Take a Big Koshiki and Call Me in the Morning

I tell people that Tommy key aikido is the love child of judo and aikido, but Ive heard that specifically its a mix of Daito Ryu and Kito Ryu.  Kito ryu is the parent form of Judo from what I hear.  Somebody told me that kito means  rise and fall.  I always assumed that kito ryu is  where we get our cottonballs and footfalls ideas from.   Over the last four years I have tried to feel what the other guys feet are doing.  I have tried to become so sensitive that I can tell how many cottonballs someone has put in my hand in a pitch black room.  So far I suck at it.   

I have a Nariyama book at the house called Randori.  In it he has a couple of interesting tables where he relates moves in the 17 kata to a Kito based Judo kata called Koshiki no Kata.  Its basically how to tip a big dude in armor.  I got to say, I really dig the Koshiki man.  Here's a black and white thing on Koshiki.



Koshiki is  all gross body movements.   It also seems like these guys are operating in an up close and all the way in mode. Its like you put all the atemi waza in a blender.  I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that our 5 atemi waza aint daito concepts.  They are kito concepts.   also  Koshiki doesnt have anything to do with "sensitivity." At least not the cotton balls and footfalls type of sensitivity. The Koshiki type of sensitivity is basically:  Can I feel this guy trying to run my ass over?  I can also tell you that that damn 2nd step in the walking looks very damn koshiki to me.

For laughs, lets look at a 17. (skip to 3:00) I can tell you that I see a lot of Koshiki here.  It looks like Tommy is basically koshikiing a guys arm, and he does a lot of go to the knees koshiki shit(which effing works).  Hell, his foot work looks Koshiki.  Granted, Tomiki is hitting the Geritol pretty hard at this point.  And its a demonstration Kata, but Tomiki doesnt ever look like any of the other Ueshiba students.  He never has.  Maybe its the Koshiki.   


Theres a lot of talk about kuzushi and taking an ukes center and connecting with center and what have you.  Its all pretty damn confusing. I relate it to hakamaitis.  The more you wear a Hakama the more confusing and abstract your explanation of Kuzushi becomes.  Like some conversation Yoda would have on the force or some shit. Truthfully, I'm about Kuzushied out.  I think I'm going to start using the term Koshiki, as in, " this aint no good cause you aint Koshikied the guy yet. "

I started reading a book by this lady: Martina Sprague. Its on throws, takedowns, and locks without all the Yodas and shit.  What I take from reading her stuff is that a lot of what we do is proportionate to the amount of head movement away from straight up center.  Basically where the head goes the body goes.  The other night I started to think about techniques in relation to the amount of  head movement (dipping down or swaying back) I got.  A 6 inch movement gets a 6 inch technique. a 1 foot a 1 foot technique and so on.  This is what I call kuzushi.  The dip and sway.  A kuzushi can come from a gnat flying up your nose.  It can come from a notion.  samurai swords and testicles. There I just kuzushied you.

Koshiki has another thing going on here.   You can see the rise and fall shit.  And yeah you can say the guy would have got kuzushied into them.  But these things dont arise from fine finger work and chalice steps.  I aint good enough to articulate everything here, except these are gross motor movements going on.  easy to teach, easy to learn, easy to feel.  Because you aint trying to feel a cotton ball, you are getting a cinder block dropped on you. 


When I think of daito ryu, i think of suwari waza angle tricks, slick hand grabs, and knuckle punches, shomen uchi stuffs, very specific locks and pins and pressure point stuff.  very fine stuff, detailed stuff.  stuff you have to go slow to learn.  Stuff that really doesnt really go right at speed.

Releases can be defined into two ways.  It depends on the hand grabber, the bigger the grab(more stepping) the more Kito. the finer, more static the grab, the more daito.     Daito guys only step when they need to step.  They stand still, do something very finely defined, and then move. As opposed to get offline/ move, feel where the ox is going, and help the ox hit the ground,  or koshikiing the guy. 

Anyway,  I think we have to look at our randori concepts.  (Honestly, I write about this shit a lot but my randori skills suck so please, I'm begging you, take anything I say with a grain of salt.)      I think we need to look at the slowness of it.  The more slow the more daito you are.  The bigger faster stuff is kito/koshiki.  Most of the 17 depend on a big koshiki  of some sort.  Techniques never happen because people put to much daito in their koshiki or too much koshiki in the daito.  Or else you just get a koshiki dump of some sort with no daito.  I'm going to  call it the Big Koshiki.

