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.
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