Protective Arts

EXCELLENCE

There is a great quote, often wrongly attributed to Aristotle, but is actually from Will Durant (who is very well worth reading) in his discussion of Aristotle (The Story of Philosophy, 1926):

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have these because we have acted rightly; “these virtues are formed in man by doing his actions”; we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.[1]

And the terse corollary: Practice doesn’t make perfect – perfect practice makes perfect.

But what will constitute perfect practice? Time on the mat is a scare resource and can be squandered. Shioda sensei commented about the state of Aikido:

Today’s aikido is so dimensionless. It’s hollow, empty on the inside. People try to reach the highest levels without even paying their dues. That’s why it seems so much like a dance these days. You have to master the very basics solidly, with your body, and then proceed to develop to the higher levels… Now we see nothing but copying or imitation without any grasp of the real thing….

…and he died in 1994. I fear that little has changed to correct that trend.

And so, with Durant’s reminder and Shioda sensei’s admonishment, as we focus on the kihon presentations, let us be mindful to practice rightly.

Practicing rightly does involve paying ones dues: a convenient short-hand for serious and vigorous training. There is a need to use one’s body to its fullest, both aerobically and muscularly to ensure that we can actually do what we train. That requires respectful testing of each other’s abilities in athletic competition: tease out our limits in order to transcend them.

These posts constitute my attempt to promote excellent training. Ultimately I cannot provide an excellent training environment that must be created by the dyadic agreement among each pair of students as they train with each other. A teacher can only provide context, inspiration and information. Excellence will only be achieved by doing, movement and repetition. And that requires that each of you jointly and severally compact with one another to train honestly.

The results of honest training are martial excellence.[2]

But ironically – to ensure honest training, the training concepts and structure must ultimately refer to a martial context. So how are we to identify a martial context? Master Keating suggests (with some hyperlink embellishments):

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The Curious Case of Identifying Things Most Martial:

Quien es mas macho, quien es mas martial? Ha Ha Ha!

Human movement is all ANY of it is. You may call it this or that, any style or name is good. After all most of us are a polyglot of crap from all over. Longgg gone are the days of anything “pure” or original. Replaced with the mad mix of many martial methods. At times these hybrid arts are really cool. But so often they turn out to be garbled train wrecks of confused, non-related pieces of combat. Lost in the swamp of too much martial. Gone are their primary values. Gone are guts of why and how. Dumbing down has happened everywhere.

Saying this I shall no doubt incur the wrath of many men who shall think that i am belittling their efforts to create a “super-system” like none before. (Right like no has ever thought of that before eh – LOL). Nothing could be farther from the truth though. Such men are always seeking some kind of conflict to bring attention to themselves (desperate). I applaud the work of many who improve and define the systems they teach, created and respect. But not all are equal. Know that and proceed with caution.

It is mainly theory you see, theory on how one should turn, act, snap to and respond. No matter what system you may currently use or be in love with it is all predicated upon the same motion base. IE: HUMAN MOTION. So now it becomes all about the thinking and contemplating parts of the method and art more so than it’s physical components. Let’s take an angle #1 downward diagonal strike. No matter empty hand or weapon, same action. Same path of travel. But then the secret philosophy aspects of the art kick in. (Are they practical for training or for fighting? Is about self-development? Is simply the crushing of an opponent)? Ok, let’s add some spice!

1.When making the action draw it back as you descend

2.When doing an angle one make it strike smartly with a snapping action

3.As you strike throw your body weight forwards into it, pushing the blow.

4.To make more power add torque, just roll the strike or blade upon impact

So it seems we can add things ad infinitum in order to “make it ours.” Each time we do it then adds one more layer of miserable martial mystery (confusion). These added MYSTERIES are then what make a style. The old sales pitch of “learn these three simple moves” and win any fight comes full circle. Since there really are no three simple moves to assure you of winning anything in real life it comes back to personal theory and systemized cult-like behavior. Why is my style better than yours? That is easy to answer, because it’s better. Boom, done! Such blanket belief systems and cults of non-reality always go hand in hand. Walk proud, head in a cloud, walk on, walk on lost warriors …

There is no human being, office worker, fighter, scholar or physician that does not employ human movement each hour, every day of their lives. We as martial men merely use our HUMAN MOTION for purposes of resolving conflicts (fighting). Other men employ the exact same motion base as we: e.g., tennis and badminton players always turn out to be great stick fighters. Same actions but different intent behind them changes the sport into martial art simply by how we think – our intent lends to those actions (all in the intent & theory).

