Beer Bottle Beetles, and Other Crap that Just Ain't Going to Work.

   


Somewhere in Australia there is a beetle who thinks that beer bottles are female beetles and tries to mate with them.  The guy in the TED Talk below says they almost  went extinct because of it.  Its a common thing to do something unrealistic in the martial arts, but its even more common to believe that you are doing something totally realistic, something that can happen, and it really can't happen at all.

Can you get to point a to point b, just because its in a supposedly basic kata, or because two people can go through the motions of getting there? We try all sorts of tricks and hacks, usually with a fair amount of collusion, to make these things real.  All sorts of ideas to make things real.

If you think about Aikido techniques as looping an arm around an invisible beach ball, you can see Nariyama loop this guys arm over the top of the beach ball.  You have an oshi taoshi, and hiki taoshi.

My friend Nick shows us a big shiho nage, or tenkai kote gaeshi. Same darn loop just on the underside of the invisible beach ball.

The basics of Aikido are that you get a guy to over extend his arm and then you give it back to him in a jacked up way, then you try to drop the guy.  The giving it back almost always entails twisting something.

Here is the short list of ideas that exist:
A) extend and drop
B) give it back in a different way than you found it and drop
C ) sometimes add a turn

The thing about Aikido is that there has to be a severe abuse of mutually shared space.  or, in other words,  you have attack like a reckless dumbass without much of a game plan, and with out regard for getting things back the same way you left them.

My food for thought is that the invisible beach ball may be the damn beer beetle bottle.  Its a concept that seems easy to teach, folks remember it, and it looks good.  A beer bottle shortlist is,

A) think in terms of a great dynamic sphere(beach ball) of peaches and harmony
B) shape things to fit your great dynamic sphere(beach ball) of  peaches and harmony theory
C) teach folks that success and prestige entails wearing a hakama
D) invent a guru type figure of amazing hard to understand and obtain ability and project it on to the guy who gives out the colored belts
E) eventually spiritually transcend the Active break a sweat/competitive model as you grow older and slower( and possibly fatter) and things start taking a few days to heal up, or else don't heal up at all.  Start talking the slow is always good game, and  it requires less laundry detergent to wash your gi.
F)  but make sure you throw around someone considerably younger because it looks better and we need the dues.


If you can't get from point A to point B through the beer bottle short list then may be  you ain't Zen enough,watched enough Anime, or immersed your self in enough Japanese culture. Perhaps you havent been loyal enough.  Maybe you should invest your time listening to folks talk about internal power, martial belly dancing, and the ol' relaxation is the key to everything you do crowd.  Its just another way to keep you clinging to the beer bottle a little longer.

In Aikido you have a guy who moves a little, to get another guy to move a whole lot.  A little gear, versus a Big gear.  You can see the wrist twist little gear and the big gear body moving.  The little gear can see things coming a mile away, I guess symbolizing a hyperaware state that the great sphere of harmony and peace affords us.

When two guys move together(tsukuri) in a seamless fashion, the precipitating event that makes everything go smooth and classy is called Kuzushi.  Kuzushi is a loss of postion, or structure, or the process of not  getting things back the way you left them.  Aikido movement has been described as a spiral, or maybe an invisible beach ball of peaches and harmony,

Here are two judo dudes.  The difference being is the gears are a little more equal, two gears about the same time  maybe 60/40 sometimes. You can see the fitting together a whole lot better.  The loss of position has to do with the whole body, and balance.  You put your  whole self out there( not just an extension) in a balanced state and you get it returned in an unbalanced state.  Judo movement has been likened to waves in the ocean, which tend to hurt more than spirals coming from the invisible beach ball of harmony and peaches.

If you look at Brazillian Jiu Jitsu, you don't get crashing waves, or invisible beach balls of peaches and harmony.  And as far as watching as a spectator it isnt much to look at.  I read where Jigoro Kano changed the rules of Judo to emphasize throwing because it was a more interesting thing to watch, even though it appeared that the Newaza or the ground fighting was where early participants were trying to take it.

Same thing with your MMA/UFC crap.  The early matches were impressive but not much to look at.  So they put in rounds so that the fans attention span could be saved by the bell, and everybody could get back to flailing at each other.


