Mokuren Dojo - Aikido and Judo

Can't see the randori in junokata?

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:42:00 +0000

In my last post I asserted that junokata is not an abstract, aesthetic, demonstration thing intended for aging judo masters. Rather, it was deliberately designed by Kano as practical randori education for relative beginners. At least, that's what Kano says/implies in his memoirs.

Of course, your next question to me should be, "Well, what are all those amazing randori lessons hidden in Junokata?" Short answer - I don't know for sure. I can't lie to you and claim to have gleaned all the cool ninja secrets from this exercise. Shoot, even Keiko Fukuda says in her book that the essence of this kata eluded her for most of her life, and she been practicing judo for about 55 years longer than me!

This brings to my mind the question... If Junokata was designed as a practical randori education, why is it so darn hard to glean any practical randori lessons from it? Seems to me it could be any (or several) of the following...

Junokata was not really designed as a practical randori thing - Parker is smoking the hoohoo weed again. I mean, two or three generations of Olympic judoka can't be wrong, can they?
Junokata has not been passed down to successive generations of judoka faithfully and intact, as Kano intended. The lessons have been obscured and the kata has become just an aesthetic demonstration thing that is only remotely and abstractly related to real judo.
Our understanding of the nature of randori has become so fundamentally skewed that we cannot see any relationship between Junokata and what we think randori is about. (AHA!)

I think the latter to be the most likely explanation. If Kano intended Junokata to really be a practical randori education (which he says he did), and if we cannot see any randori relevance in the kata, then it seems that we are having a crisis of misunderstanding related to our idea of what randori is about.

We might benefit from taking a good, thorough look at junokata and trying to figure out how it might possibly be the same thing as randori.

There is no falling in junokata, (interestingly, there is no falling in gonokata either) so perhaps randori is not really about forcing the other guy to fall down.
Randori is good, vigorous exercise, so perhaps Junokata is not about some flacid, insipid misunderstanding of "ju."
Junokata is done precisely and slowly, so perhaps randori should not be about applying explosive strength or moving faster than the other guy.
The only way to effectively "win" at randori without explosive strength and speed advantage is to apply effective kuzushi with proper timing, so perhaps we should be especially looking for the kuzushi and timing lessons in JNK.

What other parallels do you see between JNK and what randori should really be?

____________________

Patrick Parker

www.mokurendojo.com

Junokata and randori

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:22:00 +0000

When judo was young, back in the 1880's, the randori practice and concept was what made it unique and special. The ancient jujitsu schools from which judo was derived were predominantly kata arts. They had limited or no concept of randori. Because of Kano implementing this randori idea in judo, judoka were able to gain a ton of practical experience and dominate the competitions between Kodokan and the older traditional kata-based jujitsu schools.

As the Kodokan grew, there came a point where there were so many students that it was difficult for all the students to get direct hands-on randori time with any of the great teachers. So, Kano came up with a method for making sure that the students were getting a core of that randori knowledge transferred to them consistently.

Guess what this new randori training method was called...

Ju-no-kata

What? You don't see the connection between JNK and randori? Doubt my description of the history? Go check in Judo Memoirs of Jigoro Kano Chapter 58 and in the Introduction to Keiko Fukuda's Ju-No-Kata book.
.

Simply put, Junokata was not designed as an aesthetic performance thing. It was designed as a practical tool for transmitting randori knowledge and skills in a consistent manner.

Junokata was created by perhaps the most gifted educator of his time to be a practical, pragmatic, educational thing for beginners - not as an aesthetic thing for aging experts.

Go back and check out some video of JNK with that in mind and see if you can see some of the randori in the kata.

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

4 osotogari and 3 koshinage

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:02:00 +0000

So, per my post from yesterday, I suggested that you might get more mileage out of your randori experiences if you will learn a variation of your tokuiwaza that you can execute on uke when he is moving forward, backward, left, or right. Today I have a couple of examples.

Coming up through the ranks I often had a lot of trouble getting into osotogari. Turns out, I only knew and practiced two directions of that thing. I could throw osotogari when uke moved his right leg forward, or when he moved his right leg sideways or back away from me (sometimes), but if they fought left-side hard forward and stiffarmed and shuffled, I had a hard time getting osotogari in there.

I could have mirrored those two right-sided osotogaris that I knew, stepping in and doing the reap with my left leg, but perfecting major throws on your off-side is a sketchy proposition.

