Protective Arts

E. D. C.

As a parent, every time I hear “Dad, have do you know where my ___ is?” My chiding response is, “Why would I know where Your ___ is.” Strong emphasis on the possessive pronoun. I try to convey the importance of properly accounting for Your stuff. It’s just part of being prepared. And organized. You don’t waste time looking for stuff when it is properly put away. Keep it simple stupid (KISS) and put it away the first time.

If you don’t have time to do it right now, when will you have time to fix it?

I am by no means an organizational expert, but I keep close track of the important basics and put them in the same place everyday so that I always know where they are. These items are my everyday carry – EDC. Everyone has an EDC – you just may not have thought about it: cell phone, keys, ID … your daily essentials.

There are websites that make a fetish of EDC gear – and they are fun to review.

But having a thoughtful EDC program is important. If you don’t like the ‘prepper’ connotation, then think about a well-managed kitchen – mise en place – everything in its place and a purpose for everything.

I would encourage considering adding to your EDC essentials those items that will easily improve your preparedness and self-reliance. There are a great many good web pages devoted to exploring the topic of EDCs including those with prepackaged selections based on your lifestyle aspirations to the more realistic compiled list by those who have been there and done that.

My minimal EDC has to fit comfortably in either dress slacks or jeans: cell phone / keys / wallet / flashlight / pocket knife / pen / automatic watch.

Cell phone. Smartphones are a regrettable business necessity – constant contact, but with the benefit of instant access to information, directions, entertainment, and a flashlight.

Keys. Keeping keys low profile and organized – I prefer a KeySmart system with a metal flash drive to store and transfer information.[1] You may want to consider keeping your house keys separate from your car keys for what should be obvious reasons.

Wallet. Given credit card copying technology, I suggest a metal or carbon fiber low-profile RFID blocking wallet. Ridge used to corner the market, but now there is a good variety of choices.

Flashlight. I use my flashlight almost daily. My favorite light is the Streamlight Stylus because it is lightweight, slim, bright, and uses common batteries. It carries easily in the pocket, doesn’t ruin the lines of dress slacks, but is plenty bright for self-defense (target identification and momentary blinding) and can be used as a mini-impact device.

Pocket knife. As an EDC I like the Kershaw Leek. Again, it is lightweight and slim and doesn’t add bulk. The blade length is legal almost everywhere, as is the opening mechanism, and it is inexpensive. (I own several more expensive knives but would hate to break or lose them.) The blade geometry provides a needle sharp tip on a near Wharncliffe design. Why Wharncliffe? Review Michael Janich‘s material on defensive folders. Why a needle point? Sometimes it has to be point over the edge.

Pen. I love fountain pens. I own a nice one but never use it because it is simply too much trouble to maintain. (Sean Connery well exploits a fountain pen in Indian Jones and the Last Crusade.) I used to have a decent tactical pen. Going through TSA I had to play the ‘good guy’ card to prevent it from being confiscated. I gave up on the tactical pen – they draw attention, are bulky and, when you know how to use one, over-designed. If you are trying to punch through body armor with a pen, you got the wrong tool son. Now I carry whatever rigid ballpoint I got from the last swag vendor give away, they work just fine on soft targets. If you want more upscale ideas >here< are some good recommendations.

Automatic watch. In addition to telling time, an analog watch can be used as a rudimentary compass. I allow myself the vanity of an automatic movement because it is a complication I enjoy (and I justify it because it will work after the EMP pulse). There are more practical choices.

Bandanna. Most recently I have considered adding a bandanna – and specifically the Comtech Bandana. James Keating has specifically designed this bandanna as an ultimate concealed carry life-preservation tool. It can readily be adapted as a flexible weapon (think Charles Bronson in the first Death Wish movie) and defensive tool (think FMA). A simple piece of cloth can be an invaluable survival device. A belt, tie, or scarf could substitute for a bandanna, but why not have several options!

Sap Cap. I do not habitually wear a cap (or hat) but this may become part of my kit.

Notable recommended absences:

Fire source. I don’t smoke and therefore never think to carry a fire source. Because I am almost always in a city environment, I do not feel the need to carry a fire source daily. As soon as I leave town, I add a lighter.

Note book. The Moleskine notebook is a convenient carry size, plenty of paper for notes, sketches or as a fuel source for fire. Muji has some interesting pocket-sized and reasonably priced alternatives.

[1] Preserving information. Paper will always be a more durable format.