Styles create division, ranks create division – sometimes this is good: I know who is a General, I know who is a Private. But in our normal world we are not in a martial situation. Thus such stuff has no real bearing on us other than to create a negative type of separation between people. This divides us both mentally and physically from not only others, but most of all from our selves. It dims the voice within. We are duped into allowing it to happen. Indoctrination is no vacation, but know your place, learn your station. It is all so pathetic, so sad to see conflict growing by leaps and bounds in the fighting arts. Yet, respect and understanding are left behind, old world values have no place here in the savagely stupid terrain of social media magicians and pundits of personal gain.

Razzle your dazzle motherfucker, LOL!

I shall leave thee with this: Make your best effort to grow up. Become a human being. Your dedication to your style etc is mere misguided loyalty. Open your heart first. Your mind will follow. It only works this way. Embrace yourself with humble appreciation of the creator’s handy work. This world, you yourself, your pet and all you see – all part of the great architect’s plan. Stop using “blinders,” see things for what they are. Avoid style, dodge the bullet of bias, be what you are. You are HUMAN. Not a dragon, cat or pony. Just accept what you do and what other species do. There is found balance. Now discover the miracles that are yours alone. See them across the spectrum of all things in this world. Recognize your original face. Martial arts are not about blindly following as some would have ye think. Nay friend, martial arts are the road to personal understanding and true freedom of the self in a world of slave-like obedience and mob rule. Fuck that shit straight up. Awaken! Once again I ask thee- yes, YOU AMIGO – AWAKEN and see clearly the world. Add a dash of maturity to your martial methods, grow up. It will be frowned upon by some children. Be the adult. Strong, patient, calm. Many of us are counting on you. YES YOU! You are the future. Many tomorrow’s await, ye can’t be late, do not hesitate. Go forth and enter the gate.

James Albert Keating

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I use Master Keating’s admonishment of “Don’t let others judge you by their shitty standards” as a reminder that their training failures should never limit your development and continued drive to excellence.

Keep training!

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[1] I enjoy making mercurial connections – so in thinking about moral excellence as a habituated practice, listen to the RadioLab podcast How to Be a Hero. Listen to RadioLab in general! The ancient Greeks labeled right behavior, moral excellence and practical achievement arête – excellence.

[2] On what a martial art dojo should be like – here is an interview with Takamura sensei.

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Update

The Art of Manliness has a good post on motivation over discipline as a means of developing excellence. One-sentence summary: remove barriers and distractions and do what you like to ensure constant motivation that leads to creating excellence!

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And the reminder that Excellence is not evenly distributed – work to be the outlier!

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Will Durant

GYAKU HANMI KATATE DORI KOTEGAESHI

Gyaku hanmi katate dori kotegaeshi can be broken down into its constituent movements.

I am trying to ‘teach to the test’ and therefore present the ‘how to’ step by step mechanics and this morning we built from the understanding of the axis of the encounter.

Gyaku hanmi katate dori eliminates many variables because the encounter starts at a fixed range and a specific amount of pressure. The initial point of contact – uke taking nage’s wrist defines the axis of the encounter. As a teaching exercise nage uses the finger tips of the back hand to press and fold the inside of uke’s elbow whilst closing irimi simultaneously with a half step forward. The exercise is designed to teach nage to leave the initial point of contact alone – suspended in space – and pass it on a straight line. Once the forward movement is complete, then (and only then) does nage take the back leg and pivot 180 degrees. This is a direct entry with a snappy hip movement to accomplish the tenkan. Do not sweep or otherwise create an arc with the back leg.