It wasnt until much later - maybe 10 years ago - that I discovered two more right-sided osotogaris that worked nicely when uke was moving his left leg. I started spending more time on those two variations and soon I started getting osotogari in randori almost at will. Makes sense, as now I could approach osotogari if uke was moving his left or right leg, and whether he was advancing or retreating.

The other example is koshinage - any of the multitude of hip throws in judo. Coming up through the ranks, I spent almost all of my time going for hip throws when uke was standing still or retreating with his right leg. That step-through-to-the-rear hipthrow is still my favorite, and the easiest one for me to teach beginners. But as you can imagine, if that's the only direction I ever tried it, I wasn't going to have much success.

Sometime later I learned that there was a nice hipthrow opportunity when uke advances with his right leg. This made two variations, but I was still having about as much trouble in randori with that thing. Again, it makes sense, because it doesnt take my partners too long to figure out they only had to worry about hip throws if they moved their right leg.

About the same time as I discovered the other two osotogari, I learned a new variation for hipthrows that worked nicely if uke was left-forward - and it can sort of be massaged to hit a hip throw when uke is retreating to his left (but that is still a difficult direction).

That makes three variants of koshinage, and all of a sudden I had many, many more chances to try that thing in randori. I've actually started throwing a few hip throws in randori in the past few years! It's still a long way from my tokuiwaza, but I think that might be because I have mostly neglected that fourth direction.

Anyway, there you have 2 examples of working your techniques in 4 directions and getting better at randori.

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Variations of tokuiwaza

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:23:00 +0000

Ok, so now that we've gotten all this "randori is an experiment - not a contest" and "randori is not about winning" business out of the way, how about some real hints on how to really trash some bozos...

This particular hint applies more to judo randori, but i guess you can stretch it a bit and get some aikdio randori benefit out of it.

You need to be able to throw your tokuiwaza (your 1-2 best throws) whether uke is advancing or retreating with their left or right legs. So basically, you need four variations of a couple of throws. By the time you start to get significant skill at four variations of two different throws, you should start to have more "success" in randori and be able to start enjoying it more.

I suspect that a lot of folks that get frustrated with randori only have 1-2 variations for their tokuiwaza, leaving significant holes in their game. If you think that you are doing pretty good at "kata" versions of throws with compliant partners but you often can't make them go in randori, then you ought to work on figuring out what situations you are having trouble with those particular throws? That will give you some idea of where you need to concentrate your research in order to cover the gaps in your game.

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Randori is not about winning

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 20:11:00 +0000

It is not the purpose of randori to see if you can defeat the other guy a few times. Randori is absolutely not about winning.

The purpose of randori is for both partners to gain experience in giving and taking various techniques outside of the constraints of kata. Approaching randori as an experiment, like in the previous post, your intent should simply be to run the experiment many times.

This does not mean that you should not attempt to throw. You have to approach the randori honestly, and that (usually) means if you see what you think is an opportunity for a technique then you honestly try to apply it.

It also does not mean that you should necessarily go into the randori with the intent of taking a dive for the other guy over and over again. That is dishonest too. If the other guy attempts a technique that is insufficient, you don't have to take a fall for him, but if they try a technique that you judge to be "close enough," then by all means, be a good uke (which means 'receiver').

One of my instructors used to say, "Randori is not a matter of winning and losing. In randori there are those who win, and there are those who learn." Often, they are not the same person. Sometimes it is your turn to be the "winner" and sometimes it is your time to be the "learner."

In the immortal words of Sensei Kipling, "If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same...

[photo courtesy of Singapore 2010 Youth Games]

____________________
Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Randori as an experiment

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:24:00 +0000

In the previous post, I compared randori to a physics experiment.

In a science lab, experiments are often performed over and over and over again, carefully controlling the experimental variables and changing one variable at a time to see how the varaibles affect the system.

Randori can be very profitable when approached in a similar vein.

Often it is not the end result (someone falls down or gets in an armlock) that is the most interesting thing in an engagement. Often the really interesting part comes 2-3 steps before the fall or the terminal lock. In such instances, it can be very educational to set up a given condition in randori and then run it over and over again so that you and your partner can experience how that certain situation unfolds.

One example might be repeating release #1 into oshitaoshi (katatetori ikkyo) over and over again seeing how uke falls each time. Pretty soon, uke (without trying too hard) will start to walk out of your technique, either forcing you to modify your technique or perhaps reversing the technique on you.

Or, you might start in kesagatame and try repeatedly to transition into tateshihogatame with a cross-collar choke. Even if you try to be really precise every time, pretty soon you'll start to see variation slip in, and both partners will be getting a ton ov experience inside and around and related to those particular positions and transitions and techniques.

