Sunday, April 03, 2005
Uno Sensei on Oshi Taoshi
I was in Imabari, Japan, for the Equinox (the Shunbun no Hi holiday in Japan). Imabari is my mom’s home town. And just by coincidence, it happens to be where Sensei Kenshi Uno resides and teaches aikido. He is a 7th dan and the third highest ranking active teacher in the Japan Aikido Association. Plus, since he runs a chain of English language cram schools, I never have to worry about my poor Japanese. He is quite happy to teach me in English.
He took me and the other yudansha aside for a bit to teach me (specifically me, since he talked in English) why oshi-taoshi is the embodiment of aikido. It was a very rewarding 20 minutes.
He began by explaining that Sokaku Takeda (the Daitoryu Aiki-jujutsu master who taught Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of modern Aikido) taught this teachnique first for a reason. And he numbered it first. It was his Technique #1 because he thought it so important. In turn, Ueshiba also though it most important and labeled it Ikkyo, which means First Technique.
The reason they thought it so important was that if you learn to do both the omote and ura versions of it (in Aikikai terminology, the irimi and tenkan versions) then you grasp how to both trick your opponent into moving in ways that you want, as well as how to not fight your opponent and always move with his motion.
It also teaches you both up-and-down kuzushi (breaking of balance) as well as backward-and-forward breaking of balance. And it shows you the importance of not mentally or physically fixating on any given technique or movement. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Up and down
Uno Sensei explained how Tomiki Sensei used a rowing motion to explain in the most basic way how you are supposed to raise an attacker’s arm and get under it to do oshi-taoshi. That’s the way the current kata is practiced. But there is a more direct method that involves exploiting the attacker’s natural tendencies to regain balance when it is broken.
Suppose that the attacker comes at you with an open handed tegatana strike (what we call a tsuki, or stab). He is right foot and right arm forward as he does so, trusting his right shote (heel of the hand) at you. You move forward to your left and pivot to avoid the strike. You end up standing with your left foot forward. Your upper body is more or less square with his arm, which is trust out, quite stiff (since he was trying to stab you), parallel to the floor at his shoulder level.
At this point, you trick him into raising his arm. All you have to do is very lightly grab his arm from above with both your hands, and slightly push down and squeeze—but just for a moment. Your hands almost immediately loosen. If you do this just right, it will sort of wack his arm down a bit, and his natural reaction will be to push up with his arm. (You have to do this just as he is at the most stretched out position as he is stabbing at you—right before his right foot hits the ground.) Since you, by that time, are not continuing to push down, when he pushes up, he meets no resistance and his arm will move up quite a bit—probably six inches to a foot at the hand end.
Since your hands are relaxed and light, they move up with that rising action, and if you are cupping your hands lightly around the arm, you will find that they naturally end up on the underside of uke’s arm. That is, uke has raised his arm up exactly where you want it to be so that you can do oshi taoshi.
This version of setting up the technique could hardly be simpler and gets at the idea of tricking your opponent into defeating himself.
Backwards and Forward
The point here is what to do if you attempt to do the technique and get stuck half way because uke resists. The thing to notice if you get to such an impasse is that you are stuck in a position where you are, essentially, failing to break uke’s balance forward. If the technique were working (which it ain’t), then you would complete the oshi-taoshi and push uke down to the floor.
What you have to realize is that a person’s balance is just as easily broken backwards as forwards, and that you should take advantage of that fact when you get to this sort of an impasse.
There are, of course, several things you could do. One would be to switch directly into ude gaeshi. That of course sends uke backwards. But the technique that Uno Sensei wanted to emphasize was the tenkan version of oshi-taoshi. (In aiki-kai terminology, this would be the tenkan version of ikkyo.)
In the impasse, you will be standing right foot forward, failing to push uke over. What you need to do is pivot backwards on your left foot. That is, the left foot stays where it is, and the right leg spins behind you. As it does, you push uke’s arm down into your center. As you finish the spin, uke is down on both knees and his free hand is on the ground. The elbow of the arm you are holding should be right up against your pelvic bones. It is covered by your left palm. Meanwhile your right hand is by your right hip bone, clutching uke’s right wrist.
From here, you’d pin uke in the normal fashion.
Backward into Ushiro Ate
Another thing you can do if you get to a point where uke is resisting your attempt at the normal, forward version of oshi taoshi is to slip behind uke and do ushiro ate (for those of you not familiar with this technique, it basically involves going behind uke, draping both of your hands over his shoulders, and pulling him down backward.)
