Aiki-Kuzushi

Kokyu Nage: The Secret Foundation

  

You and I, as Westerners, use the term “breath” to mean…well…breath. To us, this means either the act of breathing in and out, or the air that one breathes with that act.

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The Japanese use the term differently, at least in an aikido context. “Breath” can mean timing, movement, power, the development of harmony in movement – the very essence of aikido – or, it can simply mean breath.

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In the Aikikai, there exists a category of vaguely-defined throws called kokyu nage (breath throws). Some of these throws rely on tori (nage) being able to coordinate his movement with his breathing, so that the throw actually happens on the exhale. Set-up movements, such as the initial off-balance or the first redirection, can be exaggerated in order to build up the breath for the final throw. This can add emphasis, power, oomph, to the technique. One such kokyu nage is the throw that we Tomiki stylists call sumi otoshi. We don’t emphasize the breath aspect of the throw much in Tomiki aikido, but try it some time, if you have a patient uke to work with. Build up your breath, inhaling and exhaling, until you’re ready to execute the throw. Throw on the exhale. Don’t make the throw hard, but exhale hard – and see what that does for your technique.

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Other throws in this category rely on timing, with tori moving through his set-up like a comedian, measuring his words and setting up the punch line. It’s all in the timing. Wait for it, wait for it – throw! Gyaku-gamae ate is a good example of this principle, as are some of the double releases.

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What is a kokyu nage?

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A number of Western sensei in recent years have taken to explaining the phenomenon of kokyu nage as “All the techniques that aren’t covered by other names”. This is okay, I guess, for defining the kokyu nage to beginners. But the breath throw is so much more than that. For one thing, the term “breath throw” can be used to refer to more than half of the waza taught in the Tomiki curriculum up through shodan. Counting the 17, the 16 double releases and the big 10, it can be said that 25 of the 43 techniques are classified as kokyu nage by the Aikikai.

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Ten of the seventeen techniques from the ju-nana-hon kata could be called kokyu nage:

Shomen ate*

Aigamae ate*

Gyakugamae ate

Gedan ate*

Ushiro ate

Hiki taoshi

Ude hineri

Mae otoshi

Sumi otoshi

Hiki otoshi

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Eight of the Sixteen Double Releases (Ryote-Mochi Hanasu-no-kata) are kokyu nage:

Ryote Shomen ate*

Shomen ate*

Ritsu Uki Otoshi

Gyaku Sumi Otoshi

Ushiro Ate

Mae Otoshi

Sumi Otoshi

Uki Otoshi (tatehiza)

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And seven of the Big Ten (O-Waza Ju-Pon):

Kata Otoshi

Kubi Guruma

Ude Guruma

HijiGuruma

Ushiro Ate

Ushiro Kubi Gatame

Shizumi Otoshi

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(* = could also be classified as variations of irimi nage, but that's another post)

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All of these throws, when executed in one of the Aikikai styles, would be classified as kokyu nage. Imagine this scenario: a Tomiki guy walks into an Aikikai dojo, anywhere in the world. He carries with him the above repertoire, and executes each of these 25 throws. He demonstrates the differences between an ushiro ate in the ju-nana-hon kata and an ushiro ate in the o-waza ju pon. He does only the 25 techniques listed above. At the end of his demonstration, he asks the Aikikai sensei and students which throws he has done for them. The answer is, “Kokyu nage, 25 times.”

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The development of “Breath Power”

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There are probably hundreds more techniques and variations of techniques that can fall under the same umbrella. Virtually any throw that uses primarily what the Japanese call kokyu ryoku (breath power) is eligible. As one might guess, this is the ability of the aikidoist to use the breath, in part as described above, during the execution of the technique, and is developed through a series of partner-assisted exercises called kokyu-ho (breath exercise), or kokyu-tanden-ho (breath centering exercise). These exercises, usually suwari-waza (techniques done while seated in seiza), generally involve making a good connection between uke and tori. They also involve the ability to move the attacker by use of one’s own center. This is where some schools go into “projecting your ki” and more esoteric ideas, which as it turns out aren’t as farfetched as they sound (mostly). These are simply concepts that deal with the manipulation of the energy introduced into the system by uke – that energy can be connected, built up in the center, and projected outward or toward uke’s weak direction (remember your happo-no-kuzushi).

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Strong arms (sometimes called “unbendable arm”, although that term technically refers to something else entirely) and good awareness of the relationship between the direction of your own energy and that of your attacker are a must. Use the energy in your wrists, in your hands, and in the forward part of your arms to move uke in an upward direction, locking his shoulders and upper spine in a fully-engaged (and therefore helpless) position. It’s by moving your core, your center, that you then take him to the mat, either sideways or backwards. To the untrained eye, this looks like arm strength, but has in reality nothing to do with brute force.

