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.

  

                                                                                                                                      

   

Yet another look at Yon Kata.

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.  

500 hours( The Sharpie Cermony, and becoming a Hammer looking for a nail)

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. 
   

Spirit vs Soul: Techniques that Hit Rock Bottom

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.    
  

Yon Kata: The fish, observation, an aikido for educrats, and the reality of waves.

When folks think of Kenji Tomiki, they probably think of his connections.  His main two connections with the human world were Kano and Youshiba.  A lot of folks see Tomiki Aikido is a mix up of the things he learned via his connections.  This is judo, mixed with aikido, they say.  Its really the principles of kito ryu and the principles of daito ryu applied to that narrow sliver of territory where judo and aikido mechanically meet.

Educators know this as a venn diagram.  A one time interesting way of looking things that has totally been calcified into standard way of thinking by educational corporations and the educrats who serve them.


  That fish shape is where Tomiki aikido exists.  My particular Branch of Aikido tends to bulge a little more towards the Judo Bubble.  Which is frustrating for a Non-Judo player, until you can figure out enough of what is going on in Judo, and the Judo mind set.  A lot of  my criticism of my particular branch stems from my personal lack of understanding of all things Judo, which I think can be remedied for future students if we put koshiki no kata into the Aikido curriculum where it belongs.   

I would take Judo classes, but I spent the last five years practicing certain Tomiki aikido movement patterns.  Ive become more interested in seeing the permutations of these movement patterns instead learning something else new.  I wont pick up a Jo stick for the same reason.   I reserve the right to change my mind at anytime in the future.  My son is getting closer and closer to Judo age, and Pops might have to go with him.  

Folks who can learn several things at once, are pretty good at learning rules, and organizing.  Its the same thing as remembering that silverware belongs in the kitchen and not the sock drawer.  There are folks that will stop me when I start putting socks in a drawer in the kitchen, even though its closer to the place where I actually put on my shoes. 

 I have found that when you allow your self to be an observer, sometimes you gain more than you would by being a participant. You aren't burdened with how to bow, and how to hold a stick, or how to curl your foot to trip somebody.  If you look at what you observe and try to look for the overlaps, the fish shapes. then you will be better off for it.   If you look at it like a beauty contest judge, or practicality then you'll rob yourself of some insight. 

If I was really in control of my learning I could go into Jodo class and say I really dont want to learn anything that doesnt have to do with footwork and pushing with a stick  All I want to see is the footwork and pushing.  Then I could go to a judo class and say I want to see all the ways you guys grab folks, then come grab me an show me what you do when you grab.  The I could go to iaido class and say I dont give a shit about how to fold my dress under my knees,   just show me the cutting angles.  Then I could go to karate class and tell em all im interested in is the stretching and cardio and sparring.

But I'm not rich enough to get away with that kind of thing and surround myself with people who would put up with me.  It should sound familiar to you.  Its pretty much the story of Aikido.







Tomiki was just as influenced by the educratic philosophy of Waseda University as he was Kano and Youshiba.  I read that when he wanted to do aikido he had to make a system that was measurable and objective.  Basically students, and the bureaucrats at Waseda needed a format to see progress, and show progress.  That means competition.

This picture tells a big story.  Its not so much for students, as it is to for a long dead bureaucrat somewhere.  Tomiki dresses the part, he uses big dumb motions, and uses the latest in edunology: a photo with an arrow drawn on it.    Here is what I'm teaching boys.  Trust me.  I aint over here reading the newspaper, and flirting with the Co-eds.

I dont want to mix my business with pleasure here.  But anything you hear about standardized education, high stakes testing, test scores, "failing schools" falling behind other countries that you probably dont give a crap about, then you understand the waseda plan.

It was just a philosophy back then, a guide post of sorts.  Now its become a crippling reality.  We have in effect become post -war Japanese in our educational system.    I dont know who came up with it, Us or Them, or our Lizard Alien Overlord puppet masters.  But its here. 

Imagine a competition only Judo class.  Most folks would quit.  Because they can't demonstrate and actualize the standards.  Here in Texas we are going to see a tsunami of highschool drop outs in the next few years.  And they aren't your standard drop out.  They tried, but in a standardized based society there is no "A" for effort. 



Look at the Kyogi film again. Except look at it as a film to justify yourself to an educrat.    Its basically a list of Tomiki standards.  The measureable and objective building blocks.  Its not for the students so much as a show case for the Educrats. But unlike standards in public school they can actually be fun to do, until they become the only thing you are allowed to do.