So, try approaching your randori as a scientific experiment, controlling certain variables and letting others change and see the results.

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

What is randori

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:45:00 +0000

Randori plays such a central role in judo and in aikido, that I thought I'd spend some time this month writing about this practice, how to "do randori" better, and how to get more out of it.

First, what is randori?

The Japanese word, randori, means something to the effect of "laying hold of chaos" or "taking freedom."

There are basically two classical modes of practice for Japanese jujitsu - kata and randori. Kata is an exploration and demonstration of the form of a thing or idea - the basic shape that it can take. As such, it can be compared to learning to write by tracing dotted outlines of capital letters, or learning to color within the lines of a coloring book. But before you get to thinking that kata is just preschool stuff, it can also be likened to very advanced forms of learning - like demonstrations in a physics or chemistry laboratory. Such demonstrations always happen the same way, go through the same processes, and yield the same results, but it is still very educational to do these demonstrations.

Randori, on the other hand, is any practice that deviates from the structure of kata. Continuing with the previous analogies, you might liken randori to writing cursive or freehand drawing or a physics experiment where you don't know the end result beforehand.

Randori is often compared to kumite practice in karate (which I think is also frequently misunderstood). These days, most folks seem to refer to kumite as sparring, but kumite is actually any engagement match - any practice form with a real partner/opponent instead of a makiwara or imaginary opponent. In judo, all of our practice is with another person - we have no solo forms, so randori can be compared to the sparring idea within kumite.

Randori is a form of practice in which you don't necessisarily know beforehand who is going to be uke or tori, or which form of what technique will end the engagement.

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Nothing ever works

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:43:00 +0000

I like to occasionally peruse Henry's wonderful list of principles that make aikido work. Lately I've been working my way through this list, blogging about my thoughts on each one, and I've worked my way up to #3

Nothing Ever Works

Also occasionally stated as, "I wouldn't bet my life on THAT!"

All martial arts have assumptions and presuppositions. Axioms that they use as starting points. One of our most foundational assumptions in aikido is that it is near-useless to rely on strength and speed to get things done because (again, we assume) the bad guy is always bigger, tougher, stronger, faster, and more clued-in to the circumstances of the attack. This assumption makes sense because weaker, slower, smaller folks don't usually try to victimize more powerful people. So, it's not too bad a starting point to assume that you're always going to be the underdog.

Being the underdog means that Nothing Ever Works. Any time you try strength, he's stronger. Any time you try speed, he's faster. Any time you use your skills, he's more skilled.

This means that you have to build your martial art based on strategies that do not require abnormal amounts of strength, speed, or skill to work. Your techniques have to be robust and fail-soft, and everything has to have a back-up plan. If you have the co-ordination and athletic skill that it takes to stand up and balance and walk around at a fast walking pace, then you have enough athleticism to make aikido work. If you are strong enough to push or pull a heavy door open, then you have enough strength. And by the time you get to about green belt (around 60 mat hours) you have just about all the knowledge and skill that you need to make aikido work pretty good.

It's a crazy sort of near-paradox.

Aikido works because we start out with the assumption that nothing we do will ever work.

It's crazy, but it works.

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____________________
Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

BOMP Ch. 29 - Relaxation

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 06:47:00 +0000

Please join our ongoing discussion of Steven Pearlman's excellent tome, The Book of Martial Power

In this chapter, Pearlman covers the much-talked about topic of Relaxation. I have previously covered relaxation in several articles here. Pearlman doesn't seem to add too much in this chapter except that his previous chapter, Heaviness, really has the meat of the issue in it.

What I did find interesting was Pearlman's typically elegant description of the issue, "...power comes from movement in one or more joints." [as opposed to coming from isometric strength across those joints.] This brought back to mind the physics definitions of the phenomena under consideration. I'm certainly no physicist, but basically...

Power is the ability to do work.

Work is the ability to make things move.

Thus, you get work done, or you exhibit power, by moving - not by trying to being strong. I thought that little reminder was interesting

[photo courtesy of takomabibelot]

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Ma-ai and the blood circle

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:54:00 +0000

If there is one principle that is discussed and trained extensively, perhaps even obsessively, in aikido classes and some judo classes, it is the idea of ma-ai.

Ma-ai is usually thought of as a boundary around your body, the inside of which is defined as your personal space. So long as uke is outside of ma-ai, he cannot touch you without first moving toward you. If you allow uke inside your ma-ai then you cna potentially be attacked without having time to respond. Typically, ma-ai is thought to be the length of your arm plus the length of the attacker's arm, but this distance can flex a bit under various circumstances.