Would you spend 70 bucks to watch a true non-violent solution to conflict like this Gracie vs Jimmerson match?

Anyway:

Jiu jitsu and Aikido have basically the same arm manipulations.  The techniques reflect moving things in a way that they dont like to be moved, using as much leverage as you can find. They dont reflect the presence of an Invisible ball or peace and harmony.






Jiu jitsu, in my done it for a nearly a year terms, is about causing a collapse of defensive structure, and attacking weak isolated areas. Its a realistically slow process. Kuzushi, the precipitating event that brings about tsukuri, two parts fitting together, can be seen and technically studied,  but it exists at the conceptual level first, unlike the got to learn how to feel it kuzushi in Judo and Aikido. Sometimes it looks classy, sometimes it doesnt. Eventually it becomes a feel it thing, but early on its a concept and a lot easier to learn and practice.

In Aikido you cant even see it, the kuzushi and tsukuri because they blend, and because they must blend, you get a lot of fake looking crap floating around.

In Judo. it becomes like another sense, because Judo is about training and getting the most out of your sense of balance and touch, and it evolves around more conservative movement than Aikido.

In Jiu-jitsu they are all physically active qualties, they can become reactive and responsive, but they start out active.   And active things can be studied a lot easier than things that have to be felt to be recognized.  But if you notice the guy getting tapped doesnt move as much as the other guy, which is totally opposite of aikido where the guy getting whacked is doing the most moving.

And that is probably the real nature of things, if you want to do something you have to get it to hold still and be able to wrap your self around it. Like a real female beetle, not a beer bottle you think is a beetle.

The unifying factor is about seamless movement. Whether it is active or reactive.  Its important that there isn't any gaps between a collapse of position, or structure, and the fitting together, and the final labeled product, whether its a throw, joint lock, or choke.

I'm not very good so I can make a lot of folks in Jiu jitsu look pretty seamless, especially with the folks who have progressed beyond the conceptual level to the feel it level.  And the seamless effect is really about the disparity of levels.  I make a lot of people look good and sometimes they thank me for it.  But sometimes you are expected to make someone to look good and odds are that person owns a hakama.  And if you are about to make them look bad, they stop you and walk you through a perfect world.

Which makes me think that along with the invisible beach ball mentality of movement beer bottle beetle, there is also a seamless movement beer bottle beetle too.

The expectation that there should be no gaps between the collapse, the fit, and the end state.

In jiu jitsu its not that unusual that you have a beginning student that can consistently get to an end state, that is, gain a submission, in a way that a Judo beginner or especially an Aikido beginner can't get to. When you learn to see the world in a tactile sense it takes a while.  In jiu-jitsu you know what is going on because its squashing you.  You can either breathe or you can't, you can either move something or you can't, you are either protecting something or you aren't.

 In the early stages its not  exactly technique that is the determining factor or the ability to feel what the other guy is actually doing.  It's the speed and strength  exerted in the large gaps between the collapse, fit, and end.

It's a common sense idea that beginners are expected to behave in this way, and as they get better the strength and speed in the gaps decreases and gives way to awareness and skill.  Once you can put a guy in a bad spot he has to exert energy to just get back to even, and then things slow down and things begin to find an end state a whole lot easier.

Sometimes I really hate Aikido. What usually happens is that you start a prearranged move and the other guy stops you and lectures you about being relaxed or some other crap. And the lecture is always this is how it was taught to me, or other crap. It almost never comes from the place of experience, which is why this bow to your sensei, lineage crap is another thing keeping us on the beer bottle.

There is a lot of education in the gaps.  And most folks dont want to go there.

I tried this, had to let go, and try something else.  That learning/survival instinct that  allows folks to develop realistic habits according to their age and body size and condition.

There are tons of martial arts schools out there, that really don't want their students to learn anything. All they want you is to keep coming back paying dues, or bowing to the sensei, who may just like the captive audenice to listen to his or her dumb stories, and even dumber ideas about movement and conflict.

There are tons of beer bottle beetles out there.

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Counter-Judo roots of Tomiki Aikido, and the Problem of Realistic Fluidity

I study two martial arts that you could say are derivative arts of Judo, Tomiki Aikido and Brazilian Jiujitsu.  Or you could say that they are both parts taken of a Judo whole.    BJJ is judo starting on the  ground, the newaza, and Tomiki Aikido is judo displayed in Goshin jutsu kata, the self defense ideas of Judo.

