Mokuren Dojo - Aikido and Judo

Kuzushi in kosotogari

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Fri, 18 May 2012 10:01:00 +0000

The second technique we teach in judo is kosotogari, and we teach it as a response to a deashi gone bad.
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You will recall in deashi we teach to push uke on a backstep, which should either cause him to rock back and forth or take another full step back, either of which allows us to do deashi.
But what happens when you get the timing of the sweep wrong and uke's front leg is more weighted than you thought - when you hit deashi and his foot does not move?
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In this case, you take a turning step (just like in walking kata) around uke's front foot to stand beside/behind him, then when he turns back to face you, kosotogari appears.
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So, where is the kuzushi in kosotogari?

Timing - after an attempted deashi when uke's front foot is weightbearing.
Direction - there is really not a lot of push/pull in this, but tori turning the corner invites uke to turn the corner after.
Unintended action - uke had intended to stand still and weather your deashi attack. Instead he was forced to turn the corner to keep tori from slipping behind him.

There is the off chance that instead of turning to face, uke may refuse to move, but that is just dumb because that is inviting some much more awful things, like sukuinage or taniotoshi or uranage.

Kuzushi in deashibarai

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Wed, 16 May 2012 21:12:00 +0000

Have you smelled the smoke yet? The smoke coming from the grinding of the gears in my head? It's Sean's fault because of his article he posted this morning at Northern Wind Budo Blog.

And when the gears start a grindin' and the smoke starts a pourin' like that, there's no telling what might result. I thought I'd try my hand at describing just where the kuzushi is at in several throws. I thought I'd start at the very beginning (a very good place to start) with deashibarai.

First, based on a couple of previous articles, we can say a pretty good definition of kuzushi is "a properly timed and directed application of force that causes uke to make an action that he had not planned to make." Sure, there are some weird, spooky ways to get some interesting offbalances, but for the most part you have to push or pull uke in a certain direction at a certain time, and that causes him to make some unintended action that you can exploit. So, in order to describe a kuzushi, I'll have to describe the timing and direction of the push/pull as well as the unintended action that uke makes.

So, how is this done in deashibarai (at least in the deashibarai we usually teach beginners and pracice the most)?

timing - right when uke's foot touches the ground on a backward step.
direction - push their torso in the direction of their back foot
unintended action - uke puts more weight than he wanted to in his back foot, then rocks back forward.
exploitation - as uke starts to rock back forward, you sweep his unweighted front foot.

One of the biggest problems with a lot of people's deashi is that instead of a sharp "on-off" sort of push which causes uke to rock back then forward, tori pushes too hard and long which causes uke to rock back and then step backward out of your deashi. In this case, the unintended action (kuzushi) is uke stepping back with the leg you were intending to sweep so your exploitation is to step with uke and then do deashi on the other leg.

____________________

Patrick Parker

www.mokurendojo.com

The engine of judo and combatives

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Thu, 10 May 2012 16:55:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I posted a story about one of my students getting a leg broken by skipping a seminar at my Dojo to go to a competition. Today another of my long-time students reminded me of a cool episode in his life.

This student had gotten up to about green or brown belt, and decided he wanted to join the Marines. So off he goes to boot camp, or whatever they call their initial training stint, part of which now includes the MCMAP ground fighting material. I don't recall the time frame, but at some point in this training, he got a week off to go home and he came and played with me for a few days.

I'm always curious about how our classes are serving folks, so i asked him how he was handing the MCMAP stuff with his background in judo, what was the same, what was different, that sort of thing. He said it was all familiar except for the MCMAP folks were more focussed on cool techniques and pretty much totally lacked foundation for those cool techniques - how to shrimp, how to bridge, 2-hands on a point, etc...

So, I figured he must be doing pretty good in the competitions. Not so. He seemed to think his performance had been pretty mediocre and he was disappointed that he hadn't done better with his background. So we got on the ground so he could show me what he'd been doing in MCMAP, and sure enough, he was a flurry of aerobically conditioned muscle trying for cool armbars. But there was no foundation of ground mobility there.

He had let his instructors brainwash him into forgetting how to shrimp and bridge and do all the foundations that actually make this stuff work. So we had a review session for 2 or 3 days that mostly consisted of drills involving shrimping, bridging, and positional transitions. I suspect he was sorta disappointed when he left that I hadn't shown him the cool ninja techniques that he needed to do better in MCMAP.

But then he went back and commenced to kicking absolute ass at MCMAP. He rapidly (instantly) rose to the top of his class, and his crowning achievement was whipping the MCMAP instructor's weekend cagefighting MMA ass!

Seems the instructor had the same bad habit that I'd schooled out of all my students of crossing his ankles in front of the opponent when in the rear guard, so when the instructor took my student's back, my student proceeded to ankle-bar both of the instructor's legs and force him to tap.

There is something to be said for paying close attention to foundations. Working on the cool submissions without drilling the foundations is like having a beautiful sports car with no engine. It won't go. It's not good judo and its not good combatives.

Legendary heart yankers!

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Wed, 09 May 2012 13:41:00 +0000

Some time back I did a series of articles about martial arts urban legends, like 3000 year-old martial arts and knocking peoples noses back into their brains and that sort of thing. Today I was reminded of another.

This morning I ate breakfast with a Vietnam vet aquaintence, and he asked if I still taught judo. When I said yes, he immediately started in on how he used to do judo in "'Nam" and wanted to know if we also practiced, "the neck method" in our judo. I think I managed to avoid rolling my eyes.

