Today I visited a dojo in Mission Viejo just outside of Los Angeles.  The atmosphere was warm and welcoming and the Sensei was pleased to have me practice with them and even asked if I would lead a practice on Thursday night. I declined that offer and said that I would prefer to learn and practice what they were teaching.

I also declined for other reasons.  One being that since our “style” and” teaching methodology” was very different from their methods  that by doing a one shot intervention it might simply confuse their students.  The dojo is a new dojo and I doubt, but  I could be wrong,  that many have gone to seminars put on by other Sensei’s. I would feel badly introducing conflicting techniques/ideas into their training.

I will probably visit them again on Thursday as I am always interested in how other Sensei’s teach and where their technical basics come from.

Ben Sensei shows a neat irimi-kokyunage from katate-ryotedori. It is similar to a regular omote iriminage.

The key points are:
1) How to break the grip (use shuto and the palm in a slicing motion)
2) Entering with a straight, extended arm
3) Holding and extending the other arm low
4) Optional: hijigatame

In the intermediate portion of the class I shared what Kanae and I learned about iriminage from my recent previous post – the post about how 8 shihans as well as O-Sensei throw. I explained what I noticed to the class, and awesome Ben Sensei dedicated the rest of the class to experimenting with the ideas I brought up. The class was more than happy to experiment.

I first demonstrated how we do iriminage (the same as Yamada, Nishio and Tissier) as well as Iwama-Ryu iriminage (Saito, Saito Wakasensei, Endo and even sometimes O-Sensei). I explained that if we can do something in between the two extremes in the final throw, it would be effective and humane.

I am not grabbing the side of Uke’s face, nor her neck, but rather her shoulder right under the clavicle, or in the clavicle notch right before the carotid artery. Reports come back that this feels more comfortable and indeed my uke’s were able to take more sustained throwing.

We revisited this today and found it even more effective and smooth to make use of a windmill motion whereby half the effort is on Uke’s neck and half is on the cutting-down at Uke’s elbow just after the initial irimi, and at the same time Nage has to step back: all three must be done at the same time, we found.

The logic is that each person has a vertical axis (mijiku), and in order to rotate it (and Uke) it makes sense to have leverage. By cutting down at just the elbow and not using the control hand you are effectively relying on brute force to move Uke. By pulling 50% on Uke’s far shoulder neck where it connects to the shoulder, and cutting down at Uke’s elbow 50% but at the same time, you achieve more leverage and can get Uke to rotate better and farther before the throw.

There is more to this than what I have just written, but I am most happy that Ben Sensei let us experiment and try some new ideas. However, he made sure we remember the basic way for testing purposes – the control hand is just a placeholder to prevent Uke from walking away.

How do the shihans throw?

I present stills of eight shihans as well as O-Sensei as they are about to do the final throw in iriminage. I am most interested in what their control hand is doing at the moment of throwing, and not so much interested in the throwing arm itself.

Mukai Sensei¹

Nishio Sensei²

Yoshi Ichida³

Yamada Sensei⁴

Christian Tissier⁵

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Now for something different…

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Endo Sensei⁶ shows a different example

Saito Sensei

Saito Wakasensei (Saito Hitohiro), son of Saito Morihiro Sensei, does the technique like his father in Iwama-Ryu⁷

Morihei Ueshiba⁸

1. From http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEo0wtZgYgQ [↩]
2. From http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt4ts-rOpyM [↩]
3. From http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=475V1JcAFcM [↩]
4. From http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6AmvftaYw0 [↩]
5. From http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3NmaYu2Kvc [↩]
6. From http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFEwtTp9gxw [↩]
7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKvSAeINPZI [↩]
8. From http://www.aikidojournal.com/blog/2009/04/17/iriminage-according-to-o-sensei/ [↩]

今日は、マサココロの陰練（陰の練習日？）の日。　しかし、参加者が２名だったため、あえなく（喜んで？）技の考察に励んだ。本当は別に隠れてる訳でもなんでもなく、マサココロの皆はのみならず、Everybody Welcome!と誘っているんだけれど、日曜日に合気道をやりに来てくれるヒトは、あまり居ないのである。（残念！）

