VKS KI TRAINING NOTES, FEBRUARY 1998 INTRODUCTION The purpose of this document is to provide a dialog between students and the instructional faculty on training issues and answer questions regarding technique or training practices or procedures. It is NOT a forum for dealing with philosophy, except as it applies to training, nor business issues associated with the VKS. NOTICES: FEBRUARY INSTRUCTOR'S CLASS The February class will be held on Saturday, the 14th. I will be discussing information I received at the Instructor's Workshop in Seattle last month. We will also plan for the Taigi for St. Jude Children's Hospital which will be held on the 28th. CAMPS Its section will be reactivated next spring when the Camp Season resumes. OTHER TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES HAWAII: The Honolulu Ki Society is sponsoring the Annual Ki Society Seminar in August, 1998 in Honolulu Hawaii. A welcome party for Master Tohei will be held at 6PM on the 15th. Training schedule is: 16 Ki Aikido 9-12 & 2-4:30 17 Ki Aikido 9-12, Kiatsu 2-4:30 18 Adv Ki Aikido 9-12 & 2-4:30 19 Ntl Instr Workshop 9-12 & 2-4:30 20 Ntl Instr Workshop 9-12, Ki Testing 2-3, Meeting 3-5PM 21 Day of Rest 22 45th Anniv Banquet 6-10PM 23 Picnic Cost: Compl pkg: All sessions, welcome party, banquet, T-shirt, lunches $970 W/o instr workshop $750 W/o Adv and instr workshop $550 Kiatsu only $200 Welcome party only $50 Anniv Banquet Only $80 T-shirt only $15 There will also be an event on Maui but the times and fees are not firm except that it will be during the period 27-30 Aug. This will be an opportunity to study with Tohei Sensei and/or his son and take examinations for Shoden, Chuden and Joden. TAMURA SEMINAR Sensei Tamura, 9th Dan in Ki Aikido will be in Greenville, South Carolina on April 3, 4 and 5. His visit is to deliver lectures at the university but there will be time during the weekend for some training. Current plans call for classes Friday evening, all day Saturday and Sunday morning. Cost will be about $75.00 for the entire session. More information will be available in the March "Training Notes". GUEST AUTHORS The Geometry of Aikido -- part 2 This month we are continuing our discussion of levers from last month. We'll also talk about triangles, ninety-degree angles, and circles, some places they show up in aikido and their significance. Last time we talked about the lever that exists between us and uke. We figured out the fulcrum or pivot point of the lever is at our one point. How do we use this knowledge to gain the most "leverage" over uke? When the fulcrum is at one end of a lever (your one point) and the weight (okay, okay, mass, for all you engineers out there) that you are trying to move is at the other end of the lever (uke), the force required to move uke is greater when the length of the lever is longer. This means the farther uke is from our center, the more difficult it is to move her. We move uke more easily by bringing her closer to our center. But once we bring uke to our center, we still have to deal with the fact that uke has a mechanical advantage. Why? Because the center of her mass (uke's one point) is physically outside of the force we are using to move her. Uke is farther from your center (the fulcrum of the lever) than the point you and uke are making contact (the point the moving force is applied). So how do we move uke when she is stronger because of her position on our imaginary lever? We don't! We bring uke to our center and blend our ki with her ki. When you and your uke are blended, you don't have to move her. Just move yourself; uke will follow. Next stop on our geometric journey - triangles. There's only one triangle I want to talk to about. That's the one formed by your arms when you have someone in a sankyo grab. One corner of the triangle is at the point you are grabbing uke. The other two corners are at your elbows. One of the characteristics of triangles is they are very stable. Try this experiment. Point your index finger straight up into the air. Ask someone to grab the end of your finger and have them try to move it while you resist. They should move your finger quite easily. Now fold your hands together and extend your index fingers, putting the ends of your fingers together to form a triangle. Again, have someone grab the ends of your fingers and try to move them. It should be much more difficult. You can use that stability and strength inherent in triangles when you have uke in a sankyo hold by maintaining that triangle shape in your arms. Turn from your center and turn as one piece. Keep your wrists straight when you turn. Don't move from your hands and don't bend your wrists. You maintain control by moving from your center. Next up: ninety-degree angles. Ninety-degree angles show up a lot in Ki-Aikido. In most throws where nage leads uke before throwing him, you'll see a ninety-degree or right angle. Where exactly is this right angle? As uke is led forward, the straight line at the point you and uke are connected (hand to wrist, hand to shoulder, etc.) is one side of the angle. When you drop that connection straight down to the ground, you have the other side of the angle. This kind of movement works very effectively when