Then he claimed that his special forces judo buddies had "broken their hands so they would grow back together into blade hands" and that they had been trained to stab their hands through enemies chest or abdomen in order to grab their heart and "yank it out!" He said this was their preferred method of silent sentry removal.

I just nodded and said, "wow!"

Kuzushi in kata

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Fri, 04 May 2012 17:08:00 +0000

There is a definition of kuzushi that has come into favor among many of the judo and aikido clubs that I most often have contact with. It says that a state of kuzushi happens anytime uke is forced to make an action that he did not intend to make. Whether it is a breath or a blink or a flinch or a step, if it was unintended then it reflects a state of unbalance or weakness. Any unthinking, reflexive reaction means uke is disbalanced.

Under this definition the act of unbalancing uke means to cause uke to make an unintended action.

In randori, this makes sense, because if you can draw uke out or bump him and make him take a recovery step, or if he flinches or blinks in response to your atemi, then you can more easily do your thing. But how does this definition play out in kata, where every action is pre-planned and therefore intended?

Let's start by saying that it's pretty much axiomatic that you can't do good kata without kuzushi. Kata without kuzushi sucks.

But you also can't do good kata with uke pre-planning to jump offbalance dramatically at the right time. Kata with uke jumping for tori also sucks. The kuzushi can't be part of uke's planned, intended actions. If it is planned then it is not un-intended, which means it is not kuzushi, and we're back to the kata sucking for lack of kuzushi. Pre-planned intentional jumping has a wholly different character of motion than does unintentional motion.

Kuzushi has to arise naturally (unexpectedly) from the interaction between tori's and uke's intended actions.

In kata, both parties know beforehand all the actions that are going to take place, and the final outcome. But Uke must start into the kata with proper intention and then the interaction of that intention with tori's action should cause uke to take an unintended step.

Uke and tori may both know when and where that step is going to occur and where it will land, but it was not uke's intention to take that step, and now he must recover his balance/composure/whatever in order to continue with the program of intended actions in the kata.

We often talk about the necessity of "intent" in uke's attacks. We often talk about uke making "good attacks." We often talk about tori having to "get a good initial off-balance." In these instances, this is what we are talking about - this interplay between uke's initial intentions and the reality of the relationship as it unfolds.

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Three hipthrow entries

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Tue, 01 May 2012 17:09:00 +0000

I have, for a long time, based my judo classes on the idea that there are handful of throws that are foundational to the rest of the throws - the idea that all of the cool, weird throws are just fairly minimal variations of a bare handful of foundational throws. I have fluctuated on whether I think there are about nine foundational throws, or if perhaps it might be as few as six, but the general idea has remained pretty constant, and we've gotten a lot of mileage out of is teaching model.

With regard to teaching hipthrows, I have three basic entries that I teach that can be used for pretty much any hip throws -

stepping through uke's hips as he steps back
turning parallel with uke and fitting in as he steps forward
shifting the front foot out of the way then turning backward with the rear leg to fit in

Problem is, I have always taught these three entries in a sort of haphazard manner, whenever I happen to think to or whenever a student has a hipthrow question that looks like a different entry would solve. Since any of the three entries can be used to throw any hipthrow, I have mostly defaulted to using the first one just because it is my personal favorite and the easiest to teach.

Then I got to looking at the core throws that I listed above. There are two hipthrows there (ukigoshi and ogoshi), and the first thing that I teach after these foundation throws is koshiguruma - another hip technique. Hmmm... Three hipthrows before green belt and three entries for hipthrows... I bet you can read my mind...

I think I will try explicitly pairing each of these hipthrows with one of these entries, so that beginners get some systematic exposure to all three koshinage entries. My first thoughts on this pairing are something like this...

stepping through into ukigoshi
turning parallel into ogoshi
turning backward into koshiguruma

____________________

Patrick Parker

www.mokurendojo.com

Aiki-strikey and the starburst

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 18:00:00 +0000

A while back, I published a list of five pointers that I try to keep in mind in order to make my atemi better.

Timing - only hit on a footfall
Kuzushi - only hit after an initial off-balance
Direction - strike on one of two weak lines
Gravity - add a full body weight drop
Connection - don't hold them up afterward

Today I want to add a sixth idea that comes from some of the striking gurus - specifically I think I got this from the Parker Kenpo guys. I call it the starburst principle and I think they might call it something similar.

When your striking limb has momentum, it is not possible to change its direction arbitrarily. When its in flight you can steer it some, but not much. This is one of the basic rules in toshu randori. But as soon as it hits something, you can redirect that limb in any direction, because its momentum is imparted to what it struck.

If you imagine a starburst, or a three-dimensional asterisk, at the point of contact, the points of the star describe the places you can go after that impact.

The Kenpo guys use that to build combos. They might strike arm then glance off to neck, drag through to strike the other arm, and bounce off to the groin, etc...

But you can use this idea to figure out how to put successive off-balances on uke until he crumbles.

Basically, in an aiki context, the starburst tells you to hit, and instead of driving through uke in that same line, change your line of force by 90° or 180° and keep hitting them with off-balances separated by 90° or 180°.

Tsugiashi - kuzushi - ayumiashi

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 23:12:00 +0000

For our purposes, there are basically two ways to walk -

regular, everyday walking down the street - the Japanese call this ayumiashi
sliding, trying to keep the same foot forward -this is called tsugiashi

Ayumiashi is very energy-efficient, using only about 100kcal/hour at moderate speeds, but it has some serious problems when you're in a fight - especially when you are up close and someone has grabbed hold of you. for this sort of application, tsugiashi has some advantages, and it minimizes some of your disadvantages.

