yon kata). That puts you in the neighborhood of your gaeshi techniques.
Watch ohba and imagine he's a really horrible sword dude doing the tegatana movements that Tomiki just showed only getting totally jacked up by someone letting them go where they want to go.
Tomiki's balance breaking has to do with weapons. What posture you take when you get too greedy with a weapon and don't get what you want. Balance breaking is over extension. (The moose out front that always attacks with an extended arm should have told you.) It has to do simply with hips and torso not being in line.
Balance breaking leads into kuzushi. An poorly constructed action taken when out of balance. In judo it is when someone takes a step that they didnt intend to take, in Jodo its where the sword guy is forced to act from a non textbook posture. He is in this non-posture because he got too greedy and extended himself when he didnt get what he wanted. and now he has to attack/act from this place In a real encounter, the feet are always a factor with two legged animals. That's why a judo explanation can hold water if you have a Judo guy there to tell you what to see.
Do the arm movements of the Walking kata/Tegatana dosa. Except do it in a manner where you are bent over at the hip, and hands out of center. And you'll find yourself in all the index positions for kuzushi. You will also find your self in uke's position during release work. And bad things happen from either a Judo response( taking a step not intended) or a Jodo response( attacking/resetting from a compromised posture). Tomiki aikido is weapon based.
What most folks don't realize is that Tomiki Randori is more of a study of maai and forcing and exploiting compromised actions than anything else. Techniques practiced from shomenuchi/yokomen uchi maai become irrelevant.
Aikido works because the maai was correct. In Traditional aikido Maai isnt lost or found and maintained and regained. Principle based footwork is irrelevant. Its always put your foot here and then here. Fall this way and only this way. Always go to the mat. Always let it happen.
It also doesnt account for the unpopular fact that maai is also timing based as well. I've always maintained that a foam tanto beats a punch in the face for failures of timing. As flawed as Tanto Randori is, especailly in wrist technique work, it does allow you to play with timing in a safe managable way. Nobody gets anything broken on failures.
So why is it when you to Tegatana movements wrong, bent way over at the hip, hand out of center you arrive at the same positioning that uke finds himself in either Yon kata/or the eight releases? and why is it when you attempt to recover from these positions you find yourself in a tsukuri position for a technique in the 17 kata?
Why is it when you perform an evasive movement from the walking/unsoku and the "sword person" reaches out of center from the failed position( where you were) to where you are now you also find a broken balance and a kuzushi posture?
You have to know where to look, not told what to see. I've been looking at what seemed to be four(five if you count weapons) unrelated exercises and now it seems like they are related. All of them. The problem is that I was forced to see judo or modern self defense applications when what I was working with was a boiling down of weapons based principles from daito ryu. At least thats what I saw when I looked. You have your own two eye balls to look and see with. The walking relates to the releases and the releases relate to the 17 and randori done as stupid as you want to do it relates to everything. And if you want to do Jodo that relates to everything, too.
Every once in a while i think you have to take a long break from Aikido, or anything else you've devoted a substantial amount of time and hot air on. You go away, and come back. You see if its doing anything to make you better at being a human being. If you are easier to get along with. If you miss doing the bare ass basics.
The basics of Tomiki Aikido have always been as far as this Okie can tell can all be found in the walking kata and the first fourteen of Yon kata.
The Walking kata. Shodokan calls it Tegatana dosa/Unsoku dosa. Yonkata is nage no kata omote/ura.
The footwork. If you watch Tomiki do it You'll see a step in, and a step back. I've seen books where the step forward and the step backward are exactly one footspan. A step back to keep from getting cut by a guy taking one step forward. A step forward to enter a space, fundamentally its where a sword guy raises the sword over head and you stiff arm him.
These two Shodokan dudes show a lot of footwork. The third move represents the step in. A single step that puts a guy at a disadvantage. Call it off balance, or kuzushi. Call it a free move. Most of the time the attempt to make things equal, or the attempt to use strength in a compromised posture lead to a technique.
The other walking steps represent standardized ways of " getting the hell out of the way." You can see a lot unsoku/walking kata in Tomiki's sword snatching along with the Sword Fighting parts of San kata. They aint exactly unsoku but they might be in a neighborhood.