  

The Kurious Kase of Ricky Kogure.

This is Ricky Kogure.  He came up with the big 10.  I always wondered how much of this guy we have laying around in our techniques, because our branch doesn't look like any of the other branches. 





Here's some film on the guy. (  skip to about 8:00 on the first clip for his technique. )  

Short post without any dipshit remarks.  I've never seen anybody post these.

The Controlling Whack of Peace and Harmony

 You can imagine an ancient conversation going like this:

Student: What happens if I drop my sword?

Wise Sensei: Most likely you are effed.

Student: really?

 Wise Sensei:  well, you maybe able to improvise something?  you may have a half a chance if you...

 I think we need to realize from time to time that aikido is a  solved chicken and egg problem. By that I mean, we have gotten past the what came first, the chicken or the egg.  We all know that this stuff comes from weapons, that's sword and stick, and knife.  Jujutsu has been called the art of no sword, which is: what the hell do you do if you aint got a sword(either you dropped it, taken it off, switched it from the left side to the right) or you need to take a sword?  The simple most comforting answer is you improvise and act as though you are still armed.  Most  Grade A quality improvisation is done with a stick. 

Here is a Jodo clip.    Its kinda like what Jack Bieler, my Aiki Arts teacher does.   I like watching Jodo because it helps fill in the blanks. But I aint a Jodo guy so anything I say you should go over with a Bull-shit-o meter. 

     

  
When ever the stick dude doesnt have contact with the sword mans body, or  arm joints there is  a controlling whack of some sort.  The nice lady narrating explains it as a response to a lapse of concentration.  You notice there is a lot of kiai.

Now if we get rid of the notion of  striking atemi and replace it with techniques to take initiative and/or keep initiative.  Things start to clear up.  A controlling whack seems to take and keep initiative along with the kiai, and so is everything else we do in aikido.  If it doesnt take or keep initiative then it aint aikido.  
                                                          
This dude is named Smitty.  He's an honorary Okie along with Tommy Key, and Morty.   Smitty studied with Morty after the shit hit the fan.   If you want to clear up a lot of nonsense about atemi, you have to have to give Smitty's body of work a look-see. 
                                           
                                                                                      

You notice any similiarties between the jodo dudes and Smitty?    I noticed that Smitty employs a kiai.  He also employs a controlling whack before/after/during a joint control.  He keeps initiative by pulling a guy down or pushing a guy in once he has control(employing that stupid little side to side step we do in the walking, that doesn't show up in the releases or the 17 so we wonder why in the hell we have to do it).  Also, notice how the bad guys arm has stickified itself sometimes. 

Also, you may notice that Smitty breaks contact and does a controlling whack to the hand/sword before he clocks the guy with irimi nage( a controlling whack ).  Anything else he does is calculated to take or keep initiative, keep safe, and not have to deal with the same problem twice; its not about doing a technique. its all some form of initiative  from punching, chopping, stepping, spiraling, turning.   Its all different body mechanics meant to take and keep initiative.  Its aikido.   

Notice that middle knuckle punch?  I always have wondered why that shows up all the damn time.  Is it symbolic for a dagger, the way a yokomen strike is symbolic for a sword?  or is there a rule of thumb going on there?  (i.e.  If you break your finger the middle one is the best one because A) its the biggest and least likely to break, B) you can still grip a sword with it broken( someone test this out)...C)  it works like a jo pointed to the eye, makes you back the hell up(its not intended to get broken, its just for show) D) when you are victorious a broken middle finger keeps you humble by restraining you from flipping the losing team the "bird"

When I watch weapons people and strikers work they all operate under rule of thumb that you are safer and more effective with your feet firmly planted on the ground.  When I watch the Jodo and sword guy, the sword guy is never really off balance (except maybe once,) but he is controlled.

I think that we are sometimes operating under a dipshit assumption when we teach footfall kuzushi like its the cure all(its just one method to take and keep the initiative), like it will work against someone who has practiced for years to keep their feet planted so they can hit harder and not fall down(watch uechi ryu karate dudes sometime).  I think we've thought about the sport of judo(thanks Tommy) too damn much, and that lesson where you slow dance with another dude whilst gripping a canvas jacket to feel his steps.  That's feeling for an advantage from a state of equality.  In Jodo, you start from a inferior state. 

Jodo operates off the notion that someone wants to hit you with something aerodynamic, long, and sharp, and the longer the engagement lasts the more likely the sword guy is gonna win and you are going to have a catastrophic hydraulic systems failure with cherry blossoms falling on your dead ass in rhythm to Japanese banjo music.  

