Teaching Aikido( Real Randori, the Void, and Handling Snakes)

The rule about teaching is that you aren't going to teach everything you know.  Let's say that the goal that you have for your students is that they become a better human being through the martial arts. To understand Budo.  This could entail a lot of things.  Mentally can they handle conflict with clarity.  Are they physically capable and able to handle themselves, and spiritually are they at ease with the world yet make a mark on it.  Call it simmering calmness. Call it detached kindness.  Call it I don't give a shit, but I do. The original Okie-do zen paradox. 

Let's say that Teacher A is a damned good teacher.  By showing up at the dojo puts about 50% of this into his or her students.  That means that 50% of budo a guy has to figure it out for himself. He may get it through years of practice, or epiphany, or he may get it from teacher B, C, and D. 

The problem with martial arts teaching is that it really just about teaching the methodology that some dude somewhere down the line says will get you there.   I'm talking kata, drills, exercises, randori, whatever.  If you get the kata right, that is it looks good, and its within the same range as the guy teaching it then you get certification.  You get a Shodan, Nidan, Sandan, whatever.   But are you a better human being?  Have you improved mentally, physically, and spiritually? .

Kata are just kata.  Do them over and over and you get better physically.  Do a little hard headed randori and you get stronger too.  If you are a good uke and let the other guy put his hands on you thousands of times, you get used to people being in your space.  Once you are okay with hands you get okay with a lot of things.  That's they real lesson of randori.  It has nothing to do with winning, and everything to do with falling and hands and dealing with it.    

Here is a  look at the new Randori out there.    I dig it, falling, hands and dealling with trouble.   
It's not that damn different than the Geis Line randori.  It's just faster, and competitive.  As a forty something I don't know if I could handle it, but it sure covers the physical.  And after a couple of rounds I'd be ready to slow down and do the soft stuff.  

Kata covers the mental.   Kata isn't about the sequence, or the actual techniques .   Its about the dark space between the techniques.  All the screw ups and discoveries.  The 17 kata just represent 17 ways for a guy to resist what you want to do to him.  Relax, step off line, and then see what happens.  Your dark spaces are not my dark spaces.  But they are a big part of the Budo hole, the missing 50%.   People usually leave or quit because nobody lets them find their dark spaces.  The last thing Musashi talked about was the Void.  The Void is pretty much the reason people stick with it.  When organizations remove the void, then you get the Aikido that we have today.  Standardized crap.  I know that a lot of folks split from the Original Fugakukai Organization.   Were they searching for the void, or did they just want a new brand of standardized crap?

I can't tell you  the spiritual, but I think it come's from handling snakes, from always being the guy on the shitty end of things.  In Jodo,  its a damned stick versus a big ass razor blade.   Aikido has a lot of dude versus weapon shit in it.  I had a epiphany the other day that the best randori in the Geis Line is an Aikido Player versus a Judo player.   It's very Jodo like.  I think that there should be one guy that can do some judo and one guy can't.   I think that Texhomiki Aikido should teach Judo techniques in relation to Tomiki Randori.  You teach the guy how to handle snakes and then maybe he can get to that Simmering Calmness someday. 

 

Problems with Judo Based Aikido II

In a 1 versus 1 mat transaction, the guy who has a stronger relationship with the ground is going to win.  A judo player has the stronger relationship with the ground. He simply has more answers to more problems.  An Aikido player has a relationship with his own posture, and has to develop a relationship with  incoming motion.  All  of these motions are weapons based.  They all start out in a separated sense and become connected. This is in the form of various sorts of grabs, and weapons based chops and thrusts.
     
A person with a strong relationship with a ground will have a different take on the kuzushi/tsukuri/kake classification system than a person who trains in weapons based motions.  Weapons based ideas are simply not useful on the ground.  This is why a lot of classical aikido training deals with ending every transaction with a face down pin.   Suwari waza can be seen as a type of groundfighting, but they are really a study of the inner limit of effective maai. Punching/shanking distance. A study of  koryu kata, and prewar aikido shows that the very first lesson on this type of distancing is to provoke a movement.  That is: punch/connect first.  The real lesson is that the player who has his hands higher than the other will connect first, and set the tempo of the engagement.  Every thing else in suwari waza deals with the failure of getting your hands higher from every angle.

A judo person sees the world from a standing to laying on the ground continuum.  An Aikido player sees the world in terms of standing to seiza. The judo player maintains control sometimes by falling when he needs to fall.  He controls in totality. It's nothing for him or her to use the ground.  I see little Ju in Judo because you are not being gentle at all to the other guy.  You are just applying a  trained softened response. The end result is a very "Go" hard thud. 

