Shihonage Realization

Jul 14
2010

Eric
Draken

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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.