A lot of people say that hitting someone is cheating, especially in an aikido dojo.  But in the great words of J.W. Bode, the Grandmaster and originator of the term OKIE-DO: "If you ain't cheatin', you ain't trying."   Cheating in the dojo is basically refusing to give up initiative.  It's being an initiative hog. If you aint an inititive hog, then how is someone going to learn to take that initiative?     

Anyway, here's how the Ancient Converstion continues:

Student:  What if I don't have a stick"

Wise Sensei :  Then just stiff arm the dude, its the same thing. 

 In Aikido you go one step further.  You improvise twice.  You lost the sword, you aint got a stick, so now you use your arms like a stick.  Its the "Art of No Stick"     

 



    

Aikido( A Techno-Okie, Highly Edumucated, explanation)

  There is a lot of talk about efficiency in the martial arts.  I never cared for the word efficient.  Being a working class dude, I always had some suit telling me to be more efficient,, organized, and manage my time better.  It all amounted to paying me minimum wage and wanting me to work myself to death.  I never really cared for the word Uke (it sounds funny), or connection either.  The uke is the pretend,reusable, bad guy with an owners manual that you go out to lunch with, a real bad guy is a disposable bad guy, or the Asshole.  I don't want to connect with an Asshole. If you do, then that's your personal business.  I don't want to connect with a guy and feel his effing center.  I just want him to go away and stay away. 

 In Aikido you have to have some asshole help you kick his ass.  Assholes tend to start shit..  Often times they start shit and bite off more than they can chew.  This biting off more than they can chew comes in the form of missteps, stumbles, and wobbles.   Aikido dudes study and practice taking advantage of the missteps, stumbles, and wobbles.

When someone starts shit, you finish shit.   Finishing shit is what we commonly called a technique.   

Three methods of finishing shit. 

Knocking his ass down(throwing):  when guy A pushes or pulls guy B and Guy A falls flat on his ass, or face. The closer you get to the ass/face paradigm, the more efficient you are with your technique. It helps if the other guy wants to fall on his Ass/Face, or really deserves to fall on his ass/face. A lot of training deals with recognizing when you have enough  tori/uke energy(also called Taking Shit TS) to enter the Ass/Face paradigm (AFP ).   

Convincing him to knock his ass down(joint locks):  When your TS meter is at the max but you aint got a total AFP, planned or serendipitous( AKA Dumb Ass Luck  DAL) hand placement  could allow a joint lock .  It is also highly dependent on the reaction known as  the Deep Shit Reaction  (DSR).  DSR is a highly subjective state.   The key is  that the asshole subjectively feeling like he is in deepshit.  If he's crazy or on dope, he may not be able to  feel a damned thing.   
  Here's a NIKYO.  You can be the judge  on the DAL factor of this.  Normally, the discriminating gentleman wants to avoid jointlocks with a high DAL factor. 
                                                     


Beating his ass down (Atemi/striking):

This has always been a point of conjecture in Tommy Key Aikido.  Morty was quoted to say that X% of Aikido is atemi.  X has been placed at somewhere between 70 and 80 cents worth to the Aikido whole dollar.  The rule of thumb is don't hit a guy with anything that is easy to break. Fists seem to break easy, especially when you pound on coconuts.  Although, Morty is photographed hitting a guys short ribs instead of his coconut.  So fists and ribcages seem to be a rule of thumb.   Anyway, Shomenate is basically an educated man's palm heel strike.  Elbows and forearms seem pretty durable.  I like a good backfist, but I think a backhand is a bit safer.  Atemi occurs when you ain't quite ready to Take Shit(TS).  Atemi allows you to take shit that is acceptable.  Its a shit regulator if you will. 


Here's morty.  A lot of modern internet primates call his demonstration bullshit. it either revolves around "nobody can take that much shit".  Or "that shit" would never work. 

 

Realistically,  Aikido comes from Daito Ryu.  And Daito Ryu teaches you how to take "ancient shit"   By Ancient Shit, I'm saying, shogun shivs, hand grabs, kimono grabs, and simulated sword yoko ono strikes.  It informs us about how to handle and take modern shit.    After all shit is shit, no matter what century you live in. 
  