Aikido techniques, If you study Tomiki's tegatana/unsoku dosa, the last permutation, you will see that every motion seems like a sword motion.  That is because it is.  Unlike earlier forms where you could see some judo like motions, (especially in the unsoku where Tomiki looks like he's positioning for a hip toss of some kind) you will only see the chopping motions.  He literally demonstrates all of these motions with a sword.  The reverse side of these motions is where the real study material is.  When everyone of these motions is over extended past its balanced center then you have a kuzushi state, a broken posture.  Compare Tomiki's last permutation of the dosa to the Senta Yamada  dosa and you will see this paired state.    Look at the sotai dosa releases, and our releases and you will see another paired state.    Look at the first 14 of yon kata and you will see a paired state. 

Every motion in the walking kata( the dosa) has it's counter movement in the walking, the tsukuri, which is done in conjunction with the a strong posture, offline movements, and decisive footwork.  The hand motions are just the connector, they aren't the enforcer of whatever technique.  They can be seen as an enforcer when you pair a grip with full arm extension or full flexion. But this is the kake state where you can grip however the hell you feel like.  The "cranking" state is really enforced on the pin, and isnt the prime reason for the throw.  once a guy is pinned in aikido he has to be provided with a reason to stay pinned. This is the "Go" state.  The thud, the realization that harmony can be enforced.   The tsukuri proceeds and facilitates the kuzushi.  The counter movement that "fits" into the primary movement.  The attempt to recover, which can be seen in terms of footfalls, steps not intended, is usually where the kake comes in.  The specific technique depends on the how the other guy attempts to recover.

The standard explanation for kuzushi that I have heard from numerous sources is making the other guy take a movement/step that he didn't intend to take.  An attempt to recover his balance.  In Aikido, most techniques originate by letting the guy take the step he really wants to take, and blending with it.  Well, this is really the tsukuri.  The kuzushi comes after.    I like this particular take, because it is very concrete.   It doesnt take long to teach a shihonage when it is taught in conjuction with a yokomenuchi, because like a judo throw it just "fits." there.

I may leave the impression that I am an advocate of competitive randori.   That's not the case.  I am an advocate of controlled randori that fits the mutual welfare and benefit principle.  The welfare and benefit depends on the two players involved.  Teenagers should not be encouraged to move like disabled old people.  Not in this day and age where sick, unhealthy people are good for the economy. Where more problems equal more money. And our aikido should not be thrown in the box with Senior Center tai chi to where it's only benefit is "balance."  

I was recently interested in exploring tanto randori as something for the young folks.  I had interweb discussion with Charlie Hudson and he told me that things are swinging toward competive toshu randori.  The Tanto was just an idea, an permutation.  It was really an attempt to take the judo out of the equation.  It seems that Tomiki knew, that Aikido and Judo techniques operated off of different principles.  That the person who had the strongest relationship with the ground would win.  That the kuzushi/ tsukuri/ kake may operate differently for both "sports."  The tanto was attempt to establish boundries.  The problem is that Tanto has become more of a game, than "real".  I take this to mean that nobody would think about messing with a highly experienced competitive judo player.  But a Tanto player is really about as scary as a  highly skilled badminton player. 

Charlie tells me that they are reworking the rules to where atemi waza mean something.  And that they are the boundary point.   A hand in the face, or other atemi, that travels accross maai and connects where it suppossed to score some sort of point, whether it effects an offbalance, or throw.  This is the separator.  Not a foam knife.  And it could hurt a little.  Another rule is that judo maai, where elbows "can" touch will be broken up after 3  seconds, and participants are separated.

Atemi waza is the real difference between aikido and judo.   The aikido player relies on it.  Pre-war pratitioners stated that it was all mostly about atemi.   Sporting atemi waza is different than real atemi waza, but structurally the atemi waza represent the "real"   My take on atemi waza is that they shouldnt be highly kuzushi dependent.  They should be easy to teach, and shouldn't need an uke to behave like a  tim conway stepping drunk on a frozen pond to realize.   Gedan ate is the same as a hammer fist to the balls.   They should be that simple. 

