How to hold your balance as you pivot. Sensei explains the mnemonic of holding a ball through the pivot and rotation.

1. Keep correct Aikido hanmi stance – the feet form a T not an L
2. Shoulder check
3. Transfer weight to the balls of each foot to prepare for the pivot
4. Transfer body weight to the rear leg 60/40
5. Pivot in-place on the balls of your feet 180 degrees.
6. Step back (do not trace an arc or sweep with you foot – step back)
7. Keep body weight forward 60/40 the new direction you are facing.

It is possible to maintain balance and posture through the tenkan. Do not bounce, hop, bob or wobble while doing tenkan. This is a critical foundation for every other Aikido waza.

Ben Sensei took me through the first 7 kenawase. I hadn’t done much work with these previously so I was glad that he took me aside and started me with these. I wouldn’t say they are great, but the coarse mechanics are there.

For number 7, I did it four times because I didn’t realize how the awase was. I am in wakigamae to start. As soon as my aite lifts his bokuto to jodangamae I am to enter with a tsuki to the suprasternal notch followed by a cut to the first few vertebrae of his spinal column. I should be to his side and not in his field of immediate view. Finally, for the test I should not follow through with the cutting motion. Rather, I should stop at the cut and pause momentarily.

Suprasternal notch

Not only that, I am to drive him backwards through that notch in the other awase waza.

Update: 2010.07.14 – This is just embarrassing. Note to self: lose weight and shift weight forward.

Originally (years back) when I did this I noticed that I had Uke’s arm, but just his arm. He would be doubled over with both his legs bent but I would have his arm. I realized that it is my job as nage to help him help himself into a better stance. Today, I can put this into words as we practiced it a lot tonight:

Both in migi aihanmi: Assuming for the moment Uke is blending, use tegatana and a small rotation of your right wrist to bring your tegatana to the outside of Uke’s wrist. Extend your right arm and slide to the side while protecting your groin (bring your left leg with you!) so that Uke’s arm is extended to the right at its maximum. Keep your left grip on his elbow using your thumb to control his elbow at the ulnar nerve. If his right arm is extended horizontally, you should have enough room to walk past him had his arm not been there.

If Uke is resistant or you are too late in reacting, you need to vary your ’small circle’ mentioned above. In this case, you can only extend Uke’s arm forwards (toward yourself). To do this safely, the rotation resembles a kokyunage pre-throw. Actually pivot your hips so your hara is facing perpendicular to Uke as you draw a big vertical circle. On the apex of the large vertical circle, start pivoting your hips back toward Uke. You can slide to the outside at the same time as all of this if you are well coordinated. Extend Uke out sideways and continue the ikkyo omote.

正面打ちを受ける際、表の場合は裏のときより受けから離れた位置に立つ事で、ひじをしっかりと捉えて伸ばす事が出来る。その後肘をスリ上げるようにしながら、押さえて行くと相手が抵抗しても腕を固める事が出来る様な気がする。

I was looking for videos of waza that had perfect form, flow and were free of critical openings and vulnerabilities. Because I was looking so closely and reading technical articles from journals and taking screen shots for further analysis, I never thought about something: There is yet another dimension to waza.

I will explain with an example. For shomenuchi ikkyo omote, Miyamoto Tsuruzo Sensei of Japan wanted us to wait until the strike was almost on our head to feel the gravity of the attack, play with it a bit, then deflect it. Osawa Hayato Sensei of Japan wanted us to move before Uke had fully raised his arm; we were to move before the down stroke of the attack had begun. Sometimes with Ben Sensei we perform this waza from awase where there is no momentum at all. So, there are different kinds of momentum of Uke’s attack: preparing to attack, attacking, and extinguishing (conceptually awase).

For Osawa, we are to take Uke’s arm with elbow and move it through his own head to cause him to rapidly spin and readjust into the familiar ikkyo position (though we have shown in class that there is the danger of a front snap kick from Uke). I will call this the early phase.

