Endo Sensei showed the futility of a strong-armed atemi in aikido. To demonstrate, he delivered a strike to Uke‘s face where his atemi was met with a block by Uke. We are all used to this pattern in, say, katatedori kaitennage uchimawari. He then instructed Uke, who knew Endo Sensei’s atari lessons, to do ‘kuzushi’ on his atemi. Endo Sensei, as Tori, then fell promptly.

He did this a few times to illustrate that if force is met with force, then kuzushi is possible and not necessarily in Tori‘s favor.

Instead, Tori should use a calm, slow atemi with fingers out toward Uke‘s face. Sensei says that if his hand sneaks up to Uke7s face, then the rest of the technique doesn’t matter.

(Strong atemi to Uke‘s ribs or stomach is still okay)