That's why I have grown to appreciate the kihon version of the 17 kata with out a balance break.  Everyone should be able to have practice time to structurally manipulate someone into a technique, to understand the angles and proper joint manipulations.  The kuzushi studies should come in the most fundamental levels of randori training.  All the stuff we talk about in the Karl Geis Line is really advanced study or Tomiki like exploration and research, and new students really need some "bull headed" basics in a relative sense of the word bull headed.  They need to know what the walking kata is in concrete examples.  They need to know Tsukuri, kuzushi, and Kake in concrete examples.  They also need to do Randori with the judo removed, or else you are studying mixed martial arts and not Aikido.   And some competive Randori is fine for the young folks who have never known a world with out cable TV, Fast food, and video games who have never "played outside."       

Problems with Judo based Aikido

I have done enough technical Archeology of our Line of Tomiki Aikido is heavily influenced by Judo.  It's not because Tomiki was a Judo Guy.  It was because Sensei Karl Geis was a Judo Guy.  You know that you are getting judo interpretation of aikido when anyone starts telling you to wait on a guys feet.  Footfall kuzushi.   The form of "Aiki" that we study is really "empty jacket" judo.  That aim of the game where the other guy can't feel a thing when he touches you.  It is also reflected in the attempt to add " tactile invisibility" to any offensive move in order for the other guy to feel like he did it to himself.  Judo is also reflected in the kind of close to the vest footwork we employ. Don't step to much or your ass is going to be on the ground. This interpretation of aikido is fine if you are a judo player, because it allows you to explore a higher end type of" separated" judo.  And when things go to shit, you can always sling the guy down and wrassle with him. Shime waza is a real bitch. 

But if you are an Aikido student there are problems with what we do. The aikido as given feels ineffective as much as fifty percent of the time. You can do what most do and study judo and then you are fine with Aikido as taught.  But if you don't have the time to study judo you have to find other ways to fill the holes left by " defaulting to Judo."   You have to do some research which in the age of Youtube makes things easy.  You can find game film on nearly every major school and nearly every major player.

But for purposes of filling the holes left by " defaulting" to judo the best films to study are Gozo Shioda and the Yoshinkan line,  Tomiki and Ohba, and Shoji Nishio, as well as Morihiro Saito of Iwama.   Shioda, Tomiki and Ohba recieved basically the same instruction, a near to daito-ryu version as you can possibly get.  Saito recieved the "refined daito-ryu" with weapons work.  Nishio studied everything and made the connections and wasnt afraid to synthesize Akikai Aikido back into a state very similar to prewar with a heavy influence of weapon theory behind the techniques.

The first thing that you must understand is that aikido is very weapons influenced by Samurai dueling schools.  It's a classical weapon based approach minus the classical weapon.  Look at the movements in Tomikis Tegatana Dosa.   Every movement has a basis in either a shomenuchi(downward chop), side chops(yokomenuchi), and Tsuki( thrusting).  When these movements are extended past center or arrested in some way aikido techniques emerge in their natural form.  They represent two things.  How to move properly, and what happens if you move too far or too little.

Power is generated by  footwork, proper posture,  hip use, and applying strength at the proper angles from the floor.  But the common thread with all of the schools that I have mentioned is the proactive use of atemi. In aikido tsukuri and kuzushis are inseparable.  In judo they can be separated.  To gain tsukuri in judo one's posture must be broken.  In aikido, the maintance of posture and gaining position is part of the tsukuri. 

The release movements are taught from an empty jacket judo philosopy.  Don't let anybody feel a thing.  But in classical weapons and really any sport that deals with one versus one, be it football, soccer, basketball, there has to be an attempt to arrest the movement of the other player.  A defensive line man in football has to arrest the movement of the blocker.  Basketball and soccer employ change of pace dribbles and head/body fakes.  The notion that you can do something with out affecting the state of the other guy either mentally or physically is crazy talk.  

Atemi is what aikido uses to get one up on the other guy.  Atemi is implied in an hand grip where aiki age is employed that locks up the other guys entire structure.  We have it in the first two movements of Yon kata.  Once a persons movement is arrested by atemi or by locking his entire structure then techniques can be " released"  

The other side of this coin can be seen in daito ryu where one player keeps his hand near his side so that the other player has to break his posture and overreach.   Our releases can be done in both modes.

The other missing thing in our Aikido is the notion of Strength.  We have this cloud kookoo belief that we can intellectualize a guy into a lock.  That he will somehow be induced to lock himself up.  This implies a feeling out, and a chaining of one idea into another.  A waiting game.  Where in dueling situations decisive speed is what often effects the situation more than anything.  Budo is over in a flash. 