So us cool martial artists usually try to shift from ayumiashi to tsugiashi about the time we get inside touching distance (ma-ai). Notice how that shift in walking methods is encoded in the approach in each technique of Junana Hon Kata?

But have you ever noticed that kuzushi almost always forces the unbalanced player back into ayumiashi? Makes sense - we've been doing ayumiashi since childhood so we revert back to our most experienced mode when offbalanced.

Interestingly, you can look at that as one of the main goals of kuzushi - to get the other guy to shift back to ayumiashi, thus magnifying his disadvantages, thus making your opportunities greater.

____________________
Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Lies, damned lies, and averages

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 17:12:00 +0000

You've heard the expression, "There's three kinds of untruths - lies, damned lies, and statistics."

Today I wanted to discuss an important phenomenon that sort of falls in that third, most despised category - that of averaging. But I'm not talking about numerical averaging like a grade point average or a pitcher's ERA. I'm talking about a terrible sort of averaging that goes on with motor control 'programs' in your body/mind.

When there are two common ways to accomplish a goal, or when there are two actions that are nearly identical but have critical (life-threateniing) differences, unless you are careful to choose one and always be absolutely ruthless with yourself in practice that you do that one motor control program in that given instance, occasionally you'll get distracted or confused or hurried and your brain can sort of 'average' the two programs, creating some potentially non-viable bastard non-solution.

We saw two absolutely perfect examples this weekend.

When doing a forward roll, there are two common landing positions - one with the top leg behind the bottom leg and one with the top leg in front of the bottom leg. We teach the top-leg-behind form exclusively, and we have pretty good reasons, but honestly I'm not sure that the other form is all that bad (if you land that way 100% of the time). It seems that where people really get in trouble is when they don't pay attention to their landing and sometimes they land one way and sometimes land the other way. These folks are habituating two different forms of the same solution, but occasionally (far to often) you'll get confused or distracted, and you'll land almost exactly halfway between these two positions. That is, with one leg atop the other. This usually has disasterous results with the top leg hammering the bottom ankle, knee, and/or legs crushing testcles. I don't know that it matters which of these two falling positions you choose, but you had better choose one and pay attention to it all the time. (We recommend the top-leg-behind version for several other reasons.)

The other example is one of our instructors who has done an extensive amount of both pistol shooting and tactical knife work. When drawing either a pistol or tactical folder, the hands come together in front of the chest, but the hands are doing different actions/grips depending upon the activity. Well, this instructor apparently suffered a momentary lapse of attention, and drew his folder (which automatically opens when drawn from the pocket), brought his hands together in front of his chest as if grasping a pistol, and cut his own thumb severely. One tourniquet and six stitches later he is mostly okay (kinda grumpy), but he has provided us with another perfect glimpse of this damnable motor averaging.

This second example I don't have a good solution for because I don't have any experience with pistols and fairly little with tactical folders, but the gurus that I listen to have one rule that tends to cut down (get it "cut" ;-) on self-mutilation. Always, always, always keep the blade closer to the opponent than your other hand. In other words, never put your free hand between your blade and the opponent. I might add, on a personal note, that I don't especially like the Emerson self-opening 'wave' knives for that reason - sometimes I like to take my knife out of my pocket without it opening ;-)

But anyway, this isn't intended as me griping about him and his choices or practices. That accident could happen to anyone who works with blades. The point is, I advise that all my readers watch out for situations where this motor control averaging phenomenon can come into play, and create rules of practice (like top-leg-behind, or free hand behind blade) that you always, always, always abide by in practice.

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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Attention to details

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:50:00 +0000

About 15 years ago I was running a dojo in the next town up the road from my current location. Pretty small, rural location, but due to the generosity of the folks in our aikido organization I was able to get several big-name teachers to come do seminars at my little dojo. These usually drew pretty good attendance from all over the region.

For one of these seminars, the teacher brought one of his brown belt students who was all fired up about judo competition. Well, it seems that he'd heard that there was to be a tournament in Jackson MS the same weekend as our seminar, so the brown belt talked a handful of my students into ditching the seminar and going to compete in the tournament instead (I know, right?).

You can probably see it coming. One of my yellow belt students managed to get his leg broken at the tournament, and the whole group of them came back to the dojo that afternoon, looking sorta sheepish. That yellow belt missed a bunch of practice in the subsequent months, but he eventually healed up, like teens usually do. A couple of years later he wanted to get into the Marines and I had to write them a letter telling them that he'd completely healed from that injury. He finished his stint with the military and now he's in college and doing some boxing and grappling.

A couple of months ago I got to thinking about that student so I wrote him a note asking if he remembered any lessons or wisdom that he'd learned from ditching the seminar in favor of the tournament that he'd be willing to share with my blog audience - since we're all about learning from each other's stupid mistakes ;-)

He responded...

I guess if I learned anything, it was to pay closer attention to detail. Specifically in form, as it was my own bad form that broke my ankle (when I was throwing the guy, my foot was planted on my heel rather than the ball of my foot). I've always been pretty careful with things like that, but that really drove the nail in that coffin. I also came out with a clear understanding of my own vincibility. Before that, I was pretty sure I was untouchable, and often prided myself on how I'd never broken any bones.

Since then, I've been extremely careful with precision regarding form, especially as it correlates to the preservation of my body, since as you well know, we pretty much only get the one. When I am striking or throwing someone or something or even playing a sport, I go out of my way to analyze the impact my movements are having on my body. I feel like I've been able to avoid many more injuries just by paying closer attention to detail.

So, there you have it. The voice of experience.

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____________________
Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Kodokan Goshin Jutsu - kata not-a kata?