Read Off Grid, a slick publication

MULLIGAN SENSEI – JO WORKSHOP 2019

Mulligan sensei visited Portland Aikikai for a jō workshop (February 2019), the first seminar in the dojo’s new location. Portland Aikikai has the great benefit in long associating with Chris Mulligan who, from the dojo’s founding, was its primary weapons instructor.

Mulligan Portrait — Chris Mulligan Sensei

YouTube for more by Mulligan Sensei

There are definite ‘styles’ in the use of weapons in Aikido primarily because the post war generation looked outside of Aikido for additional training. Saito sensei codified the 20 jo suburi and maintained the takemusu kumi-jo of Aikido at Iwama, but others expanded beyond that curriculum to augment their understanding and depth.[1]

In earlier posts, I have mused over the fact that the use of weapons is the foundation of the art, and that the empty-hand forms are nothing more than weapon movement stripped of the context of budo. Nevertheless, weapon work is usually an ‘advanced’ form of training in Aikido and it makes a certain amount of pedagogical sense: weapon work requires a higher degree of accuracy and mental focus.

As I watched during the seminar, it was clear that the basic handling skills are being transmitted, as are the forms. The next step is to cultivate and hone a sense of gravitas, a sense of directed purpose behind the movements.

How you approach training determines the results. If your goal is simply to learn form and follow the kumi-jō (or kumi-ken), then rote memorization is all that is required. Beyond the forms is bunkai, the application which requires a more serious level of dedication. For that, you need think about progression and your training should be focused on functionality.

Focusing on functionality requires that all the exercises and drills should simultaneously progress toward being able to apply what you are learning. Training should develop the ability to actually perform the technique. As an example in the jō, just ask yourself: can your covers truly receive a full power strike?

Mulligan makiotoshi — Takumi and Mulligan sensei

As you learn the form, if you are serious, you need learn application. Remember, the form follows the function! The forms are not empty kata, they are responses to strikes at directed targets! So do not become overly enamored of learning the sequence when you cannot actually receive a powerful strike or deliver one with martial vigor. The cultivation of the spirit of Budo is to be fully dedicated to the action of the moment: focused attention on what is necessary at that time.

Mulligan hits Jun — Jun and Mulligan sensei

This sounds simple, but it is easy to become distracted from focusing on application. You can get lost is a progression of drills and replication on the paired forms without ever learning how to use them.

Mulligan sensei focused on limited action-responses to emphasize application. If you are able to do each of the actions with purposeful determination then linking them in a sequence (8-count, shansho, any of the kumi-jō) becomes a logic-chain resulting in a continuous flow.

Remember, all of these cool flow sequences are made-up! In the good old days, you may have learned from a mountain Tengu, but the weapon forms in Aikido are all recent developments. There is no magic in the sequence – dissect the sequence and find each segment in the logic chain and be able to make that action work.

Often we can get distracted from the basic actions because a progression/flow sequence is simply more fun. Once we get familiar with a sequence it is fun to do it faster and continue to improve – but there is a pitfall in working on the flow to the detriment of efficacy. We can forget that the flow may be the ai-ki lesson, but the budo is in the stop-hit. Learn both and you are on the path to mastery.

Hence the need for a clear and purposeful training to learn the physical skills necessary to apply the art (bunkai) in addition to the memorization of patterns.

First emulate the teacher. The monkey-see monkey-do stage is inevitable, but it is only a transitional period to learn the basic movement pattern – the form. Learn to mimic and copy the form of skilled practitioners. Emulating correct movement patterns is the easiest way to begin to develop a mental model. Video footage is helpful – learning by watching others can help you develop the ability to visualize the technique. (And watching video of yourself is an amazing feedback device.)

Internalize the external visual presentation and you have your mental model. Now learn the purpose of the technique.

Mulligan sensei was explicit in showing the target (hit the thumb/forward hand) en route to the killing thrust. This is the importance and power of context – understanding the purpose. You need to know what to do, when to use it and why to deploy that technique. Everything has its purposeful place in time. You need to be able to gauge the success of your training in achieving the expected outcome. Understanding the technique’s purpose adds depth to your mental model: know the form and what it is for.

With the basic model of form and purpose developed, students now need to begin to feel the technique as applied. This is where I have seen the training methods change over the years.

Although he did so only mildly during the workshop, Mulligan sensei would count out loud the number of times he hit me in training or during demonstrations. Yokomen, makiotoshi counter, striking my hand, “One.” Next strike, “Two.” Somewhat playful, but the lesson is real: learn to strike with earnest intent, learn to maintain contact, and be prepared to get hit. This requires fortitude. Are you willing to take a hit to better understand the technique? Pain as a teacher. It may be a necessary method to achieve excellence.