Despite our tendency to obsess about ma-ai, it is easy to get lax in your thinking and practice. This is something that you have to watch out for in your practice. A good way to instantly remind everyone about ma-ai is to put a rubber training knife in uke's hand (or in tori's). You dont have to change anytihng else about the practice, but as soon as someone is holding a knife, ma-ai becomes more obviously important.

A very good expression of ma-ai that is used by the Boy Scouts to teach knife safety is the idea of the Blood Circle. A blood circle is a radius around the knife-user the length of his arm plus the length of the blade. Obviously, anything or anyone within this radius is at risk of being cut if the knife-user slips.

At our house, my oldest son has reached pocketknife age, so we've been talking in terms of Blood Circles a good bit lately. Today, he picked up a bokken to do some jodo, held it at arm's length and turned in a circle and said, "Look, Dad, A really big blood circle!"

I smiled, and promptly the jodo lesson of the day became an emphasis on the interplay between uke's and tori's blood circles.

[photo courtesy of Hani Amir]

____________________
Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

The art of the collar choke

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 14:53:00 +0000

My judo instructor when I was coming up through the ranks was uncanny with his choking techniques. He seemed to be able to set a choke from any conceivable position. Those chokes usually appeared from nowhere. There's even a great story about him being thrown in a tournament but choking the guy out on the way down, such that he won because the thrower was judged to not have control of the throw (since he was unconscious)!

Some of my students have recently asked me how I got so uncanny good at chokes. They make me want to laugh because my skill really is very modest. But seriously, my choking skills really have come together lately, and I've started getting these crazy, eye-crossing chokes in randori a lot lately.

So, I thought I'd give out one tip that I think is mine to give. I say I think, because I don't ever remember being taught this lesson, though I don't delude myself into thinking I'v invented something here.

Do not attempt to grab the collar in any old place and by main force wrench it around uke's neck.

Place your hand directly on the artery, then gather the collar into your hand.

This way, you will get much better positioning of the choking hand, and the collar will serve to anchor you hand to the artery.

Perhaps another way of thinking about this is - all collar chokes begin as katatejime - set the one hand properly, anchor it in place, then add the second hand in when you get the chance.

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

New schedule for 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 18:20:00 +0000

Starting January 2, 2012, we are going to be expanding our class offerings. The new schedule will look like...

Mondays

Judo - 6:30 PM

Tuesdays

Kid's Judo - 5:30 PM
Aikido - 6:30 PM

Thursdays

Kid's Judo - 5:30 PM
Judo - 6:30PM

Fridays

Aikido - 6:30 PM

Saturdays

Private classes per agreement

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Patrick Parker

www.mokurendojo.com

Ritual and spectacle in martial arts

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 21:28:00 +0000

In modern educational circles, folks like to talk about three domains of learning - psychomotor, cognitive, and affective.

psychomotor - learning to do the skills associated with the subject of study
cognitive - learning about the subject, vocabulary, history, etc...
affective - feeling good about, and "believing in" your increased knowledge and skills

All three are important parts of learning.

Some people have a need for ritual and ceremony and spectacle in their martial arts practice. It is part of the affective domain of learning. They can practice and increase in knowledge and skill all day long, but until the "rank test" or the "belt ceremony" or the tournament or demo, they just don't feel like they have reached the mark yet.

Some instructors are very good at using ritual and spectacle and ceremony in the martial arts to augment their students' affective learning. Bruce Lee and Ed Parker were brilliant showmen who played the mystique of the East for all it is worth.

I am not one of those great affective coaches. The phoney-ness of having an American Redneck pretending to be Yoda sorta sticks in my craw. I remember reading about Chuck Norris failing a rank test because all the candidates had to kneel in seiza while the folks ahead of them tested. He'd knelt on the cold floor for so long that his legs were asleep when his turn was called. That's kinda stupid in my book.

I'd rather run through all your material, taking turns throwing for a couple of hours, than do a formal, strenuous rank test with half a dozen inscrutible-looking sensei in hakama or suits glaring from the sidelines as the student sweats bullets.

I'd rather every class day be a test than build up to one big event. I'd rather spend the agreed-upon amount of months working on the agreed-upon material and then just toss the next belt to the student after class one day.

But there are students that need (or would like) more ritual and spectacle than I provide. To those students, I'm sorry. I've tried for years to build dojo traditions and rituals to help provide some of that affective learning, but those traditions seem to always fall to the side and get superceeded by the practical day-to-day running of the club and teaching of the material.