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In his video series, Mitsugi Saotome shihan talks about the power of the kokyu-tanden-ho as being concentrated in the middle and exploding outward in a centrifical motion. He calls this a type of universal harmony with all things. For those of us who aren’t ready for universal harmony, I suggest using a willing uke and a soft mat. I think there’s something similar to this exercise in either san kata or go kata, but I’m not sure (still kinda fuzzy on most of the koryu no kata).

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Conclusion

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It wasn’t very long ago, maybe three months or so, that I first felt what a well-executed kokyu nage can do to a man my size. In this Aikkai dojo where I’m still very new, I ran up and grabbed both the collar tapes on my training partner’s gi. He didn’t move, at least not that I could see. He didn’t make a sound. He just…how can I describe it…he settled in. He entered into a “just be here, just be part of the earth” mode, and made himself solid. So solid, in fact, that I – not having any clue what was going to happen, mind you – flew backward maybe ten feet. I was slapping the mat before I knew what was happening. This is no exaggeration at all; a dojo full of people saw it, and at least one of them will read this and keep me honest. I fell down the way people do in the movies, when they get shot at close range with a 12-guage.

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I’ve experienced kuzushi (off-balance) many times, of course, and really good musugi (blending) maybe slightly fewer. But I’d never felt anything like that first kokyu ryoku (breath power). Far from being some supernatural claim or something to be scoffed at, I’ve found it to be a very serious principle to work with in the development of my aikido. In my opinion, it’s the kokyu principle, more than anything else, that makes aikido what it is.

 

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Blue Update, 19 Sept 09:

As it turns out, kokyu nage is the technique, or category of techniques, that's giving me the most difficulty since moving over to the AikiKai in February - with the possible exception of nikyo and sankyo. One intriguing concept that I'd never thought of is this: It's not uncommon for an experienced aikidoist in this tradition to leave the idea of technique behind, and focus on feeling, movement, timing, etc.

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You see this a lot in jiyu waza, which is what Tomiki folks would call multiple attacker randori. As nage (tori) moves through his attackers, weaving between them so that none cvan get a firm grip on him, he begins throwing them one by one, without using any specific techniques. He doesn't have time for techniques, which require setup and execution. He only has time for movement within the Aiki principle. He may do what I call a shoulder-ate, which may look a bit like a sloppy guruma, but that's not the principle behind what he's doing. The principle is kokyu nage.

Just Do the Technique, Part 2

Part of the reason I wrote about this is that a recent incident reminded me of the one time (so far) that I've lost my cool on the mat (the person involved in the recent incident didn't lose his cool, he just reminded me of my own incident). Naturally, my remarks in the comments section of my last post have grown into their own post - I have some longwinded people in my lineage, so you could say I come by it honestly.

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As a newly-minted shodan, I was helping (not sure about that, but I thought I was) a young nikyu on his technique, in preparation for his ikkyu demo. He was all over the place, pushing and pulling, yanking and shoving his uke - there was very little adherence to principle. Now, mind you, this is a guy whose technique I very much admire. He was just having an off day, I guess. But as I did my best impression of Sensei, trying to correct the younger tore by standing there in my brand new hakama and telling him where he was going wrong, I wasn't getting through. I'd say, "Not so much force. Remember your basic principles. Wait for uke to recover," etc etc. And then he'd do it again, rushing the technique and having to force his way through it.

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His uke was about to quit.

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So finally I stepped in, told him to launch an attack, and showed him what he was doing. I showed him how much force he was using. And I threw the worst sumi-otoshi ever. Drove him into the mat. All involved were lucky I hadn't injured him. This was the only time I ever saw people run across the mat in that school - they were coming to see if my victim was okay. He was fine, but it took him a while to catch his breath. He looked at me with this expression of surprise, but he never said a word to me about it.

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I was able to explain it away - it was a teaching moment, no problem. I just wanted to show him what he was doing wrong. He needed to feel the waza with too much muscle to understand it.

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But none of that was true. The truth was that I'd become annoyed, angry, absorbed in the thought of teaching him a lesson because he wasn't listening to me. I had expected perfection, and had lashed out when it didn't magically appear. I'd become attached to this self-image of me as a good enough sempai, that all I'd have to do is speak, and the problem would be corrected.

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I'd turned a beautiful art form into an expression of my beginningless greed, anger and ignorance.

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A short time later, I was able to do a weeklong monastic intensive in California, and it was only then that I realized how aggressive I'd been in that episode - how close I'd been to becoming something I didn't want to revisit. Something more like that young guy I'd been, back in my Army days, when "decisive aggression" had saved the day. When the goal had been not to develop conflict resolution skills, but to develop "...the intestinal fortitude required to fight on to the Ranger objective...". For me, the whole incident was a massive step in the wrong direction.