と、前置きはそのくらいにして、今日の目玉トピックの”入り身投げ”。　やればやる程、難しくなって行くように感じる実に不思議な技、しかし何と言っても皆の憧れの技？（スティーブンセガールのイメージか？）私がこの技に疑問を抱いたのは、マサココロメンバーの一人A君と入り身投げ（この際、正面打ちでも、片手取りでも関係なく）をすると、彼には絶対と言っても良い程、入り身投げが掛からないのである。もちろん、自分の技の未熟さを知っている私としては”入り身投げ、使えん〜！”と憤ったりはしないのであるが、しかし自分の自信に関わる事であるからして、何故”特別”彼には掛かりにくいのかを、色々と考えて来た。

まず、A君は立派な体躯の持ち主で、かれの背後に入り身すると、けっして女としては小柄ではない私でもすっぽりと隠れてしまうほどだ。　そして次に、彼は体が柔らかい方ではなく、おまけに流れに乗って着いて来られる敏捷さもややとぼしい。　ベン先生必殺技？首の神経の指圧や腎臓のツボを押して”痛いから動く”式の方法も、かれの頑強な体に対してやろうとすると私の指の筋肉はマダマダ鍛え方が足りないので、指が折れそうだからあまりしたくない。かれの身長に対して私が”正しく”入り身をしようとすれば、かれの体を引き回して低い位置に持って来なければならないのだが、これは私の方がパワー負けしてダウンしかねず苦労している。ここに書いただけでも私にとっては三重苦（高い、重い、固い）だと言うのに、かれは中々おもしろく、少しでも逃げられるスキがあると投げられる前にスルリとかわしてしまうのだ。

しかし、今日の練習でE君がふと思いついた（か、ずっと考えてたのだろうけど）”入り身投げの重点は相手を引き回す＆投げる方の腕ではなく、反対の手にあり、しかもその手を置く所は従来首である事が多いけど、実は”肩”ではないか。”と。

確かに、入り身投げをするとき今までの重点は相手を捉えて崩す＞あごにあて、受けのバランスを崩し＞投げる、方の腕（仮にAとする）に焦点を当てていて、もう片方の手（Bとする）は、首（肩）にあて（相手が抗えば、首のツボを押す）＞受けの肩甲骨の間（基本）、腎臓のツボ（効果的）にあてがい、受けが逃げられないようにする。。。。。。という流れだと（大体）理解しているのだが、E君が今日提案したポイントはBの手をまず、肩に置く事、これにより首（相手の身軸に当たる）にかけているときは相手がスピンして逃げられるのに対して（ツボでも押さない限り）、肩にかかっているとかなり難しくなる。そしてBの手を肩甲骨や腎臓に動かす（Aの腕に対して、サブ扱い？）代わりに、肩に置いたまま即座に後ろ（相手の弱い方向＝投げる方向）に誘導する為に使うのだ。

この２点により、技の前半に受けが逃げる率を下げる事が出来（腕でロックしたり頑張る事なしで）オマケに、その手を動かすという時間的ロスなし＆労力なしに、ただ”投げる”予定の方向に肩を引いてあげるだけで、技の後半は、やっぱり頑張る事なしに決まる、という何だか一粒で二度美味しい発見かもしれない。

おまけに、私がずっと疑問に思ってた”なんで、入り身投げの受けは痛いんだろ〜？”という（それはブレイクフォールがヘタだって言う結論だけど。）点も、この”肩を後ろに引く”タイプの入り身投げだと、回り受け身を自然に取れるため大変受けとしては有り難い事も嬉しい発見。もちろん、ブレイクフォールの練習は必要な事だと判っていますが、体に優しく楽しく合気道を（長く）して行きたい私としては、なるだけクルリンパフォール（勝手に命名）を取りたいところ。

もちろん、このやり方が”入り身投げ”に当たるのかどうかは未だ先生に伺っておらず、このやり方で果たしてA君を（というか誰でも）投げられるのかどうかも未検証だけど、早く色々な受けに対して試してみたい！と期待大。

時として、難しい＆やりにくい技や受けの方が、色々と考えさせられる事があり、ついに上手く行くか上手く行きそうなヒントが見つかった時の喜びは大きいのかと、今日を振り返りつつ、普段はあまり書かない”考察”を、研究熱心で一風変わった視点に気がついたE君への”褒め言葉”として、書いてみました。

… you need to do something that you’ve never done.

I was looking at videos of gyaku hanmi katatedori shihonage and I came across one by Nishio Sensei that was peculiar. I don’t want to show the video, but the link from YouTube is at the bottom¹.

