The Jan/Marsha episode of Texhomiki Aikido.

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.

The Unified Tomiki Theory ( This Okie has found it)

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.