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Some steps that might help, when we feel ourselves starting to cross that line:

 

1. Remember that we're not looking for perfection. We don't have to be movie-reel on top of our game every time. Sometimes we expect too much of ourselves, which leads us to unrealistic expectations of others - which in turn can lead to anger.

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2. Remember where we are. Some gyms, "fight clubs," and "academies" are places where it's appropriate to react with anger - but a dojo is not one of those places.

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3. For me, a quick look back at who I was, back when I was a more violent, aggressive man, usually does the trick. I don't want to be that guy again. I mean, I doubt that I could be that guy again, but any step in that direction is a step that I don't want to take.

 

I might write more on this later, but up next (probably tomorrow) is part 5 of Bridging the Aikido Rift. I also have an article on the balance dynamics of the Hanasu-no-Kata (the 8 releases) in the works, and another on the principles behind kokyu-ho and kokyu-tanden-ho (breathing and centering exercises seen frequently in Aikikai-affiliated styles).

Just Do the Technique, Part 1

[Much more on the Aikido Rift is in the pipeline, but I have a few other topics to write about in the interim.]

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How many of us are perfect? I was told a few weeks ago that Barack Obama is perfect, incapable of making a mistake; messiah-like. So I know there are people who believe that a politician can be a perfect human being. Such a belief may be an imperfection in itself, but it does exist.

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I was raised Christian, and I understand that Christians view Christ as perfect. There exists the belief that Christ was the only human being who ever lived with no imperfections, none of the human flaws that plague the rest of us. These days I’m a practicing Buddhist, but I don’t believe the Buddha was perfect. I believe that he made mistakes, just like the rest of us – mainly because of the poor state of the store of human knowledge during the time in which he lived, but his imperfections were his own, nonetheless.

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I see a lot of imperfections in the dojo (mostly in the mirror). My first sensei told me once that the mat is where all your flaws come out, where your true person is shown. You can’t train with someone for any length of time and not know what kind of a person he or she is.

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I have a lot of imperfections. I’m overweight, slow, talkative, and often lazy. Sometimes I’m quick to anger, and other times I’m slow to react. I don’t look like an aikidoist, and sometimes I wonder if I really am an aikidoist. My ukemi is labored at times, and at other times my footwork isn’t as good as it should be.

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Sometimes I just don’t pay attention. I yawn at inappropriate moments; probably because I seldom sleep more than four hours a night.

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But enough about me. You have imperfections too, right? How about on the mat? Are you perfect there? And what happens if you’re not?

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Let’s say, for example, that you missed a technique. Maybe we’re working on ushiro-ate, and I’m your uke. I attack with the standard shomen-ate. You step off the line of attack, locate and redirect my outside arm, and step in behind me. You know what to do: with both hands on my shoulders, you’re supposed to reach in toward the front of my shoulders and execute a drop, rearward, assimilating your movement with the body rise at the end of my forward step. After my attempted attack, my lunge forward and subsequent subtle off-balance, I need to recover my posture, and it should be this recovery that effectively throws me.

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But what if I, being imperfect, give you a poor uke performance? What if I don’t lunge forward, but rather walk at a leisurely pace, making it difficult for you to gauge the necessary timing? Or, what if you, also being imperfect, simply miss the throw? What if you step off on the wrong foot, fail to locate and redirect, or miss my shoulders?

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Here’s my point, for those of you who are wondering: I've noticed a trend in some aikidoists, an annoying tendency to react to a blown technique by increasing speed, muscle strength, and resistance. This is sometimes part of an even-more-annoying "get-uke-to-the-mat-any-way-you-can" mentailty. When you miss the technique, you’ve missed the technique. You don’t need to correct yourself by transitioning into something else, unless specifically instructed to do so. And even then, you should transition into a technique.

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If you miss the technique, slow down, reset and try again. Stick with the technique that’s being taught. Examine where you went wrong and correct it. If necessary, ask questions.

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Here’s what you don’t want to do: If you’ve missed the technique, don’t grab uke’s hair and pull him or her to the mat. Don’t throw a punch to the kidney, or a kick to the shin. Don’t transition to MMA and try to hurt your training partner. This is an aikido class, not a UFC match. Some aikidoists seem to think that, whether they’ve done the technique properly or not, they’ve failed if their uke doesn’t always end up prostrate and groaning before them. But you don’t have to get the technique right every time to be a good aikidoist.

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You don’t have to be perfect. It's not perfection you're working toward, anyway; it's proficiency. It's improvement. It's a-gatsu. It's not something you can achieve by pulling your uke down by the collar, just because you've missed the technique you were working on.

Bridging the Aikiko Rift, Part 4

This is the article that's gonna tick everyone off.

