I hadn’t thought to look up Kanazawa Sensei in over 2 years. He was a fine teacher at Hombu – stern and serious. He was teaching the beginner’s class on the second floor while I was there. He doesn’t have that many videos so this is a treat to watch.

His shihonage cut-down is very nice. It makes me want to look into mine yet again.

Kanazawa Sensei, yokomenuchi shihonage ura

Shihogiri continued

... continued

I’ve noticed that many shihans cut down at an angle (which I explored in a previous post). Kanazawa Sensei really cuts through Uke’s center of gravity, then sweeps back out. It looks almost like two cuts. I never thought to cut into Uke’s center before, just kuzushi by way of gravity and then sweep out to make him turn as he falls. I’m looking forward to practicing this on Thursday.

Kanazawa Sensei Shihonage

I am encountering techniques from students in another organization not covered by my home organization, probably because they are not on any kyu test (not on mine, anyway). Munadori techniques are one such category. In fact, after 1.5 years of writing in this journal, yesterday was the first time I wrote about any munadori technique. Here is another one – munadori shihonage:

Someone could argue that mundadori techniques are a subset of katadori, but I assure myself they are not after the practice I had on Saturday. Uke is grabbing close to my center of rotation, not some point on its orbit like the shoulder or arm. This makes it different.

UPDATE 2010.08.29 – With practice today, it seems that going deep to the side makes a big difference as I expected versus going back at a 45-degree angle.

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).

In the middle of a demonstration on May 18th, 2008 Igarashi Sesnei was doing shihonage with his uke. His uke failed to turn or otherwise change his position so he could breakfall safely. Igarashi Sensei stopped what he was doing, looked back at this fellow, then grabbed his Gi and pulled him over so he could safely fall.

It is Uke’s job to protect himself in shihonage. He has two legs and can walk and move to a safer position. Tori is very helpful by trying to keep Uke safe, but this is a two-way partnership. Uke would be wise to know about tucking his head for the breakfall, and about how to reposition himself before the fall to keep safe.

About to do shihonage

Hi, protect yourself

I guess I will help you

There you go

This is similar to my post about iriminage from standing and sitting. It was only when I practiced shihonage omote from hanmi-handachi did I appreciate the standing version more. One Thursday I was practicing HH shomenuchi shihonage with friends at another dojo. It was clear that Tori has to take zempo with his inside knee while extending Uke to keep himself safe from a kick, and to start turning Uke.

Another way to think of shihonage is this: You know when you do ura both you and Uke have yourselves back-to-back for an instant? Why not achieve that in the omote version too?

I never recognized this idea before. Steve Sensei was trying to help another student by demonstrating katatedori shihonage on me. When he went to do omote I blended too nicely (he said) and stepped when he extended me. He chuckled and asked me not to be so nice and to make Tori to make me take “that extra step” before the giri movement.

Why didn’t I noticed this before? In shihan videos Uke usually blends nicely too and that step can be hidden by flowing movement. I love shihan videos, but for this case I looked at some of those “Aikido how-to” videos by people in North America to see what they think – that extra step is not emphasized or even done sometimes. Here is a clip of a teacher getting his students to demonstrate without the step by Uke:

I am not advocating this.

And here is another – no Uke step on omote.

I am not advocating this.

If you cannot see what I am talking about, here is an exaggeration of making Uke step before the shihonage cut-down on omote by our Yoshinkan cousins. It is very clear in this clip.

In conclusion, I will try to emphasize making Uke step for shihonage omote as it helps me keep safe from a kick, and it helps Uke into a clean ukemi.