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 14:55:00 +0000

A couple of years ago we had a nice blog discussion here on Mokuren Dojo about whether or not Kodokan Goshin Jutsu (KGJ) is or is not a kata. Honestly, it is an interesting thing because it has characteristics of both kata and non-kata exercise sets or drills. I can see it either way. But for the sake of argument, and to be a bit provocative and draw some folks into a good conversation with me, I took the side that it is definitely and obviously not a kata.

I thought today that I'd summarize the old conversation and maybe add one or two more points...

Of course KGJ is a kata...

There are pre-defined uke-tori roles and the action and both players have foreknowledge of the sequence and flow of actions in each technique.
It was deliberately designed by some of the greatest masters of judo, aikido, and jujitsu, to illustrate principles and lessons that they wanted communicated to future generations. Therefore, there is a proper and an improper way to practice and execute KGJ.
IJF, in recent years has even standardized the proper execution of KGJ so that it can be contested and judged as a kata.

KGJ is not really a kata - just a collection of drills...

Depending on what sense of precision you have in kata, it may or may not even be possible to achieve kata-like precision. If precision means to make the same motions in the same sequence every time, it is not possible to practice KGJ (or really any other partner forms) with kata-like precision. But if by "precision" you mean to express the same principles in response to a similar attack form, then sure, precision is achievable.
Since being delivered on stone tablets with techniques writ by the finger of Tomiki, every teacher that has ever taught this thing with vastly different emphasis. This collection is not teaching the same lessons every time. It is not telling the same story every time. It simply lacks the internal consistency and logic (riai) of kata.
It's not even called a kata - the other Kodokan kata are all suffixed with " - no kata" while the drills and exercises are not.

Goshin Jutsu is not unique to Kodokan. Most martial arts have similar collections of situational self-defense scenarios that they practice in addition to whatever other curricula they teach and practice. When KGJ was developed in the 1950's, it was (so I've heard) because the American flyboys in Tokyo were clamoring for a set of "modern self-defense moves" to practice - something mroe up-to-date than the knee-crawling, scimitar-flinging stuff found in Kimenokata. And Kodokan obliged them by creating a committee to meet to figure out what would be the best modern self-defense situations to practice, and to offer suggestions as to how to solve these self-defense problems using judo. The output of that committee became known as Kodokan Goshin Jutsu.

There is no question of the value and validity of KGJ. The real question (at least for this debate) is how to practice it. Should it be treated as a kata (to be practiced formally and precisely) or is it a collection of valuable drills (to practice to gain experience in variation around central principles).

Incidently, I think it would be an interesting exercise to reprise that old blog conversation with my Honorable Opponents (HOs) and myself taking opposite views - Perhaps LF could try to write a couple of posts on why KGJ is definitely and obviously NOT a kata and I would attempt to defend the other view, that of course it is a kata. Come on HOs, bring it on! ;-)

____________________

Patrick Parker

www.mokurendojo.com

Why go before ju/aiki?

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 21:16:00 +0000

The other day, one of my aiki-betters made the comment on an online forum, "You can't learn to do soft till you know how to do hard." And although that's pretty much how I developed as a martial artist, the statement of it that way struck me as interesting and unique. The first question that sprang to mind was, "WHY does it have to be that way?" and upon further consideration, I think I can answer my own question.

It seems to me that you have to start with go (hard) before you can get ju (yielding) because "ju" means something different to everyone you ask. You tell a group of newbies to "be soft" and some become flaccid while others remain hard. Some try to do the "when pushed, pull" thing and others try to do the "no be there" thing. Some are working on tactile invisibility while others are working in slow motion. Then you have some guys in the corner "closing the waki" isometrically so you cant see them applying strength and still others stare into space and chant, "ommmmm."

But then you tell someone, "be strong." and you jostle them a time or two or slap them on the chest or shoulder and they make a pretty good approximation of the kind of stance and posture and body management and mindset youre talking about.

Reminds me of a training paradigm that Nick Lowry posted a while back for jodo (but it applies elsewhere too). Basically, Nick says you start out with big, all-inclusive motion, then after you get the hang of it, you make it strong, and from there you move to fast, then light.

"Big-Strong-Fast-Light" appears to me to address the same ideas as "you can't do soft until you know how to do hard."

____________________
Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Seek safety in the Heart of Danger

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 21:10:00 +0000

There is an axiom in aikido that applies especially to our weapons practice, but which provides some nice crossover benefits to empty-handed work -

dodge small - strike big

Our tachidori and jodori in Tomiki aikido are mostly based on shomengiri (straight-down sword cut) or tsuki (straight forward jo thrust). As uke passes ma-ai and becomes committed to the attack motion, uke attempts to enter past the weapon at least far enough to take control of uke's arms, while slipping only slightly out of the way so that the strike barely misses. Then, several of the disarms- especially the jodori - end with tori smashing uke with a huge, strong, decisive atemi. There are several benefits to applying "dodge small-strike big" in practice...

Assuming that you only have finite energy/strength/resources, everything you put into off-line evasion is that much that you cannot put into entering, and if you are to have any hope in the disarm, you've got to enter past the weapon to control uke's arms.
People, when excited and adrenalized, like in a real life-or-death situation, often tend to make large, wild evasions and small, timid, hesitant strikes. We try to counter this tendency in our practice by getting accustomed to evading as small as possible and by making the atemi as large as possible, assuming that in a real encounter the actual evasion will be somewhat larger and the strike somewhat smaller.
By evading small, you limit the amount of free space that uke has to screw something up for you.
It builds intestinal fortitude to steel yourself to calmly watch a sword descend toward your head, then at just the right moment to slip barely out of the way. It also builds spirit and audacity to grab someone by the face and launch your center through theirs, smashing them.
It is good practice for uke to learn to absorb large atemi (though it is definitely an advanced ukemi practice). This builds resilience and confidence in your ukemi.