I'm not against having some of that go on. I just don't do much of it.

____________________

Patrick Parker

www.mokurendojo.com

Changing forms and the thing-itself

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 17:51:00 +0000

The techniques of Aikido change constantly; every encounter is unique, and the appropriate response should emerge naturally. Today's techniques will be different tomorrow. Do not get caught up with the form and appearance of a challenge. Aikido has no form - it is the study of the spirit. - Morihei Ueshiba

I remember, as I was coming up through the kyu ranks, it seemed to us that our instructor and his instructors were forever changing things up on us. They would tell us one way to do something, then a couple of months later (usually after coming back from a big seminar) they would tell us what seemed like a wholly different way to do the same thing.

I particularly remember several changes in how we were to practice kotegaeshi. That thing seemed to change with the phase of the moon.

This was always frustrating from the point of view of the student, but looking back at it from a little greater distance, It seems like just the way the thing has to be.

We are studying a huge, complex, and chaotic reality. You have to have some sort of form to put the thing into to study it, but you also have to understand that after you study one form of the thing for a while you will start to be subject to diminishing returns. You will need to look at the thing from a different point of view.

This does not invalidate the forms of the thing that you have already studied. It augments them... zooms in and emphasizes different facets.

Often neither the old or the new form of the thing will be the thing itself, but if you have a good teacher then the older and newer forms should sort of bracket the thing itself. The aiki always lives in the interstices between forms. But it is the forms that we use to outline the aiki-thing and study it.

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Range of self-defense skills in judo

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 15:09:00 +0000

With respect to tachiwaza (throwing skills) in the traditional Kodokan gokyo, how many of those throws have you ever seen or practiced in a self-defense context? Or, put another way, how many of those throws have you either heard of being used in self-defense, or can even imagine cropping up on the street? For me, it's mostly the following list...

deashi, kosoto, osoto, hiza, ukigoshi
kouchi, ouchi, ogoshi, seoinage
sasae
teguruma or kataguruma
morotegari

...and that's about it. With greater than 25 years of martial arts experience, I can only come up with about a dozen of the Kodokan throws that I've ever heard of being used on the street - or that I can realistically imagine ever coming to pass in a fight. Sure, anything can happen, but we're really not into preparing for every bizarro eventuality. We're generally more into probabilities than possibilities.

So, why do we have 40 throws (or 65 depending on who you ask)? Why not spend more time on the down-and-dirty dozen that I listed above?

For one thing, we're not just practicing self-defense. The other throws are part of the art. Also, depending on the ruleset under which you compete, the rules might create situations where some of those other throws might be viable.

But personally, I think that the main reason that we have all that extra material is because when you work on those situations, it makes you better at those more fundamental throws that I listed above.

____________________

Patrick Parker

www.mokurendojo.com

One thing - Aikido 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 17:43:00 +0000

Y'all remember the old western comedy, City Slickers, with Jack Pallance playing the wise, old, grizzled cowboy named Curly? Y'all remember Curly's Law? When asked what his secret was, he held up one finger. When asked to expand on that he just said, "Choose one thing, and do that one thing." Pretty good secret cowboy knowledge.

For a long, long time, there has been an emphasis in my aikido classes on atemiwaza. Direct, simple, effective. And we've mostly got a decent handle on that facet of aikido. So, I've been casting about for a bit of a new direction to take my aikido classes in next year. That's when Curly's Law came to mind.

I figure we'll pick one thing and focus on it for the whole year and see where it takes us. And not only are we going to do "one thing" but we're going to do an emphasis on what Ueshiba called, "Thing-One."

Ikkyo. Oshitaoshi. Udeosae.

Sure, we'll continue to work folks up through the excellent teaching system that weve developed over the years. We're not throwing the baby out wwith the bath. But I think that a few minutes of various forms of oshitaoshi during each class next year is likely to open up some new ideas for all of us.

And if not, at least I'll know that my students will be the best in the world at One Thing (Thing-One) by the beginning of 2013.

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Where we've been - aikido 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 22:29:00 +0000

The technical emphasis in any Dojo changes over time. Over the past year, I think our Aikido has been characterized by an emphasis on...

Ichikata - especially looking at 90- and 180-degree offbalance pairs and automatically flowing around strength and resistance conditions.

Owaza - emphasis on being able to do this set of techniques from very generalized attacks - as in ryotedori - instead of having to have uke flying at you.

We've ramped up the jo and aikijo this year.