Today may be the first time I ever practiced this technique. I paid close attention. The hallmark of what I learned was the initial movement for Tori. He has very little time to react and must also avoid being kicked or knocked over. As with the standing version of aihanmi shomenuchi shihonage, Tori intercepts Uke’s strike arm with his front tegatana. At the same time Tori’s rear tegatana comes over top of Uke’s wrist to temporarily trap it, but in reality to help guide it soon. Still at the same time as this, Tori pivots on both knees approx. 90 degrees so he is more or less perpendicular the Uke’s momentum vector. This needs practice! Tori guides, captures and extends Uke’s arm toward Uke’s shikaku, and at the same time pivots again to face Tori’s original starting direction. Tori should have Uke’s arm extended out so Uke is off-balance, and Tori is off the line of attack. Tori then takes a kneeling step with his inside leg. This is the omote extension to keep Uke off-balance. Tori then pivots back approx. 180 degrees on the outside to finish with cutting down at an angle.

The key points to take away are: initially, don’t slide off the attack line; pivot off it. Also, take a nice kneeling step to keep Uke off-balance before the kiri movement.

Advanced pointer: When guiding Uke’s arm and extending it, try to grab the pulse-reading side of his wrist with your outside palm and keep it flush through the extension. This will extend Uke without twisting his wrist unduly. We are kind partners.

Here is a quick-and-dirty experiment I am conducting. Photos are nice, and videos are fun, but I want to see what I can do with time lapse photos. These images are from Aikido3D where Donovan Waite is Tori, and were chosen because it is easier to edit out a background that is not moving (no camera jitter).

What is interesting is that the cut-down curves, and as you can see it curves about 90 degrees. The best part is that we can see how Uke falls and is led into a roll on his back. Had Tori cut straight down, Uke would just drop and not be able to get up gracefully. This cut down may even be safer for Uke if all students are knowledgeable on falling this way because Uke can brace on one side to distribute impact energy smoothly.

More importantly, because this is shihonage Tori has the ability to throw Uke in any direction (4 or 8). By practicing cutting down at an angle we give ourselves at least another direction of throwing practice beside straight back.

Shihonage is very involved. I went back over videos and this time paid attention to how the tori pivot to bend the uke’s arms back. I am checking for raising of Uke’s arm, if Tori moves to Uke’s hand or pulls it to him, if Tori sinks/lunges on the entry, and what angle they take to extend Uke before the throw. Most importantly, I am checking which direction the shihans cut down. The results are surprising.

Tissier, shihonage omote

This would hurt a dumb Uke a lot. Nothing wrong here, but I wish to keep Uke safe if he doesn’t know how to move. It looks like Tissier doesn’t sink, but puts enough discomfort on Uke’s arm to cause him to come around, and Tissier does twist his trunk so faces Uke before the throw. What I do notice is that Tissier doesn’t cut toward Uke’s back, that is, not parallel to Uke’s shoulder blades as I have always believed.

Shishiya shihonage omote

Notice how it looks like Shishiya can get hit by Uke? He can’t. Classically I would want to cut down behind Uke parallel to his back so he bends back and falls, but is safe. Shishiya doesn’t do that. Instead, he follows an curved giri like mesagiri away from Uke. This Uke can blend so he moves in response to the cut-down. Shishiya doesn’t duck or sink like I thought he would have, but instead does something similar to Tissier above.¹

Tissier HH shihonage

This is starting to get ridiculous – not the waza nor the shihan, but how badly I misunderstood the cut-down on shihonage. Of course! How could a person in seiza pivot and twirl efficiently in the face of an oncoming strike or wrist grab? Tissier isn’t even close to Uke’s back for the cut-down.²

Nishio shihonage omote

I am noticing a pattern here. If Nishio were alive in the era of blogging, he would write like me I’m sure of it – he just has that ‘question everything’-personality. He is short but doesn’t even try to sink under Uke’s arm. Ah!, he pivots so his hara faces Uke again, but he cuts down away from Uke so he has to follow or lose his arm.³

Chiba shihonage omote

I haven’t been this impressed with shihonage since I first saw Osawa Sensei in person. Chiba Sensei moves incredibly slowly, but with conviction. He too takes Uke up and minimizes the sinking/lunging idea I thought I knew. That angle and extension stops Uke from twisting out of shihinage like we routinely worry about. Chiba bends Uke’s arm at the elbow before he even begins to step and pivot. This is new (to me).⁴