If you actually watch Tomiki demonstrate his techniques you will see that absent a katate dori hand grab technique, he employs both hands at an evasive angle.   Two hands are simply stonger than one.  In a realistic technique, the opposing players movement is arrested through either atemi or evasion and strength is applied using two hands at a favorable angle.  If the technique meets resistance it can be turned the other way through footwork or grip change.

The katate dori is actually a study in kuzushi either in a aiki age "release into"  or a overreach "recover into"  sense.  Two hands gripping from the outside attempt to pull or push from a favorable angle into one of these states.

Aikido presumes strong legs.  Strong stances employed in an offensive way.   Our line is influenced into small stepping and feeling each other out in Randori done with a Judo mentality.  Where Aikido techniques, much like classical weapons assume decisive footwork.  Jack tells folks often in Jodo to "trust in their Kamae."   The same hold true for aikido.  With good kamae you should be able to execute any technique. 

Techniques should not be Uke dependent.  By that I mean coaching Uke on how to move after he has executed an attack.  All the Uke does is give a committed attack using one of the classical modes of movement.  The rest is based on position and stance of tori.  

Toshu Randori should be practiced with varying degrees of resistance.  A tanto probably wouldn't hurt things every once in a while, to separate the judo out of aikido.   High resistance Toshu Randori is the strength and conditioning of the aikido workout.   What I have found by doing Tomiki style Tegatana dosa/unsoku, and high resistance randori( where seemingly nothing gets accomplished) that my strength has improved.  When someone asks what aikido is and I show them a "gentle" wrist lock they act like I hit them with a cattle prod.  We have discounted the reason for randori in the first place.  It improves techniques through resistance and it also increases our strength and vitality.  It has very little to do with winning and competition. 

  

Tegatana/unsoku functions(the walking kata) in classical aikido

I don't know what other people get out of what we call in the Texhomiki line as the Walking kata.  my impression is that most folks see it as a balance exercise and a reminder for lightness.  I see it as how to evade force(someone trying to whack you or restrain you from whacking them), and how to apply power( which I call strength and speed combined, i can't remember the physics definition and don't really care) to get the most out of a movement.  What the walking kata basically says if you evade at the proper angles, hands are centered, and you turn at the right time, and you maintain a good posture and proper distance, and you change hands at the right time then the techniques will take care of themselves.  One can cloud watch the Walking Kata for specific movements but everybody is different, and will see one thing when another person sees something completely different.

What I call the walking kata is the same walking as seen by Senta Yamada.  It's close to what we do in Texhomiki Aikido and provides a kinesthetic provenance that we are a Tomiki school with pretty deep roots even though through  decades of  positive isolation from international Tomiki groups we look substantially different than everyone else. 

I think that this form of walking kata is probably the best catch all.  We do some variations in Texhomiki but nobody can tell me why we changed it up so I default to Senta Yamada.  Yamada is a Good reference because he had a good dose of Morty Youshiba before he studied with Tomiki.  So the may wasn't full of shit. 

I have written that repetitive practice of the walking kata has the side effect of building up your legs. A couple of years ago I did about 1500 motions a night.  What I found was that the the walking kata shortened my lower calf muscles to where I could barely walk, so I started squatting sumo/aborigine style to stretch those muscles back out, at the same time I sat in seiza for a few minutes every night and between these three activities my leg muscles began to respond.  I don't shikko or do suwari waza on a regular enough basis to tell you what effects these have on Aikido, but I can tell you that they are definately the strength and conditioning of aikido and are out there for a reason.  

Strength and Conditioning is the one element that I can say that the Western Practitioner of martial arts has very poor understanding of.   We tend to over intellectualize everything, and we think that if we can explain it with enough words, and objectify it, then that is the same as mastery.  Slow practice for slow sake seems to compound this problem because you have a dojo full of slow movements that lend themselves to an over analysis.  We seem to think that every movement should be a Touchdown, or a score.

You wouldn't stop a kid fifty times before he releases a lay up in basketball, you let the kid do it fifty times to see if he can figure it out and you can figure out how to help the kid, step in when he achieves the amount of frustration to where he'll actually listen to you.  Then put him back to work as quickly as possible with useful advice. 

It's a matter of practicing with your head or your heart. Just do the walking kata the way Tomiki did and take your vitamins and everything will work out after a few years.   

Anyway,  here is the Iwama School.  Iwama School is a good Aikido Rosetta Stone along with Senta Yamada's walking kata.   The first is techniques that start from a mirror sided hand grab so we are talking the 3rd and 4th release.  The first thing you'll notice is the lateral evasion step.  Straight from the Walking Kata, the next thing you will notice is the atemi( Saito does the knuckle thing, Tomiki preferred the open palm . The third thing is that you hear a kiai. 

