Thursday, January 27, 2005
Some Thoughts on Taisabaki
Non-Japanese aikido players tend to be very bad at taisabaki, the avoidance of an attack in such a way that you are in a good position thereafter to respond with an effective technique.
The honest reason is that we just don't practice it enough. A more shocking thing that has become apparent to me on this trip is that you don't have to practice all that much to get good at it. You just need to do it all the time.
Nearly every practice session at Shodokan ends with about 10 minutes of tanto taisabaki practice. That's all. But 10 minutes a practice soon produces very good taisabaki.
The way they do it is to have toshu (the unarmed person) and tanto (the person holding the dagger) stand at ma-ai (proper distance). Since two points obviously make a line, they're standing on a line. And they will continue to use that line throughout the drill.
Tanto moves forward and stabs at toshu's heart--but stabs right over the line so that even if toshu moves, tanto just stabs over the line. It is a drill, not a contest.
Toshu then uses good sliding footwork to get off the line and do a taisabaki movement of his choice (to the side, to a front diagonal, whatever.) They then both turn around, so that they are again standing on the same line, but now have reversed positions. That is, toshu is now standing where tanto used to be, and tanto is now standing where toshu used to be.
Then toshu stabs again, and tanto gets out of the way by doing a good taisabaki. And they again pass each other, reversing places.
And they do this over and over.
But with variations.
The first time they do it (about 60 seconds each as tanto and toshu), the toshu's arms stay by his side. That is, there is no arm blocking at all, nor any attempts by toshu to grab tanto's stabbing arm.
When those two minutes are done, a rotation takes place in the dojo so that everybody ends up with a new partner.
Then they modify the drill by allowing toshu to not only get out of the way but to use arm blocks and even to lightly grab tanto's stabbing arm. The point is to be able to move smoothly and quickly out of the way of an attack and then be in a position to grab the stabbing arm properly--that is, with your hands in front of your center line and your weight well balanced between your two feet.
Again, this happens for about two minutes, with each person doing 60 seconds as toshu and 60 seconds as tanto.
Then, a rotation takes place in the dojo such that everyone gets a new partner again.
Then, there is another modification of the drill. Here, you are allowed to not only grab uke's stabbing arm, but then to do the beginning part of a technique in order to break uke's balance. Since the point of the drill is for toshu to do good taisabaki and then to get kuzushi (balance breaking) on tanto, the drill stops each time after kuzushi is achieved. The kuzushi is not followed up by throws or locks. In addition, leaving the final part of the technique out saves a lot of time so that many more repetitions can be done in the limited time.
And that's basically it. Sometimes they do two or three rounds of one of these variations (so a couple with no arms, or a couple with just grabbing, or a couple with grabbing and kuzushi), but the total time spent is typically no more than 10 minutes.
Which isn't much. But is more than sufficient to develop great taisabaki skills. I think it is a practice that more non-Japanese dojos should consider doing since it takes so little time and yields such huge results.
Even the brown belts at Shodokan do better taisabaki than I do. Their movements to avoid a stab are are crisp, well balanced, and leaved them perfectly positioned to do a technique before for the small window of opportunity presented by a stab has passed. It is a skill I sorely need to work on.
Ki Phrase of the Day
I am reading a wonderful book about the Japanese language called Nihongo: A Japanese approach to Japanese. It's author is Makoto Sugawara, a Japanese journalist who for many years wrote a newspaper column that tried to explain to foreigners the subtleties of Japanese. The book is by far the best explanation not only of the Japanese language but also of Japanese culture that I've ever come across.
A fun chapter in the book concerns the word ki, which translates as spirit or energy in most cases. It is a big deal in Japanese since it is used idiomatically in dozens of phrases having to do with a person's state of mind or character.
Since it's also part of Ai-ki-do, I think it will be fun if I pass along some of these usages of the word ki so that aikido practitioners can get a better appreciation of its meaning.
So, here is the first Ki Phrase of the Day.
Ki ga ookii.
The sound ga is used in Japanese to make whatever word proceeds it the subject of a sentence. So you know that in this sentence ki is the subject. The word ookii means big. (The initial o sound is like the O in OK. The i sound is like the i in igloo. The oo doesn't mean to say two separate o sounds, like o-o. Rather it means hold the o sound for two beats. Similarly for the ii. It means to hold the i sound for two beats.)
So this literally means "The Ki is Big." Idiomatically, however, what it means is that a person is "emboldened and indifferent to trifling things." That is, it means you've got Big Spirit, and Big Energy. And will be bold--maybe even too bold.
The opposite of this idea is given by the espression,
Ki ga chiisai.
The word chiisai means small. So this sentence literally means that "The ki is small." But what it means idiomatically is a timid person, a person who is by nature cowardly or overly worried about trifling things.
A key difference between Ki ga ookii and Ki ga chiisai is that the former describes a temporary state of mind while the later describes a person's ongoing character.
More Japanese Novelties
Yesterday, I came across a very interesting sink in the men's room at Senri-chuo Station in Osaka. It is a sink that both runs and blows!
That is, the inner lip of the sink (the one you stand next to) has a built in hand blow dryer. The far side of the sink has both a soap nozzle as well as a water nozzle. Everything is attached to motion sensors.
So you first place your hands in front of the soap nozzle and foamy soap squirt out. You then place your hands in front of the water spigot and water comes out. And then, after you've washed off the soap, you bring your hands to the closer side of the skin and the built in hand blow dryer gets going. Its air flow is angled down, towards the drain so that any water blown off your hands gets sent downward into the bottom of the sink.