The way that I teach this small evasion is to imagine that, uke and tori are standing on railroad tracks. There is a track running through uke's right foot and tori's left foot, and vice versa. The evasion is done by tori sliding one foot straight forward on its track, then turning the other foot onto the track behind the lead foot. Enter strongly as far as you need to, then turn just far enough out of the way.

The way I teach the strong atemi is to tell tori to place an unbendable arm under uke's chin, gently lifting it into spinelock, then to stride between and beyond uke's feet with an emphasis on bringing the second foot up as soon as possible - you want tori's feet to land as nearly to the same time as possible. The power in this push comes from the speed of the recovery step - not the length of the lunge. It is very important to coach uke to yield to this strike by taking a large step back and sitting down out of it. If uke is hesitant about yielding, he will endanger his neck.

Seek safety in the Mouth of the Dragon.

____________________

Patrick Parker

www.mokurendojo.com

Basics vs. fundamentals - and taiso

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 16:20:00 +0000

Mark MacYoung has this interesting article at his website about the differences between basics and fundamentals. The gist of his assertion is that the basics are just starting points - like kindergarden abecedario type instruction - not much content but just a launching point for instruction. Fundamentals, however, are the foundations upon which the rest of the study is built - the "meat" of the subject in which lives the principles that make everything work. MacYoung talks about how students can resent being told to "go back to the basics" when the instructor actually means "focus on the fundamental principles of what you are doing."

In our aikido classes, we have both fundamentals (how to stand, how to enter, how to turn, how to deliver power, how to follow, etc...) and basics (like the wrist release forms - we might argue about their combat utility, but they provide a great starting point to talk about a lot of the material).

We have this pedagogical desire to review all of this material very frequently, but we don't want to bore the student senseless or make them resent being "sent back to the basics."

So, we use taiso (warmups) as a way to get the review and repetition of the fundamentals in the beginning of every class. In most of the classes that I have experience with, the warmups consist of a little (useless but mostly harmless) range of motion - arm waving and twisting, followed by the "walking kata" - a set of taiso developed by Tomiki Sensei to teach weight shifting and footwork and body coordination in a sport-specific way. The benefits of using fundamentals as taiso are (at least) three-fold:

Students get a nice warm-up and get loosened-up in a dynamic, activity-specific manner
Students get the desired repetition on the fundamentals of stance and posture and footwork and coordination and power-delivery)
The instructors and students all get a common basis of sensorimotor and kinesthetic experience that they can use as a context to communicate "higher" ideas - a common ground.

So, in summary, I think it is important that your warmups (taiso) that you do before every class consist of far less empty arm-waving range of motion, and far more activity-specific fundamental motion.

____________________

Patrick Parker

www.mokurendojo.com

Taiso is the Rosetta Stone

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 17:38:00 +0000

The conundrum I've been discussing for the past week here on the blog is, how can an instructor and a student who might come from extremely different backgrounds ever develop a shared context or some sort of basis for real communication? I've likened it to a similar communication problem from the late 1800's - namely, how to figure out how to read heiroglyphics with no shared background. That problem was solved relatively quickly when they found the Rosetta Stone, which provided the key for deciphering heiroglyphics by relating them to two previously known languages.

Sure, the student can imitate the sensei as closely as possible and gradually build up that context. But we've already seen in the previous post that can take many years to start speaking the other party's language. What we need is a Rosetta Stone that can create some sort of relation between sensei's background and experience (particularly kinesthetic and sensorimotor) and that of the students.

In many traditional Japanese martial arts, the Rosetta Stone is taiso. Westerners often mistake taiso for simple warm-ups or calisthenics. It is easy for many students to let the mind slip out of gear and just go through the motions during the taiso, thinking that it doesn't matter because it's just some warmups before we get to the real heart of the matter. But taiso should be done mindfully, with emphasis on practicing motions that will be used later in kihon and kata.

So, if you think of kihon as the essential movements found in kata, but formatted so that it is easy to get mindful repetitions, then you can also think of taiso as the building blocks of kihon formated so that it is easy to practice them in a light, rhythmic manner. The taiso should warm up the practitioner, but it should also build a foundation of movement for kihon, which should, in turn, build a foundation for doing kata.

An instructor and a student doing a set of taiso together provides a common kinesthetic and sensorimotor body of experience that both parties can draw upon when trying to teach or learn kihon and kata.

Taiso is the Rosetta Stone.

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____________________
Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

O Sensei was a space alien

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 17:31:00 +0000

When I was a child, one of my imaginary friends was a space alien that had been sent to Earth to study our curious culture. It had monitored our transmissions for years and thereby learned many of our words and figured out our syntax and grammar, but it still couldn't understand much. A typical conversation with the alien (it had an un-pronouncable name) would go something like this...

"What is that... thing?" (pointing a tentacle)

"Oh, this? This is an apple."

"What is... appul?"

"It's a fruit. It grows on a tree and we eat them."

"What is... froot?"

"Trees make them and we eat them."

"What is eeet?"

and so on and so on ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

Our problem was, even though we understood the same words, we came from totally different backgrounds. We were alien to each other. We had no context and despite our best intentions and our best efforts, we couldn't figure out how to manufacture a context. We ended up building spaceships and laser weapons and destroying each other's home worlds. That we understood.
.