I'm going to be straight up honest that these the walking step and the atemi or lack there of got me questioning several months back whether the founding fathers of the Texhomiki line of Aikido were full of shit.

Here's my aiki buddy Nathan Himes doing the walking kata.  The second step is an evasion just like in the saito clip.  Most people dont pay attention to the the little things in the walking kata, but at 00:47 that little dropping action of the hand on the wind up is what Saito is doing to uke that's getting his posture busted. It is in the first 1/3rd of the movement. You can see it really pronounced on the side movements in the walking.  The very first hand movement is atemi, filling the space.

The Saito explanation is what I call all Heart.  You move laterally, atemi, and kiai.   There isn't any explanation of where the weight is, or footfalls,  There are just three insurance policies followed by a technique. Which is reality.  Tomiki's kito ryu/ kuzushi studies are just other insurance policies.   Tomiki figured that there would probably be some sort of wrestling match going on, a guy might pull real hard or push real hard and Tomiki Aikido is actually failure based.   It's almost like they talked about the primary and documented the failure of the primary.  

Our problem is that we don't allow the first thing to work enough so we are always trying to cock block folks out of the primary ideas.  You know you are getting cock blocked out of a primary idea when some one says, " That wouldn't work against a Judo player..."  we have obscured the primary so much that we don't see that a majority of all of Tomiki's work was Aikido from a state of failure.  The danger is that we take the failure state as the primary condition.  That's when everything goes wonky and you get two twenty year old college kids moving like Fred Sanford and Tim Conway.

The side step evasion has been cock blocked so much buy some one saying, "Well, if you do that against a Judo player he'll wacky-gacky-goshi you."  well, the side step evasion is to get the hell out of the way of something sharp or blunt and get at a working angle to disarm/ attack. Why do you think that weapon shit is in San kata?  So we can look cool?

My admonishment to you, especially if you are a Texhomiki Line Aikido guy is to quit training dumbshit. A lot of you are judo players so you can grab just about anybody and sling  them down on the ground.  But when you do Aikido,  quit moving like you have bad knees when you don't, if you do have bad knees then keep doing what you've been doing with the exception that a strong attack in the real world presumes an attacker has good knees. Quit assuming that there is a judo player around every dark corner,  and see aikido as an art that dealt with evasion of a strong attack( weapon based) with a decisive counter attack from a good angle.   If you have problems with Aikido from a judo perspective then quit doing aikido, or have the balls to synthesize things and do them differently where they actually work and you'll see this Okie at your next seminar. 

Also realize that Aikido has a proactive quality, that inducing a reaction is what precipitates a lot of Aikido.  That proactive quality is why Morty Youshiba could presumably wipe the floor with judo players. He  goosed them into doing something stupid,"disarmed" them, and out angled them.  He didn't wait for em to latch on and then feel for footfalls.  Proper maai and footwork to keep maai helps.  Atemi helps too.  More importantly you have to decide whether you are going to be all head or all heart.  You can't be both.  Do the Walking Kata the way it's suppossed to be done, its all in the legs.  Do randori wrong every once in a while.  Break a sweat. 

Interpretations of Aikido( its a matter of knees and legs)

I wrote a few months back that Shodan Level is that you go back and you look at the Basics.  You ask questions all over again.  How do you do this, again?  All shodan means is that you can ask a more specific question about something than you could when you were a white belt.  Well,  I've showed up enough to nearly be a Nidan and I think I've asked enough questions to form an opinion or two about where I'm going with my Aikido.  And somewhere in the next year or so I'm going to stop training Dumbshit. 
   
Dumbshit is a highly subjective martial art concept where one guys way doing things just doesn't work for you.  We aren't talking about a matter of  curriculum or philosophy, or whether it would work against a judo player or a pack of hoodie wearing urban youths.  We are talking a matter of mentality and body type and level of fitness and conditioning.  

A short guy and tall guy aren't going to see the same concrete universe.  A short fat guy is a lot different than a a tall fat guy.  An upper middle class endocrinologist is going to have a different mentality about how to deal with conflict than a  poor guy who works on a loading dock.  A guy who is in a high state of fitness and conditioning is going to see a martial situation differently than a cerebral couch potato.   You either approach things with your head or your heart, but  never both.

A guy with good knees is going to see the world differently than someone with knee trouble. 

