I got some good passive advice on this one. Basically, extend Uke so he is almost on his toes using good principles of ushiro tekubitori. Then either exchange legs toward the side a bit (from static and Uke has no momentum), or step forward and off to the side (Uke has momentum). Extension, extension, extension. Then drop down very low and even touch the ground with both pinky fingers if you feel a good blend and connection with Uke.

Actually, if Uke grips tight (yes, please), then when Tori rotates his wrists like Saito, Kawahara, Endo and other shihans do, Tori’s palms will be facing out. On the aiki-otoshi part Tori can even slap his palms and/or his forearms to the ground for a great effect.

Osawa Sensei at Hombu, and one of the senseis at the seminar on Sunday, Aug 15th are the two shihans who I have seen do this firsthand. In fact, at the seminar we tried it, but when we practiced it on Sunday and I took an informal survey, those I asked didn’t have much luck with it… and even forgot we tried it! That leads to another learning theory I have, but I want to look into this very cool technique.

Uke comes in and takes hold of one wrist. Tori does irimi with his outside foot. As Uke comes around to chase that far wrist that has moved forward with Tori, Tori does tenkaisoku and then steps back. In other words, Tori moves in irimi tenkan, or simply kaiten. If the timing and belnding are good, and Tori can extend Uke up using good tekubitori practices, and both can share the same kijiku, then this is just a tight-rotation practice.

[insert still of Osawa Sensei]

There are just endless variations of kokyunage from yokomenuchi. There is only one place that I have practiced something like this before… almost forgot about it, but thankfully I stumbled upon this video (please mute the volume first). The key observations are keeping connected with your partner, not with limp sticky hands, but with relaxed tension that comes from matching the inertia of your partner.

The cut-downs in this clip are inline with my philosophy about kuzushi (which can get overlooked in normal practice).

This kind of partner practice is a dream of mine, and I finally got to play like this last seminar. 普通稽古の間ではこんな稽古をやりたいな。

Tori takes advantage of 受けの首の急所 and moves in tight uchimawari. I was told doing this kind of uchimawari is dangerous, but the only danger is being afraid to try it.

柔らかい急所打ち

Kitaura Sensei has some interesting concepts to bring to 今の私の合気道 (do we have a short phrase for this in English?). I’ll have to research him to in addition to my current backlog.

We were working on this kind of kokyunage tonight. This isn’t quite what I was looking for in a video clip, but I like how the tori in this clip keeps his vertical axis close to his uke’s vertical axis for a clean rotation.

Both start in aihanmi. Tori in hidari hanmi. Uke steps in to tsuki with his right arm. Tori then does irimi parry slightly off the line of attack and blends with Uke’s elbow with his tegatana. Tori then does a tenkan to the right as if to mirror the position of Uke. Tori then does kaitensoku back toward the left and extends both arms and pivots with his hips. This looks like the kokyu movement of O-Sensei. Extend hips to take Uke’s center while pivoting hips and breathing out. Uke should be off-balance and fall.

Ueshiba Kisshomaru performing ushiro ryokatadori kokyunage with tenkan.¹

1. From http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJNQz0fD-60 [↩]

Miss a class, miss a lot.

Ben Sensei has inspired us to experiment with throwing Uke from recognizable waza such as ikkyo, nikyo and sankyo. Here is an example from ikkyo. Note that it is not as simple as pushing Uke. When I first tried to do ikkyo-nage, I simply caused Ben Sensei to take a step forward (he was my Uke for the demo). Later, after much humility, he explained that we need to make use of the funakogi-undo we practice. It is not a simple push, but more of a circular movement which gets Uke to roll.

We’ve been practicing kokynage waza, and this time it is from nikyo. This is what happens when doing randori, for example, and Tori has to abandon a technique because another attacker is coming. Ben Sensei is a very creative person.

I’m starting to think ukemi is a safety mechanism for Uke.

Here is a fascinating collection of techniques which start from katate-ryotedori (morotedori). Most of his ki-no-nagare waza start with sen-no-sen sotomawari. At [3:39] he employs uchimawari do shihonage omote (I hadn’t seen anyone do this before). His zanshin after a pin is very focused. Also, when he does iriminage at [4:20] his Uke starts to turn as if to escape. Saito Sensei has a nice surprise against that, and now I am not afraid to practice that myself. See below for the still.

His kotegaeshi at [4:34] looks a little suspect, I might put that out of my mind for the time being. However, he actually does koshinage while uke is grabbing with both hands – I was led to believe that was impossible. Not only is that not impossible, Saito demonstrates five variations of this koshinage all while Uke is still holding on! See below for the first two.

Morotedori koshinage ichi

Morotedori koshinage ni