On Saturday, Aug. 14th Asai Sensei held a training session in Calgary. His primary theme was shihonage.

He started his session with ken shihogiri. He held a bokuto and faced one partner while another partner was behind him. The point he made is that the first cut is low and cuts the person behind Tori upwards, then comes over overhead and cuts the front person downward.

To that end, without the bokuto Asai Sensei explained that we should lower Uke then bring him back up and over in the shihonage movement instead of keeping him extended in the same plane. This feels similar to how Tissier lowers Uke on his shinonage ura.

Tissier katatedori shihonage ura

Tissier katatedori shihonage ura cont.

With a bokuto, we cut down and then up to reach the person behind us. With empty hands, we make a ‘dumping water’ motion with the hand so we can capture Uke‘s wrist with our other hand. This feels very similar to the hand motion of Saito Sensei.

Uke should do side falls or twist his body on the fall in order to protect #5 vertebrae.

Asai Sensei uses two hands on Uke‘s wrist through the shihonage, and then releases both hands at the same time as Uke is falling.

Finally, Asai Sensei cuts down at an angle sometimes. This tells me there is no need to always cut down straight down as I speculated in several posts before.

Update 2010.09.06 – Got K and R to practice this on Sunday. They reported more control, and that Uke is less able to escape by rotating his body (kaeshiwaza).