I started changing my mind about things when I started getting in better physical shape by doing things wrong.  I started doing the Tegatana kata wrong.  Repetively, and jumpy.   I like to lift my heels up and drop into steps.  I like to turn my foot outside or inside like Senta Yamada and the Yoshinkan Folks do.  I like to do the forward and backwards fencing steps like Tomiki.  They are maai regulating steps.  The diagonals, sidesteps,and turning steps are the same damn thing.  The only difference is a matter of time, space and tempo.  By tempo I mean how many attacks you are dealing with.  Either one guy swiping at you one, two or three times.  Or Two or three guys swiping at you once. 

Anyway,  my legs have gotten into pretty damn good shape, by doing the walking.  I added some seiza and some squatting and try to Shikko some.  I can always trip over a lego toy tomorrow, but right now my knees are in the best shape of my life and I'm over forty.  Aikido is about use it or lose it.  I used it, and it changed my view of aikido.  

I also like bullheaded Randori.   I mean I like controlled randori, but I want to feel like I did something afterward. 

Aikido is a weapon evasion mentality.  You are avoiding a sword or a stick or a knife, and your footwork reflects that.  The fact that most aikido attacks are based on a shomen uchi movement, yokomenuchi movement, or a tsuki movement.  Aikido also deals with someone attempting to arrest your range of movement so you can't attack.   Aikido means powerful legs.  The deep stances of Yoshinkan should have told you, the walking kata should have told you.  Suwari waza should have told you. 

When I watch Jack do Jodo his stances are very powerful, and they are deep enough to get whatever job is supposed to be done.  Yet when we do aikido we try to do as many Tim Conway steps as possible. The Tim Conway comes from judo where you dont want to let your feet get you in trouble. It also comes from a system of thinking that trys to work around knee problems.

I haven't  ever mentioned it in my blog because I don't want to speak of things that I don't know shit about.  But we get all of our notions from Karl Geis--Sensei.  The fact that I just used Sensei means that anything I say is from a place of respect.  There are a lot of folks that started out in his organization that are no longer there, but still teach his stuff, and still talk about the guy in a " he really knew his shit" way.  

But Karl Geis had bad knees, and his Aikido reflected that. I'm not saying it is bad aikido.  I'm saying its aikido as done by an Old guy with bad knees.  Here are two young fellas, doing aikido like someone who has limitations in the mobilty department. My simple question is: why? They dont have any mobility problems? 

Why learn a system that is based on a limitation that you don't have? 

I've got an Ass and an opinion like everyone else but I think a lot of problems stem from the misinterpreted intent of the Tomiki Stiff Arm.  We have all heard the words "slow down."  And we float around like these two guys thinking that's going to get us somewhere.   The stiff arm was the first SLOW DOWN.   It represented the end point of an extended attack.  A guy didnt have to worry about timing which timing means speed.  He just kept maai, extended it out and fit it into whatever technique.  

But when you add a cross arm offbalance to an already extended attack you reintroduce timing which means you have to get a guy to slow back down to learn the shit.  You are in a fact taking his extended arm which represents him being out of whack, pushing his arm back into whack, and trying to back out and renegotiate the guy back into a compromised position. Then you execute a technique.

A guy with stronger legs than the other guy doesnt have to renegotiate.  Put your hands in your center and tsugi ashi.  The legs do the work.  You can feel for footfalls, and chain if you want.  But that's just an exploration of something else.  Aikido is just a matter of legs and position.

The cross arm offbalance  is my interpretation of  Training Dumbshit.  I've been looking at the 17 done as kihon, and just can't do the crossarm thing anymore.  I would rather try the kihon mode, toshu randori, randori with a toy knife, koryu kata, or play around with the classic three attacks, shomen, yoko, or tsuki.  Moving around like I have bad knees when I dont is a waste of damn precious time.  Most aikido folks think that there goal is to do aikido movements and not break a sweat because they finally made it to that level.  If I ever stop breaking a sweat then I'm quitting.

Gozo Shioda didnt have bad knees.  Look at his evasions and his footwork.  Not much Tim Conway. His footwork looks small but its because his legs are powerful.  They were built by doing deepstance aikido.   His footwork is small because he can, not because he trained it.  The small lives in the big is not a technical thing.  Its a training thing.   Big movements make you strong. And when you get strong, the small stuff gets strong.

You cant get something for nothing.  And if you don't use it, you will lose it.  Or lose whatever you have left.  
  




  

Its all about San Kata (The moose out front should have told you)

  I try to look at the original intent of the movement.  I watch a lot of Tomiki, and Senta Yamada, and Ohba.  The movements seem to be related to moving to a safe, more favorable position, while maintaining a good posture while maintaining contact with the opponent. There seems to be a lot of hand change/sword cutting movements. 

