I was looking for videos of waza that had perfect form, flow and were free of critical openings and vulnerabilities. Because I was looking so closely and reading technical articles from journals and taking screen shots for further analysis, I never thought about something: There is yet another dimension to waza.

I will explain with an example. For shomenuchi ikkyo omote, Miyamoto Tsuruzo Sensei of Japan wanted us to wait until the strike was almost on our head to feel the gravity of the attack, play with it a bit, then deflect it. Osawa Hayato Sensei of Japan wanted us to move before Uke had fully raised his arm; we were to move before the down stroke of the attack had begun. Sometimes with Ben Sensei we perform this waza from awase where there is no momentum at all. So, there are different kinds of momentum of Uke’s attack: preparing to attack, attacking, and extinguishing (conceptually awase).

For Osawa, we are to take Uke’s arm with elbow and move it through his own head to cause him to rapidly spin and readjust into the familiar ikkyo position (though we have shown in class that there is the danger of a front snap kick from Uke). I will call this the early phase.

For Miyamoto, once we came into contact with Uke, we would do a similar technique to that of Osawa, but we would slightly slide off the line. I will call this the on-time phase.

For Ben Sensei’s awase practice, there is no momentum from Uke to utilize. Trying to adjust Uke’s arm is difficult because he can readily retract or readjust it himself. We need to radically bring Uke’s arm out to the side, horizontally extended and quite safe from a snap kick attack. This will be called the late phase.

Endo Sensei typically moves to the side and guides Uke’s arm out in front of him. This is especially true if Uke is strong or has a lot of forward momentum. This could be called the rushed phase.

This leads me to my main consideration: Since there are multiple dimensions or aspects to consider in performing a waza, there cannot be one true way to perform a particular waza because several variations usually to lead to the same conclusion. The responsiveness of Nage is an important factor in determining how the waza is carried out. That being said, I contend that the best analysis of the performance of a particular waza is to study how many openings it creates or covers. That should be the measuring stick of how well any one practitioner executes a waza. Not only that, variations due to different response times, on purpose or otherwise, could also be practiced by students to their benefit.

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