 BJJ has a deep emphasis on transition, positioning, and counter attacking. Some folks call it fluidity.  It has a ton of ways to keep the faucet turned on and flowing. The thing about BJJ is that there are no kata to tell you what the movements are, and as a result they don't try to see problems in linear-scenario based fashion.  They have mounts, and guards, and transitions between this and that, and of course they have the submissions which really are the end of the rope of movements.

  I can't say that I am good at either Tomiki Aikido or BJJ. In fact, I can definitely say that I suck at BJJ.  One thing I can tell you that I figured out is that within failure principle can be found. There is a lot of talk about principle in my branch of Tomiki Aikido, which is a slowed down version of Tomiki Aikido.  But since randori in Aikido is artificial at any speed, in that the movement is not fluid, and that natural options are limited by supposed principle behind the technique and safety,  it only becomes fluid when you coach folks to slow down to speeds that don't represent reality.  There is not enough failure in the  aikido randori to really reveal principle.  The  spoken principles in Aikido  are really starting points for discussion, and don't reveal themselves in resistant randori.

The common thread between Tomiki Aikido and BJJ is that they both seem to work ideas from states of  perceptual inferiority. BJJ is known for working from the ground and on the back.  And Tomiki Aikido works from states of inferior timing, or states of pre-control, and control.

Martial arts are based on mechanical repetition, and cognitive-kinetic recogniton.  Or how the body bends and doesn't bend, and how people react in an choice A or B fashion to pressure: pulling, pushing, leverage, and weight.  The common thread being is that techniques have to be repeatable.  And variations of techniques apply to specific instances.  A big guy presents this, or a small woman is presented with this.

There are things in martial arts that don't lend themselves to being repeatable.  Like punching someone in the face.  You can punch 7 guys in the face, and get 7 different results.  Kiai shouting may shock someone or not.  Pain compliance is another thing.  One guy may tap after a half inch of a crank, another guy will just lay there.  On the other side of this coin, are  scenario based defenses such as defending against a punch or a knife.  punches are hit and miss and the timing and targets, and contexts are random.  Any body who teaches how to defend against a punch or a knife is full of shit.  You either know its coming and fend it off or you don't.  They don't lend themselves to cognitive kinetic recogniton.

  Aikido has a problem as a martial art, even the sporting kind.  It seems that it wants to defy the laws of reality, and common sense.  You can see this in both the sporting kind, and the kind that is totally fake.

This is aikido randori in which the environment is so limiting in both the rules, and how things work that virtually nothing happens.  Except the NASCAR occasions when there is a wreck and someone gets hurt.    

Aikido suffers from the notion that everyone can be like Michael Jordan.  That if you tap into the right technique, you can stop anything.  And if you can't there must be some other worldly power or spiritual reference point that explains how things work.

Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido, may have been like a Michael Jordan. Everyone else is like Jimmy at the courts at the park.  My two cents on the greatness of Ueshiba is that he could improvise very well.  That he could perform well in a cognitive-kinetic environment using idiosyncratic techniques, and then live in the spaces between them. He taught fundamentals, The same way Jordan could show you some basketball fundamentals, and then turn around and win by doing things he wasn't teaching and couldn't explain. It was like going to learn from Jordan, playing 1 on 1 with him for five minutes, and when asked how he was doing it, he tries to explain it with stories of golf, gambling, and making underwear commercials.

I think that Shishida-Sensei's article is a good one to google. Its called,  " Counter techniques against Judo: the process of forming Aikido in 1930s Fumiaki Shishida."  It differentiates from Ueshiba's real game, his real ability, and what he liked to teach and drill.  Ueshiba did something entirely different than what he taught.  And impressed folks with things that he didn't explicitly transmit.  The main idea of the article is that a lot of Ueshiba's Aikido was based on  preventing judo grips from happening in the first place. That it wasn't a good thing to be gripped at all.