Now understand what the pressure on uke’s elbow accomplishes. Uke’s strength diminishes and their head lowers and comes forward. As nage enters the back hand that had controlled the elbow can now touch the nape of uke’s neck (a terminal move if desired). Once nage completes the motion, nage’s hips are behind uke’s and nage is cleanly in the shikaku (the dead angle / blind spot).

Once the step by step presentation can be replicated accurately, timing and flow need to be added: kimusubi. Now uke begins to advance and nage matches uke in time. For me the context is clear – nage is advancing with a thrust and uke is arresting the thrusting arm to control it. Keep that context as a subtext. For the exercise, however, as uke advances, now nage places his wrist into uke’s advancing grasp – breaking the OODA loop – which allows for a smooth transition. Uke’s attention should be focused on nage’s wrist, a bit of stage magic, that makes it easy for nage to perform tenkan.

Nage placing his wrist into uke’s hand reminds me of the pebble scene in the 1972 TV series Kung Fu (which is well parodied by Jim Carey): except in reverse. The focus on a single point is what then becomes the point of rotation for the remainder of the action.

There are other tricks to employ. At the moment of contact, nage should make sure to break plane, by lowering deeper into the knees (dropping on the vertical plane). It only need be an inch or two, but if the entire body drops in a unified manner, uke’s entire action is disrupted. This again breaks uke’s OODA loop and nage gains the initiative.

I am slipping in concepts to better illuminate the dire subtleties of irimi-tenkan. (And it is my further contention that there is no tenkan but only irimi-tenkan, but that is an argument for a later post.)

Thus far we have addressed only the lower body movements with an emphasis on allowing the arms to be relaxed from the shoulders and used primarily as reference points only. Now we will employ the arms in a more purposeful manner.

Nage presents the forward hand (remember contextually, this ‘presentation’ is a knife thrust) and uke grasps it. But we are employing more stage magic here – leading uke to the desired action. Nage’s forward hand was mere bait. As uke advances to arrest nage’s forward hand, nage flows it back toward his center whilst the back hand cuts over from a descending high arc to deflect uke’s hand. Now that point where nage’s descending arc touches uke’s horizontally advancing arm meet is the axis. Nage performs irimi-tenkan and at the conclusion uses the original ‘bait’ hand to control uke’s arm.

Arming both players with daggers makes this interaction combatively sensible. What appears to be empty choreography is a deadly dance: nage delivers a thrust as a probing feint that uke tries to grasp (or counter cut), but nage seeing this, counters with the back hand cut (or disarm) to pass uke’s blade and bypass it to deliver another controlling cut once safely in uke’s blind spot. Do not blithely assume ‘basic’ techniques are simple. A better understanding is that they are foundational because they are the most effective in the compendium. Even if the weaponized context isn’t visible at first, keep searching for the analogy because it will be invaluable to your progress.

Putting it all in motion – we get to the position where nage gets to uke’s shikaku in flow – and with nage’s hand over uke’s advanced hand (we remain in a R/L or L/R relationship). The throat of nage’s thumb-pointer finger captures uke’s thumb in order to lead it forward, descending, and on an outward arc. The line drawings from Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere capture the essential flow vectors nicely –

I quibble only with some of the contouring implied given the arcs where there should be lines, but the spirit is true to form.

And now we are to the technical specifics on the hand grab. There are far too many bad exemplars so please be cautious. First a poor example – and one frequently presented –

Here are the specifics to never do: (1) support uke’s wrist by bracing the pulse point, which is also where the wrist bends – the very point we want to collapse (2) forget to grasp the thumb, if you do not have uke’s thumb you cannot take the knife and ultimately that is what we are doing! (3) cover finger for finger on a 1:1 ratio, this will at best match uke’s strength where we want to always seek the advantage.