In this clip Nishio Sensei starts off by saying that 99% of Aikidoka do shihonage “in a very dangerous way”. The image below is of the dangerous way he is referring to.

Intrigued, I continued watching. He was referring to the initial movement when grabbed. His solution is a bit unusual but his reasoning is interesting so I sought out other videos to see if others keep this in mind.

Here is Doshu’s solution²:

Notice how he raises his arm as if to drink a glass of water. This looks like it affords him some protection from a strike from the back fist.

Next is Endo Sensei’s solution³. He extends Uke’s arm at waist-level:

Christian Tissier’s solutions is similar to Endo Sensei’s solution⁴, except that he extends Uke’s arm at chest-level, not at waist-level the way Endo Sensei does:

Here is Saito Sensei’s solution⁵. He slides to the side and has an atemi waiting. Notice how his toes are aligned with Uke’s – this is a common posture he uses in many of his kokyuho waza:

Osawa Sensei has the most effective entry of all. His initial step and slide is similar to that of Endo, Saito and Tissier, except his toes are only a couple cm away from Uke, and he makes use of a shoulder lock to raise Uke and assist in waza (not shown here).

I have presented the entering solution of four influential Aikidoka in no particular order. I think it is a worthwhile investment to discover for oneself how to enter into katatedori shihonage safely all the time.

1. From http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9PTMSwr1h0 [↩]
2. From http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HJjb65eu2w [↩]
3. From http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkbx7Kp7KFI [↩]
4. From http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfuwPVOfGZ8 [↩]
5. From http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f1LOIqmNI4 [↩]

I saw this in Japan, then only a couple times in Calgary. Takashi-san showed this to me again so it got me excited. I don’t want another year to go by before I see this again so when I encountered it in Saito Sensei’s video I quickly took some screen shots and wrote this post.

Saito Sensei is about to ‘flip’ the angle of Uke’s elbow. When he does this, there is no need for a large tenkan to bring Uke around for a pin – he is done now.

Saito Sensei gets off the line of attack and uses a distracting atemi.

He then takes the grabbing hand.

He then goes into the recognizable nikyo omote. Normally, we would zig-zag and take Uke to the floor, but this is where his technique diverges.

Saito Sensei takes Uke’s wrist back in front of Saito Sensei’s body on the way to his far shoulder.

He applies a painful nikyo dosa right away on his way to take Uke to the ground instead of merely holding his wrist in a floating nikyo with one hand.

He applies the kihon nikyo dosa near the onset of the omote waza. That is, he applies the S-shape to Uke’s arm, and attaches the back of Uke’s hand to his shoulder and then pins. The alternative is to take Uke down as if this were the ikkyo waza but hyperflex Uke’s on the way down.

The merits of this seem to be that Uke’s wrist is completely immobilized and Saito Sensei can apply his body power to the small area of Uke’s wrist.¹

1. From http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f1LOIqmNI4 [↩]

I showed a few students how I learned to take the pressure of my arm during a nikyo dosa and one student remarked to me, “Why doesn’t anybody show how to do this?!”

I too wish I knew how to do this before I trained in Japan.

One key to nikyo is to achieve the S-shape of the arm. Failing that, a hijigatame could result which is equally painful. Most beginners resist nikyo and use tense muscles to keep Nage from bowing into the nikyo dosa. Also, they like to stay far away while nikyo is being applied. Fail.

The following assumes you are not intending to do a kaeshi waza and you are helping your aite work on his or her nikyo skills.

1) Instead, as the uke it is better to move closer to Nage. Your front knee should be up and your back knee can be down. Move close even to the point where both of your front knees touch each other (you both should be in gyaku hanmi and not square to each other). This is useful as a kick-block.

2) Lower yourself to the ground more than you normally do. Some people can go so low to the ground their chest is just hovering above the floor! The lower you go (and the closer you are) the more you can straighten your nikyo‘d arm and reduce the leverage your aite has. If you can straighten your arm even slightly, you are doing a lot to take the pressure off your elbow and wrist. Also, look at Nage. I can’t stress this enough.

There are still kaeshi waza that can be done when you are close to Nage. You can tackle his leg for instance, or you can straighten your arm completely and drive yourself up and take his balance. Keep your wrists safe so you can do Aikido for a long time.