The JW Bode seminar certainly gave me a lot to think about wrt decisiveness, control, and very close range Aikido. For years weve been talking more about synchronization and flow and less about control. But lately weve been talking more about irimi, atemi, control, and aiki as "instant victory."

So, now the question is... where are we going with our Aikido in 2012? Stay tuned as I collect my thoughts on that...

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

BOMP - Ch 28 - Heaviness

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 21:50:00 +0000

This year we are discussing the Book of Martial Power (BOMP)

"Heaviness," check. Got it. Next.

Ha, get it? That was a fat joke ;-)

No, seriously, Pearlman discusses in this chapter, an idea that he calls Heaviness. This is basically the ability to properly manage your structure so that you can relax, freeing your body mass to drop and affect the opponent.

Consider - strength is highly correlated with sheer body mass. That is, the heavier you are, the stronger you are (in general). This is largely because muscle is heavy. The more of it you have, the heavier you will be, and the stronger you will be.

We discussed, some months back the idea that we can only bring to bear some percent of our power at any given time. We would like to optimize our strength by eliminating the things that interfere with our ability to apply that strength to the other guy.

But in the same way, we can only drop some fraction of our mass (largely muscle) onto the enemy. The remainder of our (muscle) mass is involved in keeping ourselves from falling, and fixing our posture, and some of it is wasted as tension, etc...

But, to the degree we are able to minimize the amount of our mass (muscle) that is serving some other purpose, the more mass we can drop, like a brick (or even better, like a sack of water) onto the enemy. If we are using some of our muscle to keep the rest of our muscle from hitting the ground, then we have very little left to hammer the opponent with.

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

BOMP - Ch 27 - Structure

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:01:00 +0000

This year we are discussing the Book of Martial Power (BOMP)

Chapter 27 is a sort of a review chapter, but in it he does something remarkable! On the face of things, it is a note that henceforth in the book he will use the word "structure" as a shorthand for five recently-discussed principles...

http://www.mokurendojo.com/2011/08/bomp-ch-19-breathing.html
http://www.mokurendojo.com/2011/10/bomp-ch-24-spinal-alignment.html
http://www.mokurendojo.com/2011/08/bomp-ch-21-triangle-guard.html
http://www.mokurendojo.com/2011/08/bomp-ch-20-posture.html
http://www.mokurendojo.com/2011/10/bomp-ch-25-axis.html

But, more profoundly, and more importantly, Pearlman has managed to boil down much of the vague, pseudo-spiritual, mystical-sounding talk about 'structure' and 'ground-path' and 'root' and different 'energies' and such into a handful of easily-teachable, easily understood (though admittedly, not trivial to ingrain) principles.

Pearlman has gone a long way towards giving us the language we need to discuss the more vague, woo-woo, spooky parts of our arts.

Bravo!

BOMP - Ch 26 - Minor axes

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 23:22:00 +0000

This year we are discussing the Book of Martial Power (BOMP)

So, last BOMP post was about controlling the angulation and movement of the major axis of the body - the long vertical axis through the center.

Chapter 26 is a short little note applying the same principle to the other, minor axes of the body, such as the long axis of the forearm, for instance. Pearlman brings up two points regarding the minor axes of the body...

1. Seek the smallest axis possible for any rotation.
2. Rotate within the width of the rotating limb.

Pretty good points. Don't really have anything to say about those.

Punctuated equilibrium

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 18:02:00 +0000

Ever look at the old masters doing kata and marvelled at how incredibly smooth their motion was? Ever marvel at their amazing ability to stay right in perfect synch with uke the whole time? Ever compare your own skill to theirs and think, "Boy, I suck!"?

Sometimes (maybe even often) it seems like when we get to trying to synch with uke, something interferes. There is some sudden discontinuity and by the time you figure it our and switch tracks, uke's gone.

If you've ever wished that you could get in synch with uke and stay there longer, I have bad news for you. The world ain't like that. About the best that I can do under pressure against a non-compliant partner is about two synchronized steps with uke, and I suspect that even the folks that are way better than me can't maintain a nice, constant synch much longer than that. (Of course, if someone were able to reliably maintain a synchronized state for three steps, that would make them 50% better than me, and in a fight 50% might as well be infinity.)

But my point is, I don't think that its realistic or healthy to beat oneself up about the disequilibria that pop up in the uke-tori relationship, because those disequilibria are just part of the nature of the thing. It seems to me that synchronization (kimusubi) mostly happens in short snatches here and there amongst the motion between uke and tori. A much healthier, achievable, and still functional skill level is being able to synch with uke for a step or two, then when it goes to chaos, follow along, keeping yourself safe until you recognize another step or two of synch.