I have found that the very act of doing all these things together seem to put the other guy in a weak spot to where the techniques seem to work.  We worry so damn much about not applying strength.  But really, aikido is about finding the best position to apply strength where you get the most yield. 

There are instances where we can do techniques to where strength isnt the what makes a technique work.  That's where the kito ryu/aiki stuff comes in.  Its great when it works, but to think that you are going to always going to find the "kito" spot in every transaction is just plain stupid.  And if you think a guy who wants to kick your ass is going to wisp around, while you patty cake his arm and do little Tim Conway steps, like an uke who drank the Kool Aid  then you deserve to get your ass kicked. 

A lot of folks have been looking at the kihon style of Aikido training where you do the 17 without a balance break.  You step off line, keep maai, and then manipulate a guys joints and posture into a technique.  I think their is merit in this kind of understanding, if you look at Tomiki in his films thats what he's doing.  I've heard it said that the sporting folks assume that a guys balance is never going to be broken or its going to be broken over his dead body.  So thats why they do it. 

Thats where the  tomiki stiff arm comes from.  Its just a posture that facilitates the practice of the kihon.  It's not an attack.  My feeling is that you attack first, or move offline and then let'er rip.  The foundation of aikido is disarming a weapon or keeping from being disarmed. that usually means jumping out of the damned way first.   The moose out in front of San Kata should have told you. 

The first three steps in the walking kata are the foundation for everything.  If you look at the Tomiki film with the harpsicord music.  You actually see him do the unsoku steps dodging a sword.  That's what they are period. You get offline, grab a guy by something, and then if you are lucky he'll kito his own ass into a sling. 

Here lately I have had a problem with the number three release.  Truthfully, I have never liked it. And i'm about to quit doing it the way "im supposed to" because after 500 hours of aikido it should work and life is too short for training dumb shit for 500 hours.  What I found is if you actually do a side step unsoku and do it like Tomiki in sotai dosa, (*thats opposite hand/foot) it actually works pretty good, and leads into a whole lot of other things. 

I have never liked the tomiki stiff arm offbalance we do.  It works like a charm against someone who doesnt really want to hurt you and they attack you like Frankenstein .  But it aint worth shit against any body who decides to actually hit you with his fist.  The stiff arm attack was just to facilitate the kihon.(you have position, and contact points so now what can you do?, what can you do if he decides he doesnt like what you want to do?)  Yet we added an offbalance to a very artificial attack.  It doesnt even rank up there with shomen uchi, yokomenuchi, and tsuki which are simulations of weapon attacks without the weapon.

 


 

The two wells of observation and experience.

I'm not a classical weapons guy but my teacher, Jack Bieler, is.  I watch him do his stuff and it bleeds into what I am searching for.  My theory of learning is that what ever you see gets in your head mixes with what you do.  So the aikido that you wind up doing is eventually a product of two things.  One is observation, the other is experience.

I have stated that our form of Tomiki Aikido was informed by Judo.  This is the main reason why we dont look and act like anybody else.  It can be assumed that in the development of our aikido, when ever a problem cropped up, the answer was always informed by how judo works because that was the well of experience. This isnt because Tomiki was a judo guy.  It was because experienced Judo players were trying to solve Aikido problems.  The solutions became our Aikido.

The very fact that many of our higher level instructors had practiced 10 or 15 years before they even saw a film clip of Tomiki actually doing these techniques speaks volumes.  We did have infusions from senior Japanese instructors, but these infusions only filled the well of observation.  There are no films of  Riki Kogure teaching in Houston. Absent of the Big 10, nobody can point to a particular technique and say:  "That's got Kogure written all over it."  No films of Miyake in Texas.   Folks saw them, did a few reps, and in their absence had fill in the blanks with something else.  Memory fails.  What I saw/felt, rapidly becomes what I think I saw/felt, and what I think I saw/felt eventually becomes something else. That something else is something that "worked"  either in an artifical dojo sense or in reality. 

It's a game of Martial Telephone.  Where one dude whispers in the other dudes ear and over the Aikido/judo generations the message becomes something else.  It just isnt an American problem.  I would wager that Tomiki would look at Nariyama and see more Nariyama than Tomiki.   I can wear one of Jack Bielers Jodo Hakama, but that doesnt make me Jack Bieler. 

The 17, and all the other Kata, are just someone elses clothes.  They supply the observable, more than experiential.  The experiential is " "how do I get this bullshit to actually work for me."   You're bull shit isnt my bullshit.   