Every principle in the Tegatana movements has an opposing principle in the 8 releases/Yon Kata/shichihon Kuzushi. Sword work, and sword snatching represent Timing. Where the sword vs sword represents proactive timing: Its footwork and hands working in unison to yeild an advantatge. The sword snatching is footwork alone and the contortions of the wrist and the various avenues of snatchint the sword give rise to wrist locking ideas.
Pair a Yon kata move with a sword swing. The hand on hand relationship isnt a method of escape. Imagine a timing where your sword is underneath another sword. The footwork represents away of vacating the space where a thrust can occur to precipitate a circular cut thereby making the situation predictable and malleable.
The circular hand movements and hand positioning in Yon kata reflect hand positions in the Walking Kata/Tegatana dosa. Yon Kata is a deeper study of the Tegatana movements. In the first two movements represent a daito ryu aiki age/ aiki sage type movement except they are paired with a step in or a step back. A hand/sword thrust to the throat, or a controlled release of a sword stroke downward. The Throw is just to show off, and is more abstract than practical. The principle here is to disappear inside of the arc of the sword cut. A difficult and ballsy move, but the typical sequence in Tomiki Aikido tends to show the most comprimised position or timing first, rather than the basic position first.
As far as opposites go, reference the aiki age movement with the sword rise position in Tegatana Dosa. Answer a rising sword with a sword to the throat. The next is releasing the opponents sword downward. Both represent the very basic off balances in aikido. Spine lock or waist bent down the line of the toes. The positioning for the throw disappears within a sword arc and in some schools adds a drop to the knee for added insurance against getting your head cut off.
In movements three to four represent the preference of getting at a dead angle, outside of the sword arc. The stepback represents releasing an opponents sword downward. The shomenate hand movement represents closely the angle in the sword vs sword. Where you have an advantage of your sword being on top. The turning movement is a way of vacating out of a bad position. You can say the same thing about the first two.
The karate chop palm downward in tegatana finds its opposite in movement three and four. (release 1, 3)
Moves are combined as if they are one singular concept. Which is why they make sense, but they dont. A duality. But all aikido from a hand on hand relationship represents both sword and jo/spear concepts, and advantage and disadvatage. a straightline and a circle. They are not grab escapes.
The movement five and six represent the offered hand. An invitation to attack. They also live inside the first two hand movements when you move from inside the sword arc to the outside of the sword arc. Also note in the Nariyama video that the commonality of his initial hand positioning pre-grab is either starting in an offered hand palm up, or transitioning to an offered hand palm up. Anyway, they oppose the chopping action in Tegatana where the palm is up. (release 2, 4)
The counter movements mirror very closely situations in the sword snatching parts of san kata. But they also seem very similar to certain jodo movemets where the sword player cuts from a position of disadvantage and his energy is released into a finishing technique.
Anyway, I'm sure there is more to see. But Yon kata isnt about hand grabs and crazy throws.
Folks can live in the same house for years and develop totally different memories and impressions. Teachers can teach a lesson on things and a student will connect that to his life and background and worldview and learn something that the teacher didnt intend or every once in a bluemoon make a connection that advances his understanding past that of the teacher in a totally unrelated area.
Teachers, unfortunately, have a shelf life. Students don't. Teachers eventually need to allow a student to draw their own take on things. To test their own theories, to model things on their world, to find their own truth.
Teachers need to give their students a sharpie and allow them to cross out things that dont do much for them. At what rank should this ceremony happen? Where you allow the student to separate the useful from the bullshit. Good bye releases 5-8, good bye hiki otoshi, good bye shiho nage. Goodbye Big 10, hello Big 3. koryu kata becomes the greatest hits.
My take is that the useful things that can be gained from the martial arts can be counted on one hand. The rest is supreme bullshit. The problem is that usefulness and bullshit are highly subjective.
I've slowed down on Aikido to spend sometime with my family. When you got a little one, five hundred hours is a huge gap, you miss out on a lot. with an hour of drive time to and from the dojo its a thousand hours. I'll probably start again in the summer, maybe. and my emphasis will be going to visit folks that I've met. soak in what they have, and form my own connections. Find more buckets of bullshit to wade through. More material for the sharpie ceremony.
I've found maybe 2 or 3 things that I find useful, and I think I'm only smart enough to count to five or six.
You have to wade through ten buckets of bullshit, to find something that you can use. After you can number the things on one hand that are useful, you wade through twenty buckets to count on the other hand. The Bullshit to useful ratio is an exponential relationship.
