Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Some Shote Awase Drills
Timing and Ma-ia Drills from Shote Awase
At Shodokan, they have quite a few drills that build on shote awase to develop proper fighting posture and timing while moving.
Shote awase is of course practiced in nearly every Tomiki aikido club in the world. It is the drill where both uke and torii stand in aigamae (matching postures) with tegatana extended in front of them on their center lines and just barely touching. That distance is of course ma-ai, or proper distance.
And the normal drill is to simply move smoothly across the floor in random directions, both people keeping proper erect posture, unbending tegatana, and using proper sliding footwork.
Here are some variations.
No Arms
Start with your arms up, facing each other standing still in the normal way. This will get you to proper ma-ai distance.
Then put the arms down. Now move about randomly trying to keep at exactly proper distance from each other while maintaining good posture, ete. And don’t forget the metsuke—you have to look at the opponent’s eyes.
With Arms, Shomen ate When “Attacked”
In this version, you are touching tegatana and moving about as in the standard version. Now and again, however, at random times uke raises up his off arm as if about to punch. At those times—as soon as torii notices this “attack”—torii pushes forward with his tegatana right towards uke’s throat in order to break uke’s balance.
To facilitate this, uke allows the elbow of his tegatana arm to collapse. The result is that torii’s tegatana ends up pushing through uke’s tegatana hand, which ends up sandwiched between uke’s chest and torii’s pushing tegatana.
Torii slides forward enough to not only collapse uke’s tegatana, but to also break uke’s balance backwards. They then return to proper stances and continue. After maybe 30-60 seconds, they switch rolls as uke and torii.
But don’t think that the “attacks” are only punches. You should also mix in kicks. But don’t actually kick, of course. All you do as uke is to plant your weight on one foot and then raise the other knee up, as if preparing to do a front snap kick with that raised leg.
As soon as uke sees the movement towards a kick beginning, he as before pushes forward into uke’s center with his tegatana, collapsing uke’s tegatana, before pushing through uke to break his balance. You’ll find that if your timing is good, you’ll have them off balance and falling backwards well before they could get off a good kick with any real power.
With Arms, Junana Hon
In this version, uke and torii start with the normal version, touching tegatana and moving about rather randomly.
At the side of the room, however, sensei is waiting to call out technique names from the Junanan hon. If, for instance, he calls out Tenkai Kote Hineri, then the torii will do that technique (usually only as far as the kuzushi, but you can also do the throw.) They then go back to doing shote awase until the next technique is called out.
With Arms, Kaeshi Waza
In this version, uke and torii start with the normal version, touching tegatana and moving about rather randomly.
But then sensei will call out the name of one of the Junana hon techniques. At this point, uke attempts to do the technique, and as he does, torii responds with a kaeshi waza (a counter technique.) The counter techniques are usually the standard ones from the Juppon Ura Waza, but you can modify the drill to suit your tastes.
Ki Phrase of the Day
Ki ga omoi literally means that your ki is heavy. And like the English language expression “to be heavy hearted,” it idiomatically expresses the idea that you are feeling depressed about something, usually a burdensome duty or task. It refers to a temporary state of mind rather than a person’s ongoing character.
At Shodokan, they have quite a few drills that build on shote awase to develop proper fighting posture and timing while moving.
Shote awase is of course practiced in nearly every Tomiki aikido club in the world. It is the drill where both uke and torii stand in aigamae (matching postures) with tegatana extended in front of them on their center lines and just barely touching. That distance is of course ma-ai, or proper distance.
And the normal drill is to simply move smoothly across the floor in random directions, both people keeping proper erect posture, unbending tegatana, and using proper sliding footwork.
Here are some variations.
No Arms
Start with your arms up, facing each other standing still in the normal way. This will get you to proper ma-ai distance.
Then put the arms down. Now move about randomly trying to keep at exactly proper distance from each other while maintaining good posture, ete. And don’t forget the metsuke—you have to look at the opponent’s eyes.
With Arms, Shomen ate When “Attacked”
In this version, you are touching tegatana and moving about as in the standard version. Now and again, however, at random times uke raises up his off arm as if about to punch. At those times—as soon as torii notices this “attack”—torii pushes forward with his tegatana right towards uke’s throat in order to break uke’s balance.
To facilitate this, uke allows the elbow of his tegatana arm to collapse. The result is that torii’s tegatana ends up pushing through uke’s tegatana hand, which ends up sandwiched between uke’s chest and torii’s pushing tegatana.
Torii slides forward enough to not only collapse uke’s tegatana, but to also break uke’s balance backwards. They then return to proper stances and continue. After maybe 30-60 seconds, they switch rolls as uke and torii.
But don’t think that the “attacks” are only punches. You should also mix in kicks. But don’t actually kick, of course. All you do as uke is to plant your weight on one foot and then raise the other knee up, as if preparing to do a front snap kick with that raised leg.
As soon as uke sees the movement towards a kick beginning, he as before pushes forward into uke’s center with his tegatana, collapsing uke’s tegatana, before pushing through uke to break his balance. You’ll find that if your timing is good, you’ll have them off balance and falling backwards well before they could get off a good kick with any real power.
With Arms, Junana Hon
In this version, uke and torii start with the normal version, touching tegatana and moving about rather randomly.
At the side of the room, however, sensei is waiting to call out technique names from the Junanan hon. If, for instance, he calls out Tenkai Kote Hineri, then the torii will do that technique (usually only as far as the kuzushi, but you can also do the throw.) They then go back to doing shote awase until the next technique is called out.
With Arms, Kaeshi Waza
In this version, uke and torii start with the normal version, touching tegatana and moving about rather randomly.
But then sensei will call out the name of one of the Junana hon techniques. At this point, uke attempts to do the technique, and as he does, torii responds with a kaeshi waza (a counter technique.) The counter techniques are usually the standard ones from the Juppon Ura Waza, but you can modify the drill to suit your tastes.
Ki Phrase of the Day
Ki ga omoi literally means that your ki is heavy. And like the English language expression “to be heavy hearted,” it idiomatically expresses the idea that you are feeling depressed about something, usually a burdensome duty or task. It refers to a temporary state of mind rather than a person’s ongoing character.