When it comes to kotegaeshi – the turning of the wrist – there are two fundamental approaches: (a) tendon/muscle control and (b) bone/skeletal control. The bone control is the more dramatic because it often concludes with uke taking an arcing high fall. For me, it is more useful because historically uke’s weapon is being used as a fulcrum force-multiplier. Examine and study O’Sensei’s photos from the pre-war era

bokken-kotegaishi — Kotegaeshi as disarm

Clearly this is a bokken disarm, but note how far out of alignment uke’s spine is. Because the bones of the hand are compressed and aligned, those of the wrist are being torqued as a unit, which then has a ratcheting effect that is transmitted through the remainder of the body. Uke is not exaggerating the effect in this photo. This is similar to Wally Jay’s lessons from small circle jujutsu – start with the small bones and small circles to create big impacts. There are details we need to explore in a later post to distinguish when a bone compression is enhanced by uke being forced to retain the weapon, and when nage wants to ensure a clean extraction, but for simplicity sake, the general rule is as follows: once nage takes control of uke’s thumb, starting with the lower three fingers, in order to twist and torque uke’s hand and wrist thusly – which allows nage to then use his free hand to fully cover uke’s tegatana (edge of hand) resulting in uke’s hand turning over their own wrist which structurally necessitates the remainder of uke’s body to follow. A detail from Saito sensei’s books shows the structure of the hand-wrist relationship along with a classical form of atemi.

The tendon control is very effective but far less dramatic. This variant is best applied on an empty (i.e., non-weaponized) hand because one needs to fully compress the tendon of uke’s index finger (and only the index finger). Understanding the muscular structure of the hand shows how the technique effects the body.

The long extensor tendon is controlled by a complex muscular arrangement, and we merely exploit the connection in reverse – which means we exploit long tendon by compressing it toward uke’s palm to create pain in uke, forcing them to collapse.

There is a danger in conflating and confusing both methods. One must clearly execute either a bone or a muscle control – to do half of each is ineffective at best and places nage in positional danger at worst.

GYAKU HANMI SHIHONAGE

This morning we covered gyaku hanmi katatedori shihonage. The focus is on kihon presentation in order to ensure precision.

Gyaku hanmi (R/L or L/R) starts with a fixed contact point – the wrist grab. Both players must have a forward energy toward each other’s center. Because the logic of the wrist grab is a knife immobilization the contact must have tension created by diametrically opposing forces: nage is thrusting forward and uke is arresting the forward thrust. Those opposing vectors create the axis of the encounter where the forces are neutralized.

From that point of tension – nage must move around the axis without moving it. Nage’s first move is to zone to the outside perpendicular. The footwork is: nage moves front foot to outside perpendicular and the back foot then comes to the fore at a 90-degree angle to the original encounter.

The hand release is a subtlety. Nage’s original presentation of the hand is palm up – knuckles to the ground. Immediately after the nage moves to the first position, nage rotates the grabbed hand to the perpendicular which creates a gap (releases uke’s grasp) affording nage the chance to shoot over and snatch uke’s pulse point. Nage then must firmly control uke’s arm and rotate the elbow into a locked position which will start to control uke’s body.

From the arm lock, nage should drive forward so that nage enters with the legs which (because nage holds no tension in the shoulders) causes the arms to drive upward. Nage can then lock his hands clasped around uke’s pulse to nage’s head.

The reason for this kihon presentation should be evident. Locking uke’s hand against the head creates a brace point and a new axis to rotate around. Nage has traversed the perpendicular in front of uke’s center. Once nage has completed that forward step, the clean 180-degree pivot starts with the balls of the feet which powers the hips. The arms must be held locked but in a neutral state – the hips, not the shoulders or arms, generate the force of the turn.

At the terminus of the pivot, nage increases the grasp, starting with the little fingers, specifically the bottom three, just like a sword. The strength of the throw is created by the hands – not the shoulders.

Ura is a simpler line. Starting with the same initial encounter, nage merely executes a tenkan and follows the same method to raise the hands, complete a pivot on the same line as the initial encounter – that is 180-degrees from the start.

In both instances nage’s challenge is to disturb as little as possible the initial grab until raising the arms. Minimize the amount of somatic information uke receives until the throw is in process.