But there are ways to soften the blow. Look at the older video footage of Chiba sensei when he encouraged the use of hockey gloves to protect the hand, allowing full contact strikes. Proof of concept is in its execution at speed. You need to see and feel the technique. Visualizing the technique is the first step in internalizing the technique, but feeling it is the somatic integration.

You need to see the technique demonstrated correctly often so that you can maintain an image of it so you can hold it in your mind’s eye. Notice how Mulligan sensei developed a kata for the movement patterns in Sansho? If you can correctly see each node in the pattern, then linking the nodes becomes easier. But each number in the kata must be executed perfectly – pay attention to the footwork, body position, body mechanics and the hand movements. The kata will allow you to refine your skill and improve your ability to visualize. The easier you can visualize, the better you should be able to reproduce and instantiate the movements.[2]

While refining your mental model, the next state is to improve the quality of the mechanics – the raw physical deployment of the moves. The basic movement pattern needs to match your mental model but reproducing the movements consistently can only be done through repetition. Suburi is necessary – you cannot do 1,000 cuts incorrectly. The point is – push beyond your physical limits and the only way to continue to cut is with correct (effortless) form. You need to repeat that correct repetition until it is a habit – excellence is a habit.

Now add pressure – both mental and physical. Increase the muscularity of the strikes and the speed of the deployment. Do your mechanics break down – get sloppy? Progress until you can steadily gain in power and speed. Your visual acuity will increase as your mental model incorporates these variables – you should begin to compare your performance against the expected outcome. Did it work? It is your moral obligation to ensure that it does.

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[1] Simply watch video of Saito, Yamaguchi, Saotome, Chiba, Nishio, Tissier sensei as an entry into the stylistic differences.

[2] Review Chiba sensei’s basic jo responses – and note the later incorporation into Shansho. But do note that these refinements are all derivative as is Chiba sensei’s batto-ho.

All Photos by Russ Gorman (except the Tengu)

SWORD TAKE-AWAY: Tachidori

Testing for shodan requires demonstrating weapon take-away techniques against tanto, jo, and bokken. Simplify the phrasing and the concept we are discussing is disarms.

Here is the secret: all empty hand techniques in Aikido are disarms. You have been doing nothing but disarms since your first ikkyo omote. Aikido is not an unarmed art.

I have discussed the limitations of techniques over concept, so we start at the level of concept. Moving from the universal to the specific.

In response to any attack at contact range we can only either move to (1) engage or (2) evade. Both responses require a decisive mindset and purposeful movement to achieve the Prime Directive: Don’t Get Hit.

Engage v. Evade

To engage your timing needs be superior to your opponent – you are inside their OODA loop. Evading is a response to inferior timing (or a deceptive stratagem) and you need to avoid to break your opponent’s OODA loop.

A digression on Evading.

Kisshomaru Ueshiba recounts in his book Aikido (1985)

In spring 1925 a navy officer, a teacher of kendo, visited the Founder and asked to become his student. Then during a conversation, they happened to disagree over a trifle matter. Tempers rose. They agreed to have a match.[1] The officer dashed forward to strike him, swinging his wooden sword. The Founder dodged his sword very easily each time. The officer finally sat down exhausted without having once touched him.
Ueshiba, 1985:153

Evasion and the avoidance of conflict is the highest evolution of combative skill. To constantly avoid contact with a determined and trained opponent would require a level of budo that I can only dream about. Imagine being able to constantly slip Evander Holyfield’s punches until he stops from frustration and exhaustion, or contending with Bas Rutten by continuously evading a clinch. To prevail by evading would necessitate being far better skilled and better conditioned than your opponent. The more pragmatically minded Ed Parker pointed out that if you do not stop your assailant in the first attack, then you are not fighting one opponent, but two. Fail to stop the attacker on the second engagement, then you are fighting three opponents. Simple math. Longer encounters are equivalent to multiple opponents. Time is your enemy, draining your resources. Even ‘effortless’ techniques take energy. In the Newtonian universe I inhabit, you cannot win by defending. Hence the need to engage.

The logic chain (order of operation) for every encounter is:

Prime Directive = Do Not Get Hit

Do Not Get Hit = Engage with superior time, Evade to gain superior time

Engage = use timing and footwork to get inside or outside the weapon’s arc

Engagement is shorthand for gaining superior position (shikaku) by use of footwork (irimi, entering, tenkan, blending), and timing (kimusubi and atemi). Engaging as a concept is the most difficult phase of every encounter. Most difficult because it is the most ephemeral and easiest to miss. Hence O’Sensei’s poetic phrases to describe it in his “Secret Teachings of Budo” (Budo Training in Aikido):

#27 Embody ‘Yang’ in your right hand / Turn the left into the passive ‘Yin’ / Then guide your foe

#12 Should an enemy come running and strike / Avoid him with a step to the side / Then attack in an instant

Thus the initial engagement determines the outcome of the encounter. The greater the skill gap between you and your opponent, the earlier the outcome is determined.

