Monday, January 24, 2005
It's Good To Be Back
Last night, I practiced at Shodokan Dojo in Osaka for the first time in five years. What sublime pleasure!
As much as I enjoy teaching aikido, it's really much more fun to just be a student and at a world class dojo like Shodokan, I'll always just be a student.
There are two evening practices. One runs from about 6:30 to about 8:00. It stresses basics and drills and techniques from the basic kyu rank and dan rank curriculum. The second runs from about 8:30 to about 9:30 and is applications, that is, interesting variations on the standard techniques.
During the first practice, you might do kotegaeshi out of normal wrist grabs. In the applications practice, you would find yourself doing kotegaeshi after being grabbed from behind by the collar, for instance, or from a choke, etc. Applications.
As usual, Nariyama Sensei ran a tight ship. After a short warm up, it was off to drills. He uses a stopwatch, calls out each drill and off you go. There were all the standards: shote awase (the pushing drill where you each push using fully extended tegatana and uke slowly gives ground); lots of very light run throughs of the Nanahon Nage Kuzushi Waza; tegatana awase (where you dance about maintaining proper posture and distance while both you and uke lightly tough tegatanas); Gassho no Renshu defense against strikes and kicks; Ippon Bogyo, which is much the same except you only defend with one tegatana to block rather than both in a prayer position as with Gassho no Renshu; and a version of tegatana awase where uke sometimes begins either a punch or a kick and as soon as he does, you push in with a shomen-ate towards uke's neck, thereby breaking his balance and collapsing his tegatana arm; and so on.
A fun variation that I had forgotten about was doing tegatana awase without the tegatana. Start in the normal position, just touching tegatana. Then lower your arms. (Both you and uke lower your arms.) Then dance about, maintaining proper distance. It's quite fun and when sensei yells stop, you can both raise your arms to see if you, as a couple, have indeed maintained proper distnce. They tegatana should, of course just touch.
For the rest of practice, sensei sent us through sets of techniques. The first set was from matching (aigamae) posture (both uke and torii standing with right feet forward, for instance). Uke then does a cross-hand grab (aigamae katate dori), grabbing torii's right wrist with his own right hand. There are then three techniques in the set. They are all variations of oshi taoshi.
For the first, uke just grabs. For the second, he grabs and then pulls. For the third, he grabs and pushes.
For the first, enter in the normal way (forearm rotating to bend uke's elbow, left hand coming up to push on uke's bent elbow ) and then do oshi taoshi.
For the second, when uke pulls, you're going to do the ura (backward spinning) version of the technique. As he pulls, enter right foot forward, rotating the forearm to bend his elbow. As usual the left hand comes up to the elbow. But then slide your left leg forward, so that it sits to the the outside of uke's right foot. Now spin backwards. Pivot on the left foot, with your right leg swinging behind you. Push on uke's elbow as you do and spin him down.
For the third, when uke pushes, you're going to first give ground by spinning backwards. Pivot on your right foot (which was in front to begin with), with your left leg swining behind you. Go about 270 degrees. Then swing back sharply, raising your arms as you do. This will get uke into the position to do oshi-taoshi. From uke's perspective, when he pushes and you give ground, he falls forward. Just as he's trying to right him self, that's when you spin back into him. He gets rasied more than he was intending to rise, and his arm is up, and he is now an easy prey for oshi-taoshi.
Some thoughts about Japan and how it's changed in the last five years.
Every package of disposable chopsticks now comes with a toothpick. Living standards rise in strange ways.
You can now get reasonably soft toilet paper nearly everywhere.
Dental floss is still very rare.
Everything in the country now seems to be handicap accesible.
The Japanese obsession with cell phones has noticably reduced the number of people reading on subway cars. A large fraction of those under 40 years old spend their time text messaging rather than reading. I can only imagine that this will make the Japanese dumber.
As much as I enjoy teaching aikido, it's really much more fun to just be a student and at a world class dojo like Shodokan, I'll always just be a student.
There are two evening practices. One runs from about 6:30 to about 8:00. It stresses basics and drills and techniques from the basic kyu rank and dan rank curriculum. The second runs from about 8:30 to about 9:30 and is applications, that is, interesting variations on the standard techniques.
During the first practice, you might do kotegaeshi out of normal wrist grabs. In the applications practice, you would find yourself doing kotegaeshi after being grabbed from behind by the collar, for instance, or from a choke, etc. Applications.
As usual, Nariyama Sensei ran a tight ship. After a short warm up, it was off to drills. He uses a stopwatch, calls out each drill and off you go. There were all the standards: shote awase (the pushing drill where you each push using fully extended tegatana and uke slowly gives ground); lots of very light run throughs of the Nanahon Nage Kuzushi Waza; tegatana awase (where you dance about maintaining proper posture and distance while both you and uke lightly tough tegatanas); Gassho no Renshu defense against strikes and kicks; Ippon Bogyo, which is much the same except you only defend with one tegatana to block rather than both in a prayer position as with Gassho no Renshu; and a version of tegatana awase where uke sometimes begins either a punch or a kick and as soon as he does, you push in with a shomen-ate towards uke's neck, thereby breaking his balance and collapsing his tegatana arm; and so on.
A fun variation that I had forgotten about was doing tegatana awase without the tegatana. Start in the normal position, just touching tegatana. Then lower your arms. (Both you and uke lower your arms.) Then dance about, maintaining proper distance. It's quite fun and when sensei yells stop, you can both raise your arms to see if you, as a couple, have indeed maintained proper distnce. They tegatana should, of course just touch.
For the rest of practice, sensei sent us through sets of techniques. The first set was from matching (aigamae) posture (both uke and torii standing with right feet forward, for instance). Uke then does a cross-hand grab (aigamae katate dori), grabbing torii's right wrist with his own right hand. There are then three techniques in the set. They are all variations of oshi taoshi.
For the first, uke just grabs. For the second, he grabs and then pulls. For the third, he grabs and pushes.
For the first, enter in the normal way (forearm rotating to bend uke's elbow, left hand coming up to push on uke's bent elbow ) and then do oshi taoshi.
For the second, when uke pulls, you're going to do the ura (backward spinning) version of the technique. As he pulls, enter right foot forward, rotating the forearm to bend his elbow. As usual the left hand comes up to the elbow. But then slide your left leg forward, so that it sits to the the outside of uke's right foot. Now spin backwards. Pivot on the left foot, with your right leg swinging behind you. Push on uke's elbow as you do and spin him down.
For the third, when uke pushes, you're going to first give ground by spinning backwards. Pivot on your right foot (which was in front to begin with), with your left leg swining behind you. Go about 270 degrees. Then swing back sharply, raising your arms as you do. This will get uke into the position to do oshi-taoshi. From uke's perspective, when he pushes and you give ground, he falls forward. Just as he's trying to right him self, that's when you spin back into him. He gets rasied more than he was intending to rise, and his arm is up, and he is now an easy prey for oshi-taoshi.
Some thoughts about Japan and how it's changed in the last five years.
Every package of disposable chopsticks now comes with a toothpick. Living standards rise in strange ways.
You can now get reasonably soft toilet paper nearly everywhere.
Dental floss is still very rare.
Everything in the country now seems to be handicap accesible.
The Japanese obsession with cell phones has noticably reduced the number of people reading on subway cars. A large fraction of those under 40 years old spend their time text messaging rather than reading. I can only imagine that this will make the Japanese dumber.
