protectivearts

JOINT CONTROL

Any martial artist must study the use and limitations of the body; its structure and mechanics – and specifically its joints. (The banner image shows the major synovial joints of the skeletal system.) In Aikido, we are principally concerned with the control of the opponent’s “center” but the techniques achieve this by working from theContinue reading “JOINT CONTROL”

GYAKU HANMI PROGRESSION

A class outline for progressive techniques from static gyaku hanmi katatae dori Gyaku hanmi katatae dori: what is it? A hand grab. Why? Uke stop-hits a thrust, taking control of nage’s knife hand. From the grab, each player needs to match extension to create the dynamic tension necessary for a static encounter. Nage’s focus isContinue reading “GYAKU HANMI PROGRESSION”

AI and Totalitarianism

The BBC reported Google’s DeepMind has been defeating world-champion human competitors in Go and Chess – all without knowing the rules of play prior to the engagement. In 2016, we introduced AlphaGo, the first artificial intelligence (AI) program to defeat humans at the ancient game of Go. Two years later, its successor – AlphaZero – learned from scratchContinue reading “AI and Totalitarianism”