Principle of the Thang

Aikido I have been told is a martial art based on principles of body mechanics and balance.  In Tommy-key Aikido we have principles like same hand/ same foot, hand in the center of the body, stepping off line,etc.  Here's the Wikipedia notion of Principle:

A principle is a law or rule that has to be, or usually is to be followed, or can be desirably followed, or is an inevitable consequence of something, such as the laws observed in nature or the way that a system is constructed. The principles of such a system are understood by its users as the essential characteristics of the system, or reflecting system's designed purpose, and the effective operation or use of which would be impossible if any one of the principles was to be ignored.^[1]
Examples of principles:

• a descriptive comprehensive and fundamental law, doctrine, or assumption,
• a normative rule or code of conduct,
• a law or fact of nature underlying the working of an artificial device            

I have a rule of thumb about Principles:  If you are arguing based on principle, it probably isn't a principle.  or at the very least it is a domain dependent principle: it only works in the dojo against someone who is allowing it to happen.  A true principle has no ifs, ands, or buts.      Here is a good example of domain dependent principles.  

I would say that all martial arts are domain dependent in a way. They only work under certain conditions and when they are "allowed" to happen.  Fire is very domain dependent.   Miyamoto Musashi talked a lot about science.  Science is not domain dependent, its truthful, and it lives in the realm of IFS, ANDS, or BUTS.  He said something along the lines of, " There are only so many ways to kill a man with a sword."  We can extend that notion to:  there are only so many ways/situations to hit, throw, joint lock, pin, choke a guy to where the reward outweighs the risk, or success dramatically outweighs failure.  I think we go into dumbass mode when we think that we can achieve a state where we can start a fire anywhere, anytime.

Since I'm a Tommy Key guy and I live in the age of You Tube where observational learning is free, I like to watch Tommy do his work.   There are two excellent sources:

      

                                                              

  

watch these and ask yourself some homework questions?

1.  what is the code of conduct for the good/bad guy?  

2.  what are the assumptions of how the bad guy will act? each technique, each set of techniques?

3. what are the characteristics of the system?  

4.  what are the artificial devices?  (canvas clothing, techniques born in dojo for the dojo?)

5.  what was this system designed for?   

6.  what is the inevitable consequence for failure and success of each technique?  

7. Is it domain dependent or does it live in the realm of IFs, ANDS, and BUTS?   

Now look at this excellent video and ask the same questions:  

now lets look at this big 3 dollar word:  Heuristic and the Wikipedia definition?

Heuristic (pron.: /hjʉˈrɪstɨk/; or /hyoo-ris-tik/; Greek: "Εὑρίσκω", "find" or "discover") refers to experience-based techniques for problem solving, learning, and discovery. Where the exhaustive search is impractical, heuristic methods are used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution; mental shortcuts to ease the cognitive load of making a decision. Examples of this method include using a rule of thumb, an educated guess, an intuitive judgment, or common sense.  

Now watch the videos again and look for the Heuristics and then think about just how damned smart ole Tommy Key really was.  I think we need to step back from the damned principles and start talking about the rules of thumb instead. 

Band of the Hand

My last post I talked about Musashi and his concepts of time.   My mental picture of this mythical dude is that when he hit you first then he was ahead of (your) time, if he hit you when you  wanted to hit him then he was on (your)time, and when he hit you while in the middle of  your  "I gotcha--I score!!" moment then he was behind (your) time.  We try to mystify a lot of concepts in the martial arts, especially when it comes to awareness and timing.  One common screw up we walk around with this impression that in Medieval Japan people of great import had an unnatural fear of each others hands. And consequently, most modern Aikido dudes have joined the BAND OF THE HAND. Its been described by many that people tried to grab a hand to prevent some sort of ginsu treatment by a samurai.  I would postulate that if  you had that much of a jump on a samurai why waste time with his hand?  Why not hit him on the head with one of those ornate teak tea ceremony boxes they had lying all over the place back then?

  I'm going to post the 4-5 of Koryu dai Ichi again.  Its one of those throw away moves that doesn't "apply" to anything.   Its a heaven and earth throw. It's on "I gotcha" hands down timing.                                                                                                    

Here's a karate guy I follow.  Doing a knifehand  drill,  we call it a Tegatana--handblade, but outside of wrist positioning on releases its a high reward/low risk forearm smash to the neck.  (Before you say it aint  tommy key aikido. go about 9:45 minutes into aikido kyogi I (below). and then go back and review Atemi waza 1 and 2 and imagine screwing them up in a good way )  At the end of this screwed up shomenate drill we see the guy take a heaven and earth posture and he leads right back into aikido country again.