The key point, though, that Uno Sensei emphasized was that this transition from a failed oshi taoshi into a successful ushiro ate only works if you are obeying Tomiki Sensei’s injunction to practice Mushin Mugamae, or “No Heart, No Stance.” By this slogan Tomiki Sensei meant that you should not be fixated on the success of any particular technique (your heart shouldn’t be set on forcing a given technique that you have decided to attempt), and that you should also not be wedded to any particular method of achieving your goal (that is the no stance part, because, as we say in English, you will “stand your ground” if you are defiant or stubborn or proud. The blending of aikido is inconsistent with defiance, stubbornness, and pride.)
If you get to the point in the failed oshi taoshi where you and uke are both pressing at each other hard, you should not keep trying to maintain the stance you are in. That would be the total opposite of Mugamae (no stance). If you keep trying to maintain your stance, your feet will be welded to the floor and you’ll be stuck.
Instead, you should be very relaxed as you are pushing at uke. Sure, you are pushing with enough force so that his force does not knock you over, but you are not welded to the floor, and you are not attached to your current stance. If you have that sort of relaxedness, you will find that it is very, very easy to disengage suddenly and smoothly and move behind uke to throw him with ushiro ate. If, however, you are committed—even temporarily—to holding your current impasse with uke, you are not going to be able to move instantaneously and smoothly behind uke. Instead, if you attempt it, you will feel like a bike chain suddenly slipping a few notches on the gears. It won’t work well.
The key to Mugamae in this case, however, is Mushin (no metal fixation). If you get to the moment of impasse where you are pushing at uke and he at you and the net force is zero and there is no movement, then you have a mental problem. You are not using mushin. Rather, you are trying to force the technique, and then trying to force the continuance of the impasse.
If you get to the impasse and your first though is that you can’t stop pushing because to do so would be worse than not pushing, then you are not using Mushin. You may get to the impasse, but you if you are using Mushin, you should be fully aware of all the possibilities that are brought up by the impasse and you should naturally, without fixating on any one of them, move on to one of them. And, in this case, one of them is to move on to ushiro ate. But, as you are doing so, you should keep on using Mushin so that you are not committed to attempting ushro ate, either. For instance, if uke whips around to face you as you are going for usiro ate, your fixation on attempting usiro ate will be comically futile as it will only slow you down as you attempt to respond to the changed circumstance.
He took me and the other yudansha aside for a bit to teach me (specifically me, since he talked in English) why oshi-taoshi is the embodiment of aikido. It was a very rewarding 20 minutes.
He began by explaining that Sokaku Takeda (the Daitoryu Aiki-jujutsu master who taught Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of modern Aikido) taught this teachnique first for a reason. And he numbered it first. It was his Technique #1 because he thought it so important. In turn, Ueshiba also though it most important and labeled it Ikkyo, which means First Technique.
The reason they thought it so important was that if you learn to do both the omote and ura versions of it (in Aikikai terminology, the irimi and tenkan versions) then you grasp how to both trick your opponent into moving in ways that you want, as well as how to not fight your opponent and always move with his motion.
It also teaches you both up-and-down kuzushi (breaking of balance) as well as backward-and-forward breaking of balance. And it shows you the importance of not mentally or physically fixating on any given technique or movement. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Up and down
Uno Sensei explained how Tomiki Sensei used a rowing motion to explain in the most basic way how you are supposed to raise an attacker’s arm and get under it to do oshi-taoshi. That’s the way the current kata is practiced. But there is a more direct method that involves exploiting the attacker’s natural tendencies to regain balance when it is broken.
Suppose that the attacker comes at you with an open handed tegatana strike (what we call a tsuki, or stab). He is right foot and right arm forward as he does so, trusting his right shote (heel of the hand) at you. You move forward to your left and pivot to avoid the strike. You end up standing with your left foot forward. Your upper body is more or less square with his arm, which is trust out, quite stiff (since he was trying to stab you), parallel to the floor at his shoulder level.
At this point, you trick him into raising his arm. All you have to do is very lightly grab his arm from above with both your hands, and slightly push down and squeeze—but just for a moment. Your hands almost immediately loosen. If you do this just right, it will sort of wack his arm down a bit, and his natural reaction will be to push up with his arm. (You have to do this just as he is at the most stretched out position as he is stabbing at you—right before his right foot hits the ground.) Since you, by that time, are not continuing to push down, when he pushes up, he meets no resistance and his arm will move up quite a bit—probably six inches to a foot at the hand end.