In what sense might you say O Sensei was an alien? He lived in a newly-industrializing country just emerging from feudalism, while many of his students lived in agrarian and industrial societies and now we live in a technological service economy. His education and religious practices were pretty different from ours. In the immortal words of the venerable Hootie..."You and me, we come from different worlds..." Maybe an easier question would be, "Was O Sensei like us at all?"

The most important difference was not cultural or environmental but the fact that he and his contemporaries habitually used their bodies differently than did the generation after him and the generation after them. They sat on their knees on the floor - we use chairs from infancy. They climbed and crawled up and down hills - we use elevators and escalators and peoplemovers. They walked - we drive and fly (in seated positions). They tended their animals and plants - we buy our food pre-processed and packaged. They chopped wood for cooking and heat - we push buttons. They worked in many varied postures - we sit and perform the same small motions repetitively.

Even the most active of us are a far cry from the most sedentary of them. They simply had a completely alien body experience when compared to ours.

So, when O Sensei says something that sets our B.S. meters off, like "I am the Universe!" Maybe we should give him the benefit of the doubt that maybe he was expressing something physically, tactically useful based on his body experience instead of something annoyingly etheral. Maybe that was something that his contemps would have understood better because of a different body of kinesthetic aposteriori knowledge.

The question then arises, how do we translate knowledge and teachings from an alien kinesthesia so that they will be useful to us? We need a kinesthetic Rosetta Stone, so to speak.

Stay tuned, Dear Reader, and I'll tell you about this Rosetta Stone!

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____________________
Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

No common ground

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 22:10:00 +0000

Who here has ever read through any of Osensei Morehei Ueshiba's quotes and sayings and instructions and thought, "What the hell is that nut talking about?"

Or perhaps youve attended a seminar with a highly-ranked instructor approximately two generations older than you and you weren't even sure they were speaking the same language as you. Oh, sure, they were using proper words and they arranged them into sentences that seemed to abide by most of the rules of grammar and syntax, but you couldn't draw much meaning from them.

The ideas were not passing from their heads to yours through the medium of language.
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I have had the extreme fortune of having a regular aikido instructor for the last twenty some-odd years that is a true master. His skill and knowledge were only exceeded by his willingness to share and his quiet humor. All of his students love him and respect him greatly. But at the beginning of our relationship none of us mere mortals were able to understand a damned word he said! I fondly recall one time he gave me some technical advice, which I didnt understand and couldn't really implement. Then he told me the same thing six months later - and again in six more months and again six months after that and finally, a couple of years later, I understood what he was trying to communicate. We found that it took all of us on average about 18 months to decipher his instructions.

We simply had no context - no shared experiences to form a basis of communication.

Over the years, as we persisted with this particular instructor and as he patiently repeated himself, we found that he got better at teaching us and we got better at understanding him. Eventually we were able to understand things after only six months or a year of patient repetition ;-)

We had gained a shared context or a common ground - a basis for communication.

In my next post I will discuss possibly the most important and valuable form of common ground or shared experience that you can have with your instructor, without which, communication is severely limited if not impossible. So stay tuned!

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____________________
Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Tomiki on initiative in Junokata

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 15:50:00 +0000

Today my martial studies are focussed on exchanges of initiative in Junokata. Although I know of no existing teachings by Tomiki Sensei on Junokata, you can bet he was thoroughly versed in it because Kano seemed to esteem the exercise highly. Tomiki does discuss initiative in this excellent essay...

Sen

In all athletic sports one must, in order to gain the victory, surpass the opponent in mental power, technical skill, and physical strength. These three factors must be united in gaining the mastery over an opponent. The mastery is brought into play in the form of various techniques, and although there are a large number of them, they may be summed up and resolved into one word sen (initiative or lead).

In the old densho (books of secret principles) the way of taking the initiative is explained in three stages.

Sen-sen-no-sen (superior initiative). Superior initiative is given play in a delicate situation where one confronts an opponent who intends to attack, and gains mastery over him by subtly guessing his mentality and forestalling his actions. This is the highest reach of the mental cultivation in any military art and is regarded as not easily attainable. But if you consider it more deeply, you will find it too late to try to gain command over anything when it has taken a concrete form, and you must have the mental preparedness to hold it down beforehand. For this purpose it is necessary to learn to maintain the openness and serenity of mind as signified by the old expression, "Clear as a stainless mirror and calm as still water." Lao-tse teaches this almost divine state of mind in the following words: "It is the way of heaven to prevail without contention."

Sen (initiative). This is to forestall your opponent by starting an action before he begins attack on you.

Ato-no-sen (initiative in defense). This is not to guess the mentality of your opponent and check his action before it is done, but to start action in defense the moment you have an inkling of the offensive of your opponent. It is to avoid the opponent's attack the instant it is about to be launched upon you, and to make a counter-attack taking advantage of a pause in your opponent's movement and a disturbance in his posture. A man who takes the initiative in defense rises in opposition to his opponent's attack, and parries or averts it. Seemingly it is a defensive move. In order to stave off the opponent's attack at the last moment and restore one's position one must keep the moral attitude of initiative so as not to get worsted by the adversary.

With regard to Tomiki's schema of initiative, one may make some statements about the techniques in Junokata...

All the techniques of junokata are Ato-no-sen (A.K.A. gonosen) - that is, uke acts and tori reacts. In fact, it seems from some of the Kano excerpts that I posted in the last couple of days, that Kano thought that the true principle of Ju could only be applied in gonosen - that direct action or pre-emption by tori was not Ju.
Many of the techniques of Junokata involve more than one exchange of initiative in renzoku (continuous or combination)fashion - that is, uke acts, tori reacts, uke reacts, tori reacts...
The kata seems to mostly be organized in order of increasing complexity - that is, the techniques of the later sets in the kata tend to involve more interchange of initiative than those of the earlier sets.