To make it all work, the sinks is rather deep and rather large, so that you have plenty of room to maneuver your hands around.
The honest reason is that we just don't practice it enough. A more shocking thing that has become apparent to me on this trip is that you don't have to practice all that much to get good at it. You just need to do it all the time.
Nearly every practice session at Shodokan ends with about 10 minutes of tanto taisabaki practice. That's all. But 10 minutes a practice soon produces very good taisabaki.
The way they do it is to have toshu (the unarmed person) and tanto (the person holding the dagger) stand at ma-ai (proper distance). Since two points obviously make a line, they're standing on a line. And they will continue to use that line throughout the drill.
Tanto moves forward and stabs at toshu's heart--but stabs right over the line so that even if toshu moves, tanto just stabs over the line. It is a drill, not a contest.
Toshu then uses good sliding footwork to get off the line and do a taisabaki movement of his choice (to the side, to a front diagonal, whatever.) They then both turn around, so that they are again standing on the same line, but now have reversed positions. That is, toshu is now standing where tanto used to be, and tanto is now standing where toshu used to be.
Then toshu stabs again, and tanto gets out of the way by doing a good taisabaki. And they again pass each other, reversing places.
And they do this over and over.
But with variations.
The first time they do it (about 60 seconds each as tanto and toshu), the toshu's arms stay by his side. That is, there is no arm blocking at all, nor any attempts by toshu to grab tanto's stabbing arm.
When those two minutes are done, a rotation takes place in the dojo so that everybody ends up with a new partner.
Then they modify the drill by allowing toshu to not only get out of the way but to use arm blocks and even to lightly grab tanto's stabbing arm. The point is to be able to move smoothly and quickly out of the way of an attack and then be in a position to grab the stabbing arm properly--that is, with your hands in front of your center line and your weight well balanced between your two feet.
Again, this happens for about two minutes, with each person doing 60 seconds as toshu and 60 seconds as tanto.
Then, a rotation takes place in the dojo such that everyone gets a new partner again.
Then, there is another modification of the drill. Here, you are allowed to not only grab uke's stabbing arm, but then to do the beginning part of a technique in order to break uke's balance. Since the point of the drill is for toshu to do good taisabaki and then to get kuzushi (balance breaking) on tanto, the drill stops each time after kuzushi is achieved. The kuzushi is not followed up by throws or locks. In addition, leaving the final part of the technique out saves a lot of time so that many more repetitions can be done in the limited time.
And that's basically it. Sometimes they do two or three rounds of one of these variations (so a couple with no arms, or a couple with just grabbing, or a couple with grabbing and kuzushi), but the total time spent is typically no more than 10 minutes.
Which isn't much. But is more than sufficient to develop great taisabaki skills. I think it is a practice that more non-Japanese dojos should consider doing since it takes so little time and yields such huge results.
Even the brown belts at Shodokan do better taisabaki than I do. Their movements to avoid a stab are are crisp, well balanced, and leaved them perfectly positioned to do a technique before for the small window of opportunity presented by a stab has passed. It is a skill I sorely need to work on.
Ki Phrase of the Day
I am reading a wonderful book about the Japanese language called Nihongo: A Japanese approach to Japanese. It's author is Makoto Sugawara, a Japanese journalist who for many years wrote a newspaper column that tried to explain to foreigners the subtleties of Japanese. The book is by far the best explanation not only of the Japanese language but also of Japanese culture that I've ever come across.
A fun chapter in the book concerns the word ki, which translates as spirit or energy in most cases. It is a big deal in Japanese since it is used idiomatically in dozens of phrases having to do with a person's state of mind or character.
Since it's also part of Ai-ki-do, I think it will be fun if I pass along some of these usages of the word ki so that aikido practitioners can get a better appreciation of its meaning.
So, here is the first Ki Phrase of the Day.
Ki ga ookii.
The sound ga is used in Japanese to make whatever word proceeds it the subject of a sentence. So you know that in this sentence ki is the subject. The word ookii means big. (The initial o sound is like the O in OK. The i sound is like the i in igloo. The oo doesn't mean to say two separate o sounds, like o-o. Rather it means hold the o sound for two beats. Similarly for the ii. It means to hold the i sound for two beats.)
So this literally means "The Ki is Big." Idiomatically, however, what it means is that a person is "emboldened and indifferent to trifling things." That is, it means you've got Big Spirit, and Big Energy. And will be bold--maybe even too bold.
The opposite of this idea is given by the espression,
Ki ga chiisai.
The word chiisai means small. So this sentence literally means that "The ki is small." But what it means idiomatically is a timid person, a person who is by nature cowardly or overly worried about trifling things.
A key difference between Ki ga ookii and Ki ga chiisai is that the former describes a temporary state of mind while the later describes a person's ongoing character.
More Japanese Novelties
Yesterday, I came across a very interesting sink in the men's room at Senri-chuo Station in Osaka. It is a sink that both runs and blows!
That is, the inner lip of the sink (the one you stand next to) has a built in hand blow dryer. The far side of the sink has both a soap nozzle as well as a water nozzle. Everything is attached to motion sensors.
So you first place your hands in front of the soap nozzle and foamy soap squirt out. You then place your hands in front of the water spigot and water comes out. And then, after you've washed off the soap, you bring your hands to the closer side of the skin and the built in hand blow dryer gets going. Its air flow is angled down, towards the drain so that any water blown off your hands gets sent downward into the bottom of the sink.
To make it all work, the sinks is rather deep and rather large, so that you have plenty of room to maneuver your hands around.
