OKIE-DO

   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.