I have never been to Japan, and I really dont want to go, but I heard that there are Tomiki University Clubs over there that graduate 3rd and 4th dans who never do Aikido again.  There is probably a guy over there who can blow Morty Youshiba out of the water, sitting in a cube doing TPS reports for the Nintendo corporation.   He probably got tired of being someones actualized standard.  


  But really the real check on the system is the spiritual underpinnings that lay in these two odd ball judo katas.  I came to the not so brilliant conclusion the other night that Judo katas express the Japanese connection to their environment, to their reality more than actual fighting techniques.  There is a lot of  wave actions.  Like ocean waves.

 


1. It is impossible to beat something in its true form.

2.  you can win without resisting.

3.  when two things turning meet, they continue turning and then naturally separate.

4.  A big wave comes in, and when it goes back it washes away and filters everything in its path.

5.  When two big objects collide they destroy each other, but when they never meet they will continue to exist stress free. 

Koshiki kata as far as my non-judo self is concerned holds  these principles in action.  

If you  look real close at the Kyogi video you wont see a whole lot of this going on.  Because the principles in these katas can't be objectified or demonstrated.  They are natural products. You may have to sit in a duck blind and wait for them to creep out of the tree line.  In the Shodokan world there is an attempt to objectify highly subjective things like off balance and Kuzushi.

There are good lessons for doing kata in this way.  Where a guy just puts his arm out.   If slow is the best way to learn, then there is no slower than "hold still".    objects hold still.  Subjects are relative.

The thing is that the Shodokan 17 have to look the same so they can be judged by independent observers.  There has to be good ones out there, so you can pick out the bad ones.   When two guys dance around with a foam tanto the guy who make something "look" like this is going to win.  In terms of movement the kata reflects a human idea imposing its view on the world. How things should be instead of how things really are.  Two folks that agree to what ever standard, agreed upon idea, needs to be actuallized. 

It becomes more natural in its ura waza state, where the wave actually comes in and goes back.   I'm going to have to learn those ura waza.  

Yon Kata has become my favorite koryu kata.  I think this kata is an aikidoized version of those two odd ball judo katas.  I think it reflects reality the more Artificial it becomes. The less it models actual human response in human conflict the better it actually shows how to handle conflict.  You can see the waves, and people need to see the waves.  I dont think that you can learn the deeper nature of martial arts if you get stuck on self defense and competition.  

                                                                  

Waves, Kito, and Rocks.

Miyake Sensei told the wise men of my branch that Tomiki Aikido was part Kito ryu and Daito ryu.  Most folks think that the daito ryu is obviously the joint locks and shit.  But I've been studying up on the Shodokan take on things, and what Tomiki actually did was extract the kenjutsu principles that he was sure lay at the heart of daito ryu and lay them out there.  Because in Shodokan, those guys study a lot of maai and timing, and angles. 

If you do a poor man's research, and you google up some kito ryu.  You'll find that koshiki no kata is what kito ryu is.  So lets take a look at some koshiki:

I was drinking coffee the other morning.  thinking about my releases/ 7 forms of kuzushi and trying to peice it all together.

I got thinking about kito ryu.  how its supposed to translate out to rise and fall.  Here is a clip of the main Japanese Sensei of my Texhomiki line.
Her name is Miyake.  We do this goofy finger flick on hiki taoshi that has to come from her, and I guarantee this is where we get our interpretation from. 

Anyway, I got thinking about how Japan is a sea shore kind of country.  It being an Island, and all. And I got thinking about those waves.

Then I got thinking about that other kata they mention that has a lot of influence on things. that itsutsu no kata.  the one that has two guys pretending like they are birds or something.


then I got thinking about Shinto and Japanese gardens and nature and stuff.  and those waves.  As a guy who aint seen the ocean except maybe four or five times, I imagine they can make an impression on you if you live around them all your life. 


Then I got thinking that koshiki and that bird kata didnt have nothing to do with fighting at all.  That they were just about waves and stuff being tossed around.

Then I started thinking of YON KATA. And how it has a whole different relationship with the waves than koshiki does.  In koshiki you are inside the ocean being tossed about, and in Yon its almost like you are the rocks swirling the ocean around. 

                                                                

Anyway,  I got thinking about the releases, 7 types of kuzushi.   How the waves in Jodan almost go all the way over the rock, and how the chudan goes to the sides, and how the gedan hits the rock and goes all the way up and curls back.

I dont think we are learning how to fight boys and girls.     I think the whole big lesson is about effing waves and shit.