Determination of the encounter however requires technical skill such that you can first control your opponent’s actions, then counter their original intent. Notice that these last phases are what most ‘techniques’ will focus on because these are the physical skills to refine.

At the conceptual level[2] for every encounter we must:

Evade don’t get hit

Engage enter to a superior position

Control deploy a response that limits your opponent’s actions

Counter ensure that your opponent cannot continue hostile actions

We have aspirational goals but the outline is very straight forward and requires dedicated practice to achieve.

#8 Progress only comes with constant practice / Build up and kept to oneself / Do not hope for ‘secret teachings’ / They will lead you nowhere

Keep training!

Control and Counter – the techniques.

In the Aikido curriculum tachidori is the defense against a katana – a two handed sabre. Therefore, the assailant is always in a fixed relationship to his weapon – holding the sword right hand forward (by the tsuba) and left hand near the base (there are no left-handed samurai). Furthermore, because the proper use of a katana in combat was with a levering action, the swordsman’s hands are at least a span apart.

The attacker starts seigan no kamai and raises the sword to assume jodan no kamai to execute shomen.

Shomen, the overhead strike (Angle 12) bisects the body and provides a clear separation between the inside line and outside line. In tachidori – anything to nage’s right is the inside line and anything to nage’s left is the outside line when in context with the opponent’s sword.

The first response is the direct response:

IKKYO – direct. As soon as uke starts the upward raise of the sword enter boldly to execute ikkyo. Because of uke’s relationship to his sword, this can only be done RvR (assuming right hand dominant opponents). Timing here is the key. Catching uke on the rise with superior timing you execute ‘omote’ and if with inferior timing ‘ura.’ But with either engagement, your lower hand must catch the opponent’s upper arm to stop the strike while your upper hand contacts with the opponent’s right wrist area. Recognize how you must use your right hand to control the sword. The reason for ikkyo’s pin is fully realized when you see how your opponent’s sword further limits uke’s options.

gokyo with atemi — Ikkyo, Gokyo – whatever, control the upper arm!

IKKYO – can be done from the inside line with inferior timing (blending). Uke strikes and nage responds with ushiro tenkan. As nage moves ushiro tenkan, cut your right hand between uke’s hands and grab the handle between your opponent’s hands. As uke raises to escape, add energy and lift straight up and then arc over, just like in tsuki ikkyo. The difference will be that nage will manipulate the sword such that the extraction will be more similar to nikkyo omote. As you extract the sword, move the kissaki toward uke’s head whilst levering the pommel out and away (uke’s hands will act as a pivot).

sword disarm with atemi — Superior position for ikkyo, kokyu-nage, augmented decapitation…

AUGMENTED DECAPITATION – a variation on the ikkyo blend. Rather than lift and arc the sword after grabbing the hilt, nage shifts back, drawing uke in, then snappily punches the sword toward uke. As uke spins to avoid the atemi, the sword will be vertical (perpendicular to the ground) and uke’s back will be to you. Drop the kissaki and with your left hand, reach past uke‘s head to grasp the mune in a pinch grip and close the edge toward uke’s neck. Uke is now at the point of bargain.

Build your mental matrix. Write it out so that you can graphically represent the options available to you on each side and each level.

APPROACH	GATE	INSIDE	OUTSIDE
Direct	High	grab sword with left hand, palm strike to chin (irimi nage)	grab sword with right hand strike, palm strike with left (irimi nage)
	Mid	augmented decapitation	grab sword with right hand, grab neck with left, drive pommel into uke’s midline to throw
	Low	parting two apricots	parting two apricots
Blend	High		kokyuho
	Mid		hijikimi
	Low		udekiminage

One conceptual schema

The variations are numerous but finite. (Don’t understand the descriptive labels? Come to class!)

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[1] As a biographical anecdote in Aikido written by his son, Morihei Ueshiba is revealed as being all too human here. Tempers rising over a trifle leading to a duel? (Chiba sensei reports O’Sensei telling the story in a different manner >here<)

[2] Acknowledgement to Pete Kautz, who was inspirational on the sequential framework. See his summary >here< and look for the universals that Master Keating admonishes us to find!