I went up to see J.W. Bode and while I wanted to come away with some technical concepts.  I actually came away with some philosophical/Tactical concepts which influence my thinking more than technique.  That's the observable.  Something that I think I heard, felt, and saw with J.W.  The Experiential comes from what Jack Bieler does, and my fellow students in the dojo.

When I  worked with J.W., he talked about what he really does with folks is give them permission.  We were working some techniques and doing J.W.'s form of entry.  That hit the flank thing.  He let me enter his flank, gave me an "atta boy."  and I apoligized because I was "doing it too fast."  He told me that I wasn't doing it too fast.  What I gathered was that his mantra of SLOW DOWN is actually a principle of do it Under Control.   When you do something over and over that high level of control you get is actually what we call "speed."   But sense I was only with JW a couple of hours and only did a few reps, what JW did was fill my "well of observation."   

The other day I was randoriing with Jack and he did a kote gaeshi and stretched some of my ligaments.   That's filling my "well of experience."  while I wouldnt want this type of thing to happen again, sometimes an Injury is our best teacher. It's a gift from the Budo gods.  Sometimes being forced into rough ukemi is our best teacher.  Sometimes being slapped in the nose with a rough gyakugame ate is our best teacher.  I like to leave classed slightly dinged up.   I like hands in my face, slaps in the nose,  and falling on my ass.   If you can work with someone and go over your grocery list, then you arent getting anything from it. 

The ligament stretch taught me something about the fourth release.   And it echoed my JW entry work.   During our "slow, safe randori"  we do somethings that are just plain stupid.  Every time I get a mirror side grab I curl my wrist, and basically give the other guy kote gaeshi.  Because I'm thinking that I should do everything slow.  In reality I should quickly tenkan with the curl to get to safety.  The lesson is that every hand motion has footwork, and  relational  tori uke position hard wired into it.   There is no slow positioning.  You position for safety, and once you find that dead spot.  You can work a controlled "slow" technique.   Tenkan and Irimi is the same thing.  One is an entry into a space with your front, the other is entering with your ass/back.   

I have done the Walking Kata, and sitting in seiza, and aboriginal sqauting so much my legs and knees are as strong as they have ever been.   I can take big powerful steps.  Attacking steps/cutting steps.   All footwork is hardwired into sword or stick strike/disarm/ joint manipulation/ atemi waza.  The walking trains entry.  What the walking has become through a game of martial telephone is a balance ritual. Like bowing and circling up and clapping.

Tomiki did the Walking like he was entering and disarming a weapon.   Our walking because it has judo influence is more of how not to screw yourself over with a judo player.

Without naming names, our style is influenced by bad knees.  This small stepping thing we do.  This slow postural walking kata we do. When I watch Jodo I don't see small stepping.  I see controlled stepping that is as big or small as it needs to be to win.  My walking kata has made my legs and knees stronger.  They have become my asset.  I'm not saying that age will slow me down, it will.  But because of my doing the walking kata the way Tomiki did it, I now have something no one else has.  I also have my wrist injury as a result of trying to placate a slow is good philosophy.   When you do irimi/tenkan it should be fast enough to save you.  Training it any other way is just stupid.  

The other day we were doing those kihara chains.  Watch the jodo clip, the Budo clips.  There are no chains in budo.   There is irimi.  There is control.   That is it.   The notion of training failure, that what ever you do first wont work is a dangerous notion.  The notion that we train with that "on time with uke" is a dangerous notion. Try to show up to work exactly on the dot and see how successful you are.    The winner is always proactive, and always provokes movement.

You provoke movement with your natural posture,  or your feet, or your hands.  These are those timing's that Musashi talked about.   Sen.  When you provoke with your hands you are attacking first.  That is ken no sen.  When you provoke with your posture, by just being there, that is on time with his attack.  tai no sen.  You gain initiative through maai maintence which over extends the other guy.   When you both attack, you provoke with your feet, that is irimi/tenkan.  That is tai tai no sen. 

The chains come from a standpoint of Judo competiton.  A chess match.  A feeling out.  The best feeler wins.  But Budo is about initiative.   Keeping it. Regardless of circumstance.  J.W.  talks alot about initiative and his aikido represents the reality of initiative, and I see Jack teach it all the the time in Jodo.   Chaining comes from the mentality of a controlled competive environment where there are rules of conduct.  That if A happens, B should happen., or C, or D.

 You take initiative with what is there.  The flow chart will get you killed.