I havent been a typical student. If I think its bullshit, then I aint buying in to it. I really never bought into the rank thing, its kind of juvenile. I never bought into the lineage thing. A lot of folks need that one important dude that they can say this shit comes from. Hopefully, he has a wikipedia article, and Youtube signiture. Rank promotion standards are repositories of technical bullshit, lineages are full of philosophical and pedagogical bullshit.
You don't have to certify or rank useful stuff. You don't have to sell it. It shouldn't take 500 hours to learn. The hours we log arent for practice, its to identify your systems bullshit. Hopefully, you can spend the rest of your days practicing only things that you find personally useful.
Most martial arts is a rigged game, collusion between two guys to make what is suppossed to happen, happen. The bullshit. And then its years of making the bullshit happen better. Til the point you got folks in hakamas throwing people with a touch or no touch or all. Guys in seiza flicking a dude accross the room. You cant put an inch into a guy and have him give you ten feet.
Useful stuff doesnt need anybody playing along. It's a hammer looking for a nail.
That's why randori in competitive circles in both Judo and Aikido looks shitty. Nobody wants to make what is suppossed to happen, happen. and when it does happen, they dont want to make it happen better. They are just glad it happened at all. Like watching NASCAR for the wrecks. Its a story you can tell your buddy. Because it sticks out of the ordinary.
Shitty looking stuff is honest stuff. But honesty doesnt sell like bullshit.
Honestly, be prepared to get your ass kicked. That's a motto to live by. Look in the mirror and say that affirmation daily. Put it on the dojo wall in fancy looking Japan scrawl. Bow to it.
You may do something for ten years and still get your ass kicked by somebody or something. If you dont have the courage to identify the bullshit in your martial art, then good luck. If you think that every move in the belt ranking curriculum is of the same weight and substance, then good luck. If you think everything is worth practice time, then good luck.
You maybe a technical wizard, with a high dan ranking, and be a total asshole. Some people need the certified assholes in their life, and reference them often. But Assholes are good at making bullshit seem useful. They need the bullshit. Otherwise they could only keep folks around for six months tops.
A teacher prepares his students for the sharpie ceremony. Helps them find something useful to practice. Something to be really good at.
Self-defense talk is a waste of time, because the bad guys dont think like you and me do. So its pointless to theorize what some guy might do on the "street" while you are dressed in canvas pajamas, on a foam mat, with someone who doesnt want to sweat or bend at the hip for anybody. And living in a system which thinks that hiki otoshi, or tenkai kote hineri, or shihonage are options to be considered.
"...and then Jim Bob puts an offbalance on the ole boy, and the dumb sonofabitch walks himself into a shihonage."
I don't live in a universe where things are kicked off with a hand grab. I dont live in a universe with equal timing. The lesson I have learned that if you are looking to make things equal then you just got hit. You have to be a legitimate threat to hit and damage for that whole maai thing to work.
I know that if I ever used this stuff that I'd be afraid, then pissed. And when I get really pissed, my hands shake, and I'm not looking for feedback, or tactile invisibility, or offbalance, I'm not going to wait for a recovery step. I'm just going to become a pissed off hammer looking for a nail, or a track star, or a pant shitting expert. I'm hard wired for all three options.
I wish that I could just do sport aikido, because it knows its bullshit. It's okay with that. You may be a top level Tomiki Shiai dude and still be no more dangerous than a badminton player. The world needs more badminton players. But if you aren't allowed to play badminton then you need to take out a sharpie and have the courage to mark out the bullshit. Because you maybe a badminton player and think you are somebody else, you may think you have been given something useful, and it isn't.
So I've been gone for 2 months or so, and I'd recommend that everybody take a break and come back to Aikido, because you can see change in yourself and others a whole hell of a lot better, and you appreciate what you are doing and the guy who is teaching you a whole lot better, too. Your body gets stiff, and you get crabby, and you dont relate so well to folks like you did when you were hitting three times a week.
Ive been reading some get back to nature books by a dude named bill plotkin. I took a personality inventory once and it said I was a naturalist personality. I like trees and squirrels and shit. I also like to see things grow for the hell of it, I'm the worst Gardener ever, and I'm fine with it. Plants like people need space to grow, among other things.