Since your hands are relaxed and light, they move up with that rising action, and if you are cupping your hands lightly around the arm, you will find that they naturally end up on the underside of uke’s arm. That is, uke has raised his arm up exactly where you want it to be so that you can do oshi taoshi.
This version of setting up the technique could hardly be simpler and gets at the idea of tricking your opponent into defeating himself.
Backwards and Forward
The point here is what to do if you attempt to do the technique and get stuck half way because uke resists. The thing to notice if you get to such an impasse is that you are stuck in a position where you are, essentially, failing to break uke’s balance forward. If the technique were working (which it ain’t), then you would complete the oshi-taoshi and push uke down to the floor.
What you have to realize is that a person’s balance is just as easily broken backwards as forwards, and that you should take advantage of that fact when you get to this sort of an impasse.
There are, of course, several things you could do. One would be to switch directly into ude gaeshi. That of course sends uke backwards. But the technique that Uno Sensei wanted to emphasize was the tenkan version of oshi-taoshi. (In aiki-kai terminology, this would be the tenkan version of ikkyo.)
In the impasse, you will be standing right foot forward, failing to push uke over. What you need to do is pivot backwards on your left foot. That is, the left foot stays where it is, and the right leg spins behind you. As it does, you push uke’s arm down into your center. As you finish the spin, uke is down on both knees and his free hand is on the ground. The elbow of the arm you are holding should be right up against your pelvic bones. It is covered by your left palm. Meanwhile your right hand is by your right hip bone, clutching uke’s right wrist.
From here, you’d pin uke in the normal fashion.
Backward into Ushiro Ate
Another thing you can do if you get to a point where uke is resisting your attempt at the normal, forward version of oshi taoshi is to slip behind uke and do ushiro ate (for those of you not familiar with this technique, it basically involves going behind uke, draping both of your hands over his shoulders, and pulling him down backward.)
The key point, though, that Uno Sensei emphasized was that this transition from a failed oshi taoshi into a successful ushiro ate only works if you are obeying Tomiki Sensei’s injunction to practice Mushin Mugamae, or “No Heart, No Stance.” By this slogan Tomiki Sensei meant that you should not be fixated on the success of any particular technique (your heart shouldn’t be set on forcing a given technique that you have decided to attempt), and that you should also not be wedded to any particular method of achieving your goal (that is the no stance part, because, as we say in English, you will “stand your ground” if you are defiant or stubborn or proud. The blending of aikido is inconsistent with defiance, stubbornness, and pride.)
If you get to the point in the failed oshi taoshi where you and uke are both pressing at each other hard, you should not keep trying to maintain the stance you are in. That would be the total opposite of Mugamae (no stance). If you keep trying to maintain your stance, your feet will be welded to the floor and you’ll be stuck.
Instead, you should be very relaxed as you are pushing at uke. Sure, you are pushing with enough force so that his force does not knock you over, but you are not welded to the floor, and you are not attached to your current stance. If you have that sort of relaxedness, you will find that it is very, very easy to disengage suddenly and smoothly and move behind uke to throw him with ushiro ate. If, however, you are committed—even temporarily—to holding your current impasse with uke, you are not going to be able to move instantaneously and smoothly behind uke. Instead, if you attempt it, you will feel like a bike chain suddenly slipping a few notches on the gears. It won’t work well.
The key to Mugamae in this case, however, is Mushin (no metal fixation). If you get to the moment of impasse where you are pushing at uke and he at you and the net force is zero and there is no movement, then you have a mental problem. You are not using mushin. Rather, you are trying to force the technique, and then trying to force the continuance of the impasse.
If you get to the impasse and your first though is that you can’t stop pushing because to do so would be worse than not pushing, then you are not using Mushin. You may get to the impasse, but you if you are using Mushin, you should be fully aware of all the possibilities that are brought up by the impasse and you should naturally, without fixating on any one of them, move on to one of them. And, in this case, one of them is to move on to ushiro ate. But, as you are doing so, you should keep on using Mushin so that you are not committed to attempting ushro ate, either. For instance, if uke whips around to face you as you are going for usiro ate, your fixation on attempting usiro ate will be comically futile as it will only slow you down as you attempt to respond to the changed circumstance.