The idea wasn't transmitted well.  Here is some dude in a skirt vs a judo player.  You notice that the judo player defends against grips, and when he does he tries to counter grip up to improve his situation, either to deny the aikido guy freedom to move, or to break his posture.  The aikido guy just tries to fight grips, and doesnt seek a counter control, or atemi. He just allows the judo guy to grip up and waits to feel the Ki or something.

Here is some pretty simple advice from a female BJJ teacher, Emily Kwock.  Eventually, she will talk about hand circling or wax on wax off.  

It's my point to say that this grip denial, or working from an state of inferiority, either pre-control or control.  When the grip is on the way, or is just being made is the point of aikido, especially Tomiki Aikido.  It's been been obscured, by time and wishful thinking, and randori models that in no way reflect any fundamentals.

If you look at the earliest Tomiki Film, the big foot video.  You will see the grip fighting fundamentals there in plain sight.  First off is the often debated Tomiki Stiff Arm, where Ohba Shuffles in with finger tips extended.  That represents a gripping attempt pre-control, or incoming.  And you can clearly see Tomiki hand circling into offbalance and a technique.  And late in the video there is a section where Tomiki and Ohba go full speed, and preventing control and breaking balance at the same time is exactly what is taking place.  Almost as if this is the living proof of Shishida's article on counter judo.

The problem with Aikido is the understanding of fluid motion.  It seemed that Tomiki broke fluid motion into parts, and drilled the parts.  However, these parts never came together in fluid randori practice.  Because Aikido is essentially understanding the boundaries of Judo, the good manners of judo practice, and cheating and being a horrible judo partner.  Basically, someone who is asked not to come back.


The Tomiki Aikido basics:

The tegatana kata:  these are hand movement that represent off balancing, following movements, hand circles, and transitions  and maintaining the freedom of the hips. The lesson here is breaking balance while breaking a grip and either applying atemi, or getting a counter grip at the wrist. The first position that you do in BJJ is the closed guard, you have a guy that has clamped his legs around your hips and you can't use them until you escape by using leverage.  So hip movement, freeing your hips,  in conjuction to the handblade movements and foot work is the key lesson.  The katana work obscures the nature of the exercise.

Kihon:  striking(atemi) into a throw, leading/following(elbow) into a throw, twisting(wrist) into a throw, transitioning into a throw(floating).  These are taught out of relation to the basic  hand  and feet movements, out of the break a grip, and/or atemi/ get a grip function.  The lesson being is an extended arm leads to an offbalanced structure, and that circling an incoming grip into an offbalance, or counter-gripping is required to make these techniques work.

Nage no kata omote/ura or (what I call the kuzushi releases)   It is never a good thing to allow your self to be grabbed. The impression it leaves in kata form is that letting a guy hang on is a good thing.  And folks that wear hakamas like to talk about connection and stickyness and all sorts.  It confuses the issue, and leads to issues that are in the judo vs aikido video.  The lesson is when you break a grip you must insure that the balance is broken, other wise the attacker can follow up with an attack.  On the other side when you counter grip you should break balance to the point to where the attempt to break the counter grip leads into a technique.  The Ura sections suggest the real starting points for Tomiki Aikido once the grip has been broken and a counter grip insuring an offbalance is applied.  

In Competitive Aikido, There are virutally none of these ideas at work.  Its because one person can not grip at all, and therefore the entering with intent to control is removed. That's when all Aikido ideas collapse.

Aikido is not an ancient martial art.  One can argue that it isnt a martial art at all, with out being informed by what a Judo player will do.  What it becomes away from its counter Judo roots is just a martial form of dance.  If you study the history of judo, you will see that Kano altered the rules because too many times a person could just sit out of a throw, or pull guard.  There was a period of time where newaza, or ground work dominated.  To make the sport more crowd friendly, and hopefully make it an Olympic Sport, he made it where you couldn't just sit down out of things, and get to the nitty gritty on the ground, the way BJJ does.  He felt, like many folks nowadays, that submission wrestling wasnt all that interesting to watch.( look at how the UFC changed the rules to eliminate the possibilty of paying good money to watch fifty minutes of two intertwined humans barely moving.) Tomiki had the problem of developing a randori with a group of folks that already knew how to take folks down with Judo, which to be honest has more solutions than Aikido.   So he found ways to remove the judo from the randori, but in the process obscured Aikido's counter judo roots.