What I see in the Koryu kata after 4-5, is projection that has veered off center and been "pressed" down.  Once your arm is being pressed down in a low(grab my hand because now its easy to grab and control) position, the rest of the kata makes sense in a non-hand grabbing sense.  Especially with all the hand positions starting high in a mutual confrontation and then for no reason we are getting grabbed while  walking down the sidewalk in our hakamas and carrying a bag of chicken mcnuggets and someone is trying to grab them.


check it out from #2 in ICHI

 

Imagine the guy pressing down and your arm and his wind up in this kind of  strange little seen before entanglement.  

    

This next one can be a press down with elbow control.  

  

Anyway,  Try to think outside the cottonballs and footfalls kuzushi models, and think about  headshot/nutshot kuzushi and you can see a lot more in these koryu katas. Hand grabbing absent atemi relies pretty heavy on the cottonballs and footfalls approach.  We do the cottonballs and footfalls because its practical, verifiable and repeatable .  You can't go up to your uke and say, " let me stick my knuckle in your eyeball and see if I can get a #6..."  but we have to look at things from the angle of the guy who wants to hit us, and why our hands are low and extended (how did they get there?)   try not to be a member of the Band of the Hand....

                 

                                            

Living in a World Where Nobody Kicks You in the Nuts)

RANDORI

Tommy Key Aikido dudes do randori.   Randori means "taking Chaos."  In my branch of the Tommy Key family tree  its a free exercise where you try out your techniques. one guy usually plays a little aggressive and see where that gets him.  the other guy plays a little soft and sees where that gets him.  Its a yin yang thing.  The soft guy usually "wins."     


I think randori should be slow enough to be safe, but should allow enough speed to allow each participant to feel a change of pace. people need to learn how to deal with a little speed. Predators use speed.   Cheetahs can go 70 MPH.  But in this clip one burst of speed did it.  The rest of the time the cheetah is relaxing and slowing down, letting the gazelle put itself in trouble.  But you notice the pattern slow, slow, fast enough, slower, slower, slow.




The 17 kata  was a kata that contained techniques for folks to go at it for PE credit.  The problem is that post war Japanese PE credit often hurt like hell. When something hurts you try to avoid it.   So Randori outside of PE credit/shodokan became sensitivity training so nobody gets hurt and people keep coming back to class. 

Imagine a universe where the releases and 17 were taught within 6 months. Just like the walking kata you just do them  They are "warm ups" and seen as a holistic exercise.  Not something to be detailed out and analyzed, you just do it, do it, do it. With the instructor making small corrections here and there with little explanation.  

Then you study principles through the koryu kata.  Starting with ICHI.   the first 4 suwari waza.  Here's the first lesson about Aikido.

 The first principle discussed is provoke a response if you can, any softness has to do with not losing your balance by falling forward and losing your advantage.   Like the cheetah, the provocation doesnt have to be fast, just fast enough.

I think we get hung up on the slow, like its the be all end all.  slow is so you wont get hurt. so you can get more reps, so your mind can collect the parts without verbal explanation.  you go slow so you can feel it in your body instead of see it with your mind. you also go slow so your teacher can see where to help you.

I also think that we mix up slow with sticky.  Sticky means you are in touch with a weapon so you can track it, you are relaxed enough to be able to feel what it is trying to do.  I've shown this clip before but this is what slow randori does, it trains stickiness and the ability to follow. 


The other day in class we did randori all class long.  I matched up with a  higher ranked sensitivity guy from another dojo who definitely knew his stuff, but seemed to try to deescalate me into slowing down to feel what he was doing.   I really didnt need to, I had a safe position and I was tracking his hands.  I was also looking for nut shots, head shots, and collar bone shomen ates,.  Technically he was right, but for some reason looking for body shots still makes sense.  I dont know where I ever got that notion from, oh well, I'm just an ignorant OKIE.  If anybody can tell me who filled my head with these ignorant ass notions about aikido please e-mail me.  And also get a hold of this  dipshit, he's evidently screwing up, too. 

 


  

  I think we mix up slow with non-competitive.  Non-competitive keeps us in a safe state of mind .  We dont over extend and fall on our face trying to win, but at the same time we purposely put ourselves in a state to lose.   Thats the second lesson of ICHI kata.      

  

 

Now imagine randori practice with the first two moves of ichi kata as the central principles.  Randori has become  a model to over analyze the 17 to slow down and talk something through. slow down and be sensitive and forget you can be kicked in the nuts.  Here is a proponent of the sensitivityschool.  Sensei Furious, he'll clear up the debate.