Doshu shihonage omote

Doshu is cutting away from Uke and at an angle. We can clearly see that Uke and Tori are facing in opposite directions instead of Tori always facing Uke through the cut. Although to be fair he is the only one that finishes shihonage in the same direction he started when Uke attacked. However, as I learned from studying the movements of Saito Sensei, that is not the goal of shihonage.⁵

Saito Shihonage omote

Well, I don’t know what to say about this one. Uke is resting his hand on Saito Sensei’s back. However, this is done extremely slowly for the camera. What I can tell is that with Saito’s massive experience and the low speed of the demonstration coupled with the blending uke, it is clear Saito is not concerned about keeping Uke’s arm horizontal nor cutting down toward Uke’s back. In fact, he cuts at an angle like all the others in the entry.

Saito shihogiri

If you compare the first still of Saito to the one above, you will see that he must have traced an arc with his cut down. Not only that, remnants of the arc are present in the way he is holding Uke’s wrist at an angle that is along this arc to the floor.⁶

Osawa shihonage

Osawa Sensei’s movements are the final word on this matter. He is under stress and has hundreds of eyes on him, yet he and Uke are facing in opposition and he cuts at an angle to take Uke safely to the ground.⁷

Conclusion

Some might argue that, yeah, this is how we should do shihonage in real life, but in the dojo we want to keep Uke safe so we should do it the way we do now. I parry and counter that argument by asking how come we can’t keep Uke safe and do the effective technique at the same time? In fact, by cutting at an angle it helps Uke to roll and practice ukemi. We can always move slowly to help unadjusted uke, but to do a lesser technique is both assumptive of Uke’s presumed inability and takes away from Aikido altogether. And, this wasn’t even what I was looking for when I started this post.

Update: 2010-07-15 – I practiced with K this style of shihonage for while tonight before class. At the B&B class tonight I shared my revelation with Ben Sensei and he said that it was good and feels nice. He said that the reason we don’t practice like this is indeed because of the fear of injuring beginners. However, I think they are capable of taking a slow version of shihonage. I know when I take this shihonage fast I need to do tobiukemi, but slowly feels nice and safe.

Here is a video of Igarashi Sensei teaching shihonage in Feb. 2010 here in Calgary. He explains that shihogiri is not about manipulating the wrist joint (i.e. bending it backwards) to drop Uke, but about taking Uke past his center so he falls on his own.

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9F4wh3XoVA [↩]
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdH1sVz2IgI [↩]
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9PTMSwr1h0 [↩]
4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yK1Crbxp30 [↩]
5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwRPuHXZmOo [↩]
6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f1LOIqmNI4 [↩]
7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoRAb6oE7cw [↩]

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

I had the good fortune to practice ushiro tekubitori shihonage with a visiting yudansha, Michael, who recognized I was practicing my ‘teddy bear’ tobiukemi. Having experience, he gave me some pointers. He was doing the evil, mean, bad shihonage that makes me cringe when I see shoshinsha do it accidentally – the kind of shihonage that looks like Uke is going to tear his elbow all to heck. However, we were doing it to each other on purpose in a controlled way.

The only way to save your arm as uke in that devastating situation is to throw yourself in the direction of the torque. You’d have to literally kick your legs and throw them over your head to save your arm. What the hey, let’s practice that.

His advice was to throw my head down first and try to keep my ear attached to my shoulder as I throw my head. This means making my head/shoulder the center of rotation for the flip. This is something I had been working on previously to take tobiukemi for a bad jujinage throw, the kind where Tori forgets to let go and you have no arms to guide your roll. However, for this I need to keep my center of gravity high because shihonage is done high up. So, momentum needs to be channeled into the flip by way of running into it.

The tobiukemi helps to not jolt the internal organs by not suddenly stopping the fall, but instead by redirecting it in an arc so that force can instead help Uke get back up quickly.