____________________

Patrick Parker

www.mokurendojo.com

More Hoare on Gonokata

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:22:00 +0000

Another fine piece of commentary from Syd Hoare - this time on the topic of Gonokata. Apparently, Kano found gonokata to be unsatisfactory for unspecified reasons, and he shelved the kata. Below, Hoare ventures some guesses as to some of the problems with the exercise (as reconstituted and recently demonstrated on YouTube)...

The kata, as available on the internet, does not flow that well and the responding techniques do not especially 'click'. For example there are a number of times where tori moves behind uke and does a rear daki-age/uranage-like move which as it stand is virtually unworkable. See how wrestlers do it. Also the tension that is created with the pushing and pulling is either handled by turning on the periphery of it or is simply converted with a
ju yielding motion. Some of the techniques look like sumo and taichi especially its 'pushing hands' exercise (tsui-shu). Finally some of the jigotai postures cry out for a ko-uchi-gari. If you can't go through the arms attack the legs!

The Go no kata is a very interesting historical relic of judo. I do not think it holds any answers to the prevalent muscular style of judo. Sumo is much better at dealing with resistance than judo especially with its technical use of doshin (concentricity) and its hiraku and soto/uchi muso techniques (The pushing hands practice of Taichi, however, could be worth doing on a regular basis. Perhaps the go ju no kata also owes something to the Chinese martial arts practice of strong (go) breath out and soft (ju) breath in. Maybe there is more to this than meets the eye.

Read the whole article - it is very interesting.

____________________
Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Kano on the deficiencies of Ju

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 23:59:00 +0000

Whoa! This is really intersting! In 2010, Syd Hoare published online some translations of some of Jigoro Kano's writings. Included were the following passages involving Kano grousing about the deficiencies within the principle of Ju (as understood as winning by yielding)...

Most jujitsu was based on and carried out under the Ju principle in order to defeat the opponent. It was also applicable to all the day to day affairs of man. However Kano eventually came up against the fact that there were many occasions in both attack and defence which could only be dealt with by theories outside the yielding principle Kano giving examples of situations which could not be explained by the Ju/Yielding principle divided them into physical and mental ones.

Physical situations.

For example when you are strongly grabbed from behind, under the JU principle there is no escape – there is no way to adapt to the opponent's power. There are a number of ways of responding to a strong hug from behind but there is no adaptation to the opponent's power. Similarly if an opponent grabs your throat from the front there are answers to it but they do not involve adapting to the opponent's power.

Furthermore if judo technique is always limited to complying with or adapting to the opponent's force there is nothing that judo can do if the opponent stands still. Even if you merely think about catching the opponents hand you cannot even lower your hand. All one can say is that it should be done with a minimum of force.

Mental situations.

...
When the opponent attacks you vigorously you have no time to think out new means to deal with it. You have no choice but to choose to reply to it with your old tricks which naturally float into your mind based on previous experience. If the opponent does not attack but only defends, your mental workings and new thoughts will not appear.

Furthermore when one has decided to try a technique on the opponent you must not hesitate or doubt whether you should do this or that but be resolute in your decision to try a technique. At the same time think about all possibilities and try moving around, doing techniques lightly and even though there may not be better methods one must not be idle in thinking about them and producing them. From all these illustrations, all methods of attack and defence are very difficult to explain with the simple JU principle. It is evident that whether considering the mental or physical aspects, that a new basic principle is necessary to cover the huge variety of judo technique.

rom about the period 1897 – 1907 Kano relied less and less on the JU principle to explain his judo. For example in 1900 he wrote in the Kokushi magazine, 'The number one requirement for nagewaza is the mobilization of
minimum force in order to throw the opponent how and where one wishes. In his explanations of the practical application of judo principles he wrote, 'People should put to work their God-given spiritual force to demonstrate as widely as possible meritorious deeds for the world and mankind.

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____________________
Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Hooks instead of grips in judo

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 17:59:00 +0000

So, I mentioned in a previous article that in my humble opinion, the gripping phase of a judo throw comes pretty late in the action - like after kuzushi and tsukuri almost concurrently with kake.

Here's another little secret - On many koshinage, I dont even do grips, at least not with my hands. I tend to use my elbows like meathooks, putting them in as I'm turning in for a throw (tsukuri). I look at it like this...

Have you ever seen a small child carrying a heavy plastic grocery bag? They don't have the grip strength to hold it by their side with a straight arm, so they bend their elbow and hook the bags over the crook of their elbows. By moving the load right up to the fulcrum of the elbow, they get much better leverage on much stronger muscles (biceps beats finger flexors every time). Turns out the same trick works very nicely for an adult trying to grapple or pick up or throw another comparable-sized person.

There are just a handful of configurations that you need to be able to use in order to be able to do all of the koshiwaza and some of the ashiwaza...

elbow hook around uke's waist - any koshinage
elbow hook under uke's rear arm - sodeTKgoshi
elbow hook around uke's neck - kubinage
elbow hook under uke's lead arm - seoinage
elbow/armpit hook over uke's lead arm - makikomi

I recommend trying using hooks instead of grips, and putting them in relatively late - as in during tsukuri. I have gotten a lot of mileage out of this.

____________________

Patrick Parker

www.mokurendojo.com

Our current schedule

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 19:13:00 +0000

As of February 2012, our regular class schedule looks like this...
Monday
- 5:30 - Stick & sword
- 6:30 - Judo
Tuesday
- 5:30 - Kid's Judo
- 6:30 - Aikido
Thursday
- 5:30 - Kid's Judo
- 6:30 - Judo
Friday
- 5:30 - Stick & sword
- 6:30 - Aikido
Saturday
- private lessons by previous arrangement

The heart of the jo

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:20:00 +0000

There is an old aphorism... "The heart of the jo is an arrow."