Now, we do often try to train in large, drawn out arcs of equilibrium even though that isnt how the world works, but this is because we think that this is a pretty good way to train beginners to recognize little pieces of those arcs when they occur.

Even though its easier to learn to see these things in the long arcs, you should'nt beat yourself up about your inability to find one of those long arcs in randori. It's definitely a good thing to step out of the long, beautiful kata arcs into the punctuated equilibrium of randori - and to practice that way frequently.

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____________________
Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Lazy is not the kind of slow that you want

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 18:07:00 +0000

I've seen an interesting flaw crop up in some aikidoka's practice.

We are forever preaching efficiency - we spend a lot of time and
effort on trying to get each motion just right, to clean up the
connection and coordination between our minds and bodies such that
when the mind tells the body, "step there," the body executes the most
efficient step and nothing else.

When you look at the highest-ranked practitioners - people who have
been striving at this for years, often their motion is so efficient
that it is deceptive. It almost looks lazy, or careless. This is not
the case.

But when we start preaching "move slowly...be more efficient..." at
students, and they look at the masters who look like they are
lackadaisical in their movements, often the student begins to affect
that lackadaisical motion in an attempt to comply with the "slow but
efficient" instruction.

Slow by means of inefficiency or laziness is not the kind of slow that you want.

What you want is motion that is so efficient that it has nothing
extraneous or incidental or arbitrary in it. This sort of efficiency
gives you so much slack that you can relax and slow down a little. In
turn, the relaxation and slowness will allow you to conserve your
energy and be a bit smarter in your tactics and techniques.

Efficiency begets slack which begets slowness which begets relaxation
which begets aiki.

Getting this out of order by going for "slow" first, you can lose the
prerequisite to slowness (efficiency) as well as getting the wrong
kind of slowness, which prevents you from attaining any of the
subsequent benefits (relaxation and aiki).

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____________________
Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Different bullets for different beasts

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 16:13:00 +0000

Some of my buddies posed a judo question onour FB group last night about koshinage. Basically, they wanted some specific hints about applying hip throws - particularly ukigoshi and particularly against larger and heavier opponents. I thought, having taken the time to put my thoughts together on this, I'd post them here for everyone to laugh at (ahem) I mean, benefit from...

First, different beasts need different bullets. You wouldn't want to go hunting a bear with a .177 spring-air rifle, and you wouldn't want to shoot a squirell with an elephant gun. In the same way, not every judo throw is meant for every opponent. I know, it's tempting to want to develop such exquisite mastery that you are able to throw anyone at any time with any throw of your choice - to be able to just have your way with anyone you come across. But not only is that not the way the real world works, it is also an unhealthy ideal.

Just as you will eventually have a handful of throws that you feel super-confident that you can throw nearly anyone with (tokuiwaza), you will also probably always have a handful of throws that are of no use to you at all - throws that youve never been able to throw anyone with. Most throws will likely fall inbetween these two extremes, meaning that different throws are more useful against different people at different times.

There may be people that you will never be able to throw with ukigoshi.

But you'll never know which throws are your tokuiwaza and which are useless to you until you try them out in randori, so with all that said, you asked for some specifics about variation and direction and grip, so here's what I usually try...

I find it easiest to teach beginners to turn into shoulder and hip throws when uke is stepping backward and tori chases him down, stepping across and through, throwing about 90 degrees to the side of uke's path of travel. Not only is this the form of hipthrow that I prefer to teach beginners, but it works nicely against larger folk, because youre throwing them off their heel, which often makes it easier to get larger opponents down.
As for grips, for an ukigoshi I will often hook his left shoulder with my right elbow (sort of like a hip toss in rasslin), or hook his head with my elbow for a ukigoshi-flavored kubinage. I usually want my left hand as far up his right arm as possible- definitely above the elbow, and maybe as deep as his lapel.
Somebody in the thread mentioned understanding teaching ukigoshi as a concept, but had problems doing it in randori. I think that's okay - to sort of categorize ukigoshi in your head as a theoretical sort of thing that you have to learn before you get to the cool stuff, because a lot of the later cool throws are just variations of ukigoshi that are created when you can't quite get ukigoshi, or when uke resists certain ways - throws like haraigoshi and hanegoshi.

So, keep working on ukigoshi but don't obsess about it. Try it every so often in randori, and sort of keep it in the back of your mind as an ideal or theoretical version of the later one-legged hip throws like haraigoshi and hanegoshi.