executing these types of throws. Let's figure out why this works so well. When you are leading uke, he has two choices. Well, three choices really. Uke can stop moving his feet and let go of you. Uke can keep moving his feet and keep his hold on you. Uke can also stop moving his feet and keep his hold on you (and fall flat on his face). (In my eight years of practice, I've never seen an uke choose option three.) If uke chooses option one, your task as nage just got a whole lot easier. (The immediate threat just went away.) Most of the time, uke will choose to follow you and hold on (option two). Uke follows you because you have succeeded in getting him off balance. He needs to follow you to keep from falling to the ground. Uke holds on because he needs to use you for support. You are holding uke up and supporting him. When you drop that support straight to the ground, uke has no time to adjust. You have taken away uke's support and gravity takes over. There is nothing left for uke to do but go down. Moving forward as you go down won't work because uke has time to adjust. The downward side of the angle must be straight down, not angled down. The last topic in our discussion of aikido geometry is circles. Circles show up a lot in aikido. Most every movement we make in aikido has some circular component. I want to talk about spinning concentric circles and why we need to understand them. If we look at a small circle inside a larger one, it's pretty obvious the distance around the largest circle is more than the distance around the smaller circle. This means when both circles are spinning at the same rate, a point on the edge of the larger circle must travel a greater distance in the same amount of time. So if nage can become the center of the circle, uke becomes the outer circle. Uke is on the outside of the circle and must move a greater distance to keep up with nage. Now any small motion by nage gets magnified through uke. Nage can stay calm and centered and uke is the one that must catch up to nage's movements. As long as you are the center of the circle, there is no need to rush the technique. Uke is the one that must keep up with you. That's it this month. We finished looking at fulcrums and levers. We looked at triangles, right angles, and circles. Let me know if you know of any other examples of aikido geometry. Next time: What Is Aikido? Alan Cyr has been studying Ki and aikido since 1990. Let him know what you think of the ideas expressed here. You can stop him in the Dojo; he'll be glad to talk to you. You can also e-mail him at the below address. alan.cyr@cwi.cablew.com CHIEF INSTRUCTOR'S CORNER Taigi as an Art Form For several years now, we here in the United States have been exposed to Taigi as a training concept and recently have been invited to participate in international competition in taigi in Japan. The next such opportunity will be in Japan in 1999. This will be the Second International Taigi Competition. This is the equivilent of an Olympic Event in our chosen area of expertise. It would be a good thing if several teams from the United States were to attend and compete. This whole concept of taigi competition has disturbed several persons who are studying in the Ki Society, I think this disturbance is due, in part at least, to the use of the word "competition". When we see the word competition we think of one student working against another student to determine a winner and loser. Many persons who come to study Aikido like the idea of no competition and resent the intrusion of taigi competition into our world of mutual, helpful study together for common growth. I have just returned from the Taigi Open in Seattle during which I received training as a Taigi Judge and participated in judging the event. It has given me a new insight on taigi competition which I would like to share with you. Some 26 teams participated in the Taigi Open. Each team was enthusiastic about the opportunity to demonstrate their skill in taigi performance and receive an evaluation of how well they performed. Teams were well rehearsed in their taigi performance and demonstrated a good grasp of rhythm, timing and largeness of motion during the performance of techniques called for in the taigi and in the care with which they entered and exited the performance area. Their attention to detail in all aspects of the performance was clearly evident. Seeing so many teams, each performing the same taigi (Kitei Taigi), was very instructive. Those who had spent extra time in preparation was clearly evident. A special award was made for the most inspirational team. It was won by a team composed of two young men who were wearing white belts. While they didn't win the basic competition, their gutsy performance was appreciated by all who were there. The participation in the competition sharpened each team's skills and precision. The taigi itself caused them to focus on not only successfully accomplishing each technique with the correct form but also on the more esoteric areas of proper spacing, largeness of motion, and effective use of the mat area. In a sense, the performance of taigi takes the competition out of the arena of the two participants, uke and nage (a psychological game which is often played out during practice) and focuses the effort on the ability of the team as a whole. In short, it takes one away from feeling competative about dealing with the other person and places it directly on technical performance, something we all wish to improve. TAIGI COMPETITION DOESN'T MAKE AIKIDO MORE COMPETATIVE BUT LESS COMPETATIVE. What a paradox but as Aikidoka, you should be used to that by now. George Simcox FROM THE INTERNET The following item was received from the Aikido-L during January. It provides a view of how some of the strikes in Aikido came about. I provide this information because I want you to understand that there are many views of what we do and how it came to be. Some are more logical than others but all are worthy of exploration. Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 07:06:35 -0500 From: Crazy Subject: Re: Buki waza At 09:33 AM 1/14/98 -0500, J Hudson wrote: This is my first post to > this list, and as I am new here, I don't know if this has > been discussed before. My understanding is that O'Sensei > studied bayonet fighting and spear fighting and that he was > skilled in both. Does anyone know why he didn't include a > long weapon in his aikido curriculum, or did he teach > something like this.< He sure did. However, he taught it here and there, with no system, schedule or a plan in mind, so the result is chaos. A tsuki with a jo comes to mind. Few people (particularly those in USAF-WR), like to rotate the forward hand in and over, fully extending it and reaching way out there. H. Saito made fun of that style, saying it was "wrong" and that there's "no such tsuki in Japan". :-)) According to Iwama practitioners, this is over-extension - it is wrong, it is silly and it should not be done. A shotokan person, looking at such a tsuki, would also tell you that it doesn't look very sound way to attack. They squarely relate weapons to empty hand forms and take it from there. What they don't realize is that this tsuki is based on a bayonet move. A frontal thrust with an edged weapon would be deadly. When we practice it with a jo, it doesn't make whole lot of sense, but if you think that it came from bayonet fighting, it suddenly becomes much more meaningful. The rotation of the forward hand and the "dig in" feel results in turning the edge 90, while in the flesh of the attacker, as to rip organs and render him dead instantaneously. (The dynamics of it are different. A longer weapon, particularly with a cutting/stabbing edge at the end, would let you do a lot of things that you wouldn't do otherwise). It certainly makes little sense to translate such a move to taijutsu ...even though we like to say that taijutsu and weapons are the same thing. Another widely misunderstood and ridiculed attack in Aikido is the empty-handed tsuki. Critics (mostly people with hard style background) opine that the way Aikido people punch looks weak, inefficient and kinda ridiculous. (Which, incidentally, is true in many cases - regardless of what I'll say further down.) The thing is, this punch is not at all the shotokan punch. The move itself simulates having a edged weapon in your attacking hand and using the butt to strike your opponent with. Hence there's no rotation of the forearm and no a distinct snap-it feeling, neither do you cock the arm in next to the hip before you punch. The encounter, basically is that you face an opponent who's not ready to fight (her sword is in the shield and she holds it in her right hand), but who nevertheless wants trouble. However, you have your sword on your left, ready to draw. Since you'll be quicker, she opts to smack you with the butt of her sword, by simply extending her right hand to your face, delivering the punch. Her motion is an extended, fairly rigid arm, moving from the hip directly forward and up with a simple, quick forward step. That's when you move to do kotegaeshi, or whatever else. That's way different from a shotokan punch. It is also different from a tsuki when the attacker holds her unshielded sword or tanto, attacking with the blade. These are three different attacks. While we all call them "tsuki" and use virtually the same defenses against them, the attacks themselves are not performed identically. Obviously, all three should be practice, but you have to understand what are you doing and why. Thus, when a cocky shotokanka comes to tell you that Aikido people can't punch, you can kindly explain to him what the attack implies, the reasoning behind it etc. Furthermore, when someone from Iwama tells you that twisting your forward forearm in is "wrong", you don't have to get upset over it. After all, you should practice what they teach to begin with. It is certainly wrong in that one class, at that one time. Love, -= Ivan =- TRAVELS In January I went to Seattle to participate in the Taigi Open and receive training from Sensei Kashiwaya, recently advanced to 8th Dan in Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido. In February I will be in Richmond for testing and a class on the 9th, and Harrisonberg on the 23rd. I plan to be in Hampton on March 7. During one Saturday in March I expect to attend a grand opening of Sensei Terry Pierce's new Dojo in New Jersey.