Anyway, this Bill Plotkin dude said that there is two ways of figuring shit out. Spirit and Soul. Most of us get indoctrinated in the spirit side of things, do good things and good things will happen to you. Be nice, forgive and forget, that kind of Sunday school type things. That there is a reward somewhere for being good. That's the spirit side of things. That's the do what Jesus said, or Buddha said, and everything will be fine and dandy. But folks who subscribe to this kind of thinking, tend to puss out when the shit hits the fan, they start to question why God lets shitty things happen to people who are nice, well groomed, and punctual, get out of bed on Sundays. and don't say the f-word on a daily basis. The spirit oriented folks have to have thier faith tested and survive the the test to get become part of the world
How many martial artists quit what they are doing because it didnt work the same way in a parking lot the way it did in the dojo? The guy who wanted to be all spirt before they found the soul?
The Soul side of thing is about hitting rock bottom. That depression and disenchantment with a world full of Ipods and Happy meal. The punch in the face. That whole going to hell and back, type thing. Its not having a jacket on a cold day, a month of sleepless nights, divorces, losing a loved one, losing a job, sickness, car wrecks, emotional shit that can't go where it needs to go in a world full of calm down and be reasonable. Its explaining buzzards and dead deer to a child, and how that's the way it is, and its suppossed to be that way. Its the dirt that flowers and trees eventually emerge from.
That Sting Song about a little black spot on the sun today.
A martial art that's first lesson begins with a stiff arm in the face is close to the Soul. To the way things are, and are supposed to be.
Plotkin says that soul is feeling your way in a dark room, spirit is having the lights come on and seeing the room. He says spirit is about shooting arrows into the sky, and soul is about taking them in the chest. He says that spirit is about the now, that buddhist thing about taking a moment or two to pay attention to your breath going in and out. The Inside out. The Soul is about the here. It's taking time to look at the wind blow through the trees, and birds frantically pecking for food in the yard across the street before the ice storm hits. Its about feeling the cold, instead of avoiding and complaining about it.
I had an epiphany or a dumbassany about the nature of Japanese Martial Arts a few months back. Especially when you watch the judo katas with old guys mimicking the motions of waves. That Judo and Aikido are not actually fighting systems but ways to model the soul of the world in a old and lost Japanese way of thinking. The waves crashing the rocks, in a what is here will be gone tomorrow, mindset. Tsunamis hitting castles made from sand. That your whole survival strategy may be becoming a twig floating atop of the whole thing in a state of total surrender. The faith to actually let go, and hit bottom, prevents you from hitting bottom.
Aikido is about the Uke, I prefer to be stiffarmed in the face rather than stiff arming another guy. I like being knocked down, better than knocking down. When I try to knock someone around it doesnt work so well. My whole facination with the Japanese Randori is that it provides another outlet for getting knocked around. If its taken in a soul enhancing way, then it's a good deal, if its taken as an oppurtunity to impose more man made rules on nature then its pretty worthless.
Kata is about the spirit side of things, which can leave you questioning the whole reason why you do things. You can do ten thousand reps and still get your ass handed to you by a new guy right off the street. The kata are room with objects in it with the light switch turned on. The real shit is what you find feeling around in the dark.
As far as the 17 goes, The five atemi waza done in the sloppiest most non-crowd pleasing way are the real thing, like five fingers they are the best way to feel yourself through a dark room. The rest need to be seen as potential bullshit, until you find them in the dark.
But you may be feeling your way through the living room looking for a spoon and never find it. A spoon belongs in the kitchen or the dining room. A lot of this shit we try to actualize only works and can be found in one room, the dojo. It works because someone lets it work, because like a spoon it can be found in a drawer in the kitchen or on the table. We want to find it everywhere, like the spirit side of things, and it doesnt work that way.
You have to question whether our notion of timing comes from the spirit or the soul?
Techniques have to hit rock bottom. You have to ask your self where is the rock bottom where this thing will work? Does the situation have to get dressed up in a suit and tie, and show up on time for sunday school for it to work. If it does then its bullshit. Does Uke have to act like a drunk man on roller skates for it to work? Is your technique a Happy Meal with a Toy that has been packaged and genetically modified to work in only in a theoretical, cloud kookoo world. Does it only work for men wearing dresses and playing Japanese?
Kata comes from the spirit. The Light on in the well ordered room. A real technique has a soul, it was found in the covered with blood, and dirt, and is a thing that stands out like buzzards and dead deer. Its a part of a necessary cycle of things. A reality that lives on despite any kind of rules imposed on it.