____________________

Patrick Parker

www.mokurendojo.com

Misc thoughts on ukiwaza

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 17:21:00 +0000

Some miscellaneous thoughts on Tomiki's floating throws...

Our Ikkyu requirement is Junana #15, 16, and 17. You can sort of throw #14 into that group as well, but youve already done that one at nikkyu.

These 3 or 4 throws are classified as 'floating throws,' which is sort of a misnomer, because all the techniques of junana can be done as floating throws. Its just that these three (4) techniques exemplify the floating throw principle well, and all the other stuff in junana is usually done with a different focus.

What does 'floating throw' mean anyway? Basically two things...

There is a loose, airy, void sort of lack-of-feeling between uke and tori. You are not mashing on an elbow or twisting on a wrist to make the throw happen. It is a subtle connection, light-touch type of thing that is executed through exquisite synchronization and footwork.

Like all of junana, these throws are done on otoshi timing - on a footfall - but in these three (4), there is an emphasis on exaggerating the preceeding rise in order to make the timing window for the otoshi more obvious. You literally throw uke up in the air, wait for him to come down, and when he does, exaggerate his drop so that he hits the ground.

In the kata, all of these are done entering to the inside, capturing the wrist, making a golf swing through the offbalance hole, and tweaking the wrist and the elbow just a bit on the rise in order to exaggerate their rise.

Then, each of these throws is differentiated from the others by how uke tries to get down off of point...

in #14 - shihonage, uke retracts his arm by bending the elbow. Tori turns and follows and exaggerates that retraction

in #15 - maeotoshi - uke tries to take a step away. tori catches uke's far-footfall, and extends his step, pushing uke away.

in #16 - sumiotoshi - uke pulls his hand back, as if chambering a punch. tori follows that retraction and exaggerates it, pushing uke into the back corner on a near footfall

in #17 - hikiotoshi - the footwork is confused and uke somehow managed to foul #16 for you and ends up facing you, about to come down on you. Tweak the elbow again to get a bit of rise, then drop backward away from tori as he comes in and down.

Any of that make sense?

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____________________
Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

BOMP - Ch. 25 - Axis

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 14:07:00 +0000

This year we are discussing the Book of Martial Power (BOMP)

In Chapter 25, Pearlman discusses the positioning and use of our long, vertical axis - the line that runs through the crown of our head and our center of mass (and usually, through one foot). This line represents our center of full-body rotation. Pearlman gives several good examples of how to position and control our axis - most of which boils down to...

vertical axis (upright posture) promotes easier, faster, cleaner rotation
smaller footwork creates a narrower axis, which promotes faster and easier rotation.

I agree 100% with this as a general case, but wanted (just for argument's sake) to discuss some counter-examples...

Pearlman seems to be saying that faster is better... "As martial artists, we need to exercise the smallest Axis possible... [because this is faster]". Well, it turns out that faster is not always better - we see this in judo and aikido especially. It is often important to be able to move at uke's speed instead of your own arbitrary (faster) speed. One of my instructors once phrased this as, "It's not so much how fast you go that matters. It is when you arrive that matters." Timing trumps speed.

But, with that said, It is still a good idea to narrow your axis through relaxed upright posture and narrow footwork, because this potential increase in speed actually allows you to slow down and relax and process as you wait for uke to arrive at the timing window. My students will probably see kosotogari as the ultimate example of this idea. I stress narrow, fast, efficient footwork so much that kosotogari often feels like a "lazy throw" - that is, tori has to wait, and wait, and wait some more before he can pull the trigger and dump uke. Tori's footwork becomes so fast and efficient that he feels like he has to lounge around waiting for uke to get to the place where he can be thrown.

Another interesting point that came to mind reading this chapter, is when Pearlman discusses keeping ones mass centered around the Axis in order to avoid wobble in the rotation. Again, I agree with this in general cases, but there are instances where that wobble can be useful. The two examples that pop immediately into my mind are kataotoshi and koshiguruma. Both of these throws happen by placing a foot (the bottom of the axis) near uke, attaching the same arm to uke, and spinning the opposite leg around the axis.

The uncentered mass of the leg creaets a flywheel-like effect, transferring power to the arm that is hooked to uke. You can sort of see this idea in Pearlman's illustrations labelled Ax13a and Ax13b. The oval shape of the uncentered rotating mass can act as a cam (see the excellent animation at Wikipedia) to impart linear motion to uke.

Again, my counterexamples do not damage Pearlman's excellent discussion of the principle of properly managing your long axis of rotation through upright posture and narrow footwork. Just interesting ideas that cropped up.

____________________

Patrick Parker