I enjoy aphorisms like this because they are frequently multi-faceted. One can often draw multiple lessons from a statement like this.

In a purely superficial sense, one could take this to mean that both are long, cylindrical wooden objects, with the jo a bit larger, such that the arrow could fit within the jo, or that one could perhaps carve an arrow out of a jo.

More usefully and instructively, I've always taken this to mean that it is just the very tip that is the sweet spot for striking - that the rest of the jo is a delivery vehicle for the tip - just like in an arrow, the shaft and fletching is the delivery vehicle for the arrowhead. One of my instructors was fond of calling the jo a "one-inch long weapon with a fifty-inch long handle."

You can also glean from this aphorism that, just like an arrow, the jo is not useful unless it is pointed at the opponent.

This past weekend I learned another interpretation of this aphorism. An arrow is not immediately useful unless it is fitted to a bow and drawn - that is, placed under tension. In the same way, the SMR jo is frequently compressed between the practitioner's hands so that to thrust or strike with it, just like with an arrow, you release it.

The jo is not just being held in position by the hands, it is being actively propelled by one hand and restrained by the other, sort of like pressing both the brake and the accelerator in your car at the same time.

Whenever both ends of the jo are palmed, the hands are squeezing toegther, compressing the jo, almost as if the jo is straining to leap forward into the heart of the enemy and the only things holding it back are the jodoka's front hand and his will.

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____________________
Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com

Randori in jodo

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 18:18:00 +0000

There is randori in jodo. Perhaps not like the randori that you are used to in aikido or judo. Probably unlike any randori that you're familiar with, but it is a very interesting form of contest.

It is a contest of wills, and it takes place at the end of every kata. It is similar to the way that judo's katamenokata is an interesting mix of kata and randori - in katamenokata, tori applies a technique and uke makes three escape or counter attempts, then submits.

At the end of each jodo kata, the two participants face one another and the uke makes a signal that he is willing to stop fighting, but it is a small gesture - he is not submitting, he is conceding a minor point. Tori then makes a gesture, withdrawing the jo, testing the uke's sincerity. Then he makes another gesture towards peace, taking the jo offline, testing uke still. it is not until uke has committed to his second step backward that he has enough momentum towards a condition of peace, that tori begins withdrawing.

We often think of this osami as just a ceremonial ending to the kata, but you can also look at it as randori. It has the properties of randori...

It is an engagement match with another participant
Each participant is testing the other. Tori is watching for any provocation from uke that would continue the fight. Uke is watching for any flaw or weakness (suki) in tori's posture or position or kamae - anything that would allow uke to return to aggression with impunity. Uke is also watchig tori for any overt aggressive provocation - too much of which would be an indication of his insincerity.
Either participant might "win" or "lose." The outcome is uncertain because it is not ever known which of the two will break first.

All of this takes the general form of a reverse arms race. Tension and suspicion is gradually allowed to subside, but there is always the possibility that the other participant is not what he seems, so both participants must keep kamae and exhibit zanshin.

This is a randori that takes place within the realm of the minds or the wills of the participants.

____________________

Patrick Parker

www.mokurendojo.com

Can't see the randori in junokata?

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Parker) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:42:00 +0000

In my last post I asserted that junokata is not an abstract, aesthetic, demonstration thing intended for aging judo masters. Rather, it was deliberately designed by Kano as practical randori education for relative beginners. At least, that's what Kano says/implies in his memoirs.

Of course, your next question to me should be, "Well, what are all those amazing randori lessons hidden in Junokata?" Short answer - I don't know for sure. I can't lie to you and claim to have gleaned all the cool ninja secrets from this exercise. Shoot, even Keiko Fukuda says in her book that the essence of this kata eluded her for most of her life, and she been practicing judo for about 55 years longer than me!

This brings to my mind the question... If Junokata was designed as a practical randori education, why is it so darn hard to glean any practical randori lessons from it? Seems to me it could be any (or several) of the following...

Junokata was not really designed as a practical randori thing - Parker is smoking the hoohoo weed again. I mean, two or three generations of Olympic judoka can't be wrong, can they?
Junokata has not been passed down to successive generations of judoka faithfully and intact, as Kano intended. The lessons have been obscured and the kata has become just an aesthetic demonstration thing that is only remotely and abstractly related to real judo.
Our understanding of the nature of randori has become so fundamentally skewed that we cannot see any relationship between Junokata and what we think randori is about. (AHA!)

I think the latter to be the most likely explanation. If Kano intended Junokata to really be a practical randori education (which he says he did), and if we cannot see any randori relevance in the kata, then it seems that we are having a crisis of misunderstanding related to our idea of what randori is about.

We might benefit from taking a good, thorough look at junokata and trying to figure out how it might possibly be the same thing as randori.

There is no falling in junokata, (interestingly, there is no falling in gonokata either) so perhaps randori is not really about forcing the other guy to fall down.
Randori is good, vigorous exercise, so perhaps Junokata is not about some flacid, insipid misunderstanding of "ju."
Junokata is done precisely and slowly, so perhaps randori should not be about applying explosive strength or moving faster than the other guy.
The only way to effectively "win" at randori without explosive strength and speed advantage is to apply effective kuzushi with proper timing, so perhaps we should be especially looking for the kuzushi and timing lessons in JNK.

What other parallels do you see between JNK and what randori should really be?

____________________

Patrick Parker