For Miyamoto, once we came into contact with Uke, we would do a similar technique to that of Osawa, but we would slightly slide off the line. I will call this the on-time phase.

For Ben Sensei’s awase practice, there is no momentum from Uke to utilize. Trying to adjust Uke’s arm is difficult because he can readily retract or readjust it himself. We need to radically bring Uke’s arm out to the side, horizontally extended and quite safe from a snap kick attack. This will be called the late phase.

Endo Sensei typically moves to the side and guides Uke’s arm out in front of him. This is especially true if Uke is strong or has a lot of forward momentum. This could be called the rushed phase.

This leads me to my main consideration: Since there are multiple dimensions or aspects to consider in performing a waza, there cannot be one true way to perform a particular waza because several variations usually to lead to the same conclusion. The responsiveness of Nage is an important factor in determining how the waza is carried out. That being said, I contend that the best analysis of the performance of a particular waza is to study how many openings it creates or covers. That should be the measuring stick of how well any one practitioner executes a waza. Not only that, variations due to different response times, on purpose or otherwise, could also be practiced by students to their benefit.

As a form of zen meditation (read: in my idle time) I have been adding pictures and kanji (with hiragana) to the dictionary page with the help of our resident Japanese medical student. I will be adding more and more entries as time goes by, as well as more audio pronunciations. I have to write it so this dictionary helps me with my Japanese terminology, but I also hope others can benefit from its presence as well.

Start in aihanmi. Uke strikes without a step from his front hand. The coarse waza movements are: irimi, kaiten, (kaiten again,) throw.

Using tegatana, extend your intercepting front arm to meet Uke’s bicep. However, this is a different deflection than for shomenuchi ikkyo and iriminage, for example. For the latter, Nage has to deflect and push to move Uke’s arm toward himself so it is one less weapon at Uke’s disposal. For this waza, if we did that then his wrist would be out of reach for our under-handed grab next.

I tried several variants of this with beginners and let them push by bicep to varying degrees to confirm that if they push (at all) then my arm is gone and my wrist cannot be captured.

Next, assuming that there is minimal pushing, timing is important. Uke should be in the progress of a downward strike. That is, his momentum should clearly be vertically down. If this condition holds, then the chance of Nage catching an elbow in the face is reduced. To reduce it further, as Nage’s kaiten is starting, his other hand should come up from underneath and meet the other two hands. Without Uke being there, it would like Nage has his wrists crossed, fingers extended and resembling a giant bird’s wings. Enter again Uke.

The purpose of this cradle is to cradle Uke’s strike-hand as it loses vertical momentum. With your lower hand, grab his tegatana (or fleshy part of the pinky side of the hand). Complete half the kaiten by this point so both of you are facing the same direction and both of your arms are extended as well as Uke’s striking arm. As you are finishing the kaiten (because it is a kaiten and not a tenkan), draw a generous outward circle with your hands (keep arms extended). Try not to pull straight back because this will just collapse Uke’s arm and give him power and balance back.

Using this new or continued momentum, extend his arm outward and back as if to start a static katatedori kaitennage uchikaiten.

Uke attacks with shomenuchi. Nage enters with a kaiten movement and captures Uke’s wrist with the lower hand, rotating and extending the arm outwards into off-balance. Nage then enters (with atemi to the  face) under Uke’s extended arm taking care to protect the ribs with the free hand while doing so. Cut down low and control Uke’s neck before throwing in a sliding motion.

Ben Sensei immediately adjusts his hand as they are about to be grabbed so that the higher hand is facing himself like a mirror, and the lower hand is near his tanden for a strong rotation. The upper hand is positioned so that Uke is off balance. Also, if Uke lets go of the upper hand, Nage can strike him quickly because of his advantageous posturing. At an opportune moment the direction is reversed from the nagare and a tenchinage is performed smoothly; the upper hand stays up and the lower hand stays low.