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Everyone who writes about aikido, whether on a professional or amateur level, quotes Morihei Ueshiba at some point, and I’m no different. We may not really know what he meant when he said these things, because we usually don’t know the context (unless we were there, which narrows down the number of people who can quote the Founder, with absolute accuracy, down to about three).

What we know for sure is that O-Sensei saw aikido as “A way to reconcile the world.”

In reading his spiritual writings, we see that the essence of aikido is described again and again, in words like “Ame” (pronounced like “ah-may”), meaning heaven. The way O-Sensei wrote it, though, points to underlying, deeper meanings. For example, he writes “Ame” by combining the characters meaning “self” and “rotation”[1].

If I take the liberty to apply this important teaching from the Founder to our study of the current state of aikido in this place and time, I find myself wondering what he would think about what we’ve got going on. Technically, I don’t think aikido has ever been healthier. But if he intended his art to become a means by which to reconcile the world by combining self and rotation to find heaven, I’d say we’ve missed the mark by a far piece.

I know, I know. For some people, especially American Christians in the 21^st century, some of these principles – some of these spiritual concepts written by O-Sensei – can be a bit much. After all, we’re not adherents of the Shinto religion, and we’re not Buddhists (well, most of us aren’t – I am, but that’s not the point). So, let’s replace these more out there writings with what Kisshomaru Ueshiba, the second doshu and son of the Founder, wrote. He said that all budo, not just aikido, is dedicated to perfecting the human self by integrating mind, body and spirit. He pointed out that the truly egoless self (the essence of the bugeisha, the self-actualized martial artist) identifies with all things and all people, seeing them not from its self-centered perspective, but from their own respective centers. He goes on to discuss the realization of universal love through rigorous training of the body, the formation of the ideal human self, and the realization of absolute victory through the unification of the universe.[2]

Okay, but we see the trend in the highest writings about aikido. We see how the Founder and the second doshu wrote so much about things like unification, integration, actualization and realization.

I have to admit that I haven’t read everything ever written on the subject, but in what I have read, I’m not seeing a lot about segregation, seclusion, exclusion, or animosity.

I haven’t seen anything about suspicion or mistrust.

What does it say about us as aikido practitioners, if we can’t even get that right? O-Sensei gave us this gift, this lifestyle, and implored us to use it to the reconcilement of the universe – he asked us to find ways to bring all people together through aikido – and we can’t keep aikido itself together.

We’ve explored some of the reasons for our difficulty in this area. We’ve talked about how both competition and the absence of competition in Tomiki aikido have served to drive us away from each other. We’ve seen how a school in one country can allow egos and attitudes to flare, alienating students in a school on the other side of the world.

I know there are a few long-time aikido teachers reading this. And you know all the names of the people involved in these little incidents. The thing is, you have the power to change all this. We – those of us who are on the mat right now, today – have the ability to close the credibility gap that prior generations imposed on us.

So what are you gonna do?

Here’s my recommendation. One thing international aikido sorely needs is a single, unified governing body. For many (millions, actually), the Aikikai Foundation serves in this capacity. But for me, that’s only effective when the Aikikai Foundation begins recognizing accomplishments in Tomiki aikido. For others, the governing body is the Japan Aikido Association, which oversees schools training in the competitive Tomiki method. But again, what about those not brought up in Tomiki schools?

Back to the original problem, then. Are we practicing different arts? No, aikido is aikido is aikido. So why not have one unified voice in its governance?

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I can hear some of you laughing, but I’m serious. You know that Tomiki’s method was originally meant to explain that area in which judo and aikido meet. You know how close judo’s nage-no-waza (“the 15” kata) is to the Tomiki 17, at least in principle (center, distance, timing, happo-no-kuzushi, etc). Some of you teach judo in addition to aikido in your schools.

 

Remember that Tomiki sensei was a shihan in the Aikikai. In fact, he was one of the original shihan in the Aikikai. Why can’t we include the principles, processes and techniques found in other aikido styles to our curriculum? We can find powerful examples of the aiki principle at work in the hard stances and sharp movements of Yoshinkan aikido; the flowing, easy-looking power of modern American Aikikai schools like ASU and the USAF. It sounds farfetched, I know, but this is the way I intend to teach aikido, once I get the details hammered out (I have several years to put it together, as I’m only a shodan now).

To my way of thinking, the only reason a Tomiki student doesn’t know how to do a proper ikkyo (the premier technique in mainstream Aikikai-style aikido) is that the personality conflicts of some previous generation wouldn’t allow that much cooperation between the schools. But I see no reason why it shouldn’t be taught in our schools today; in fact, it’s essential. In not teaching these techniques, which for some reason have been left out of the Tomiki curriculum (at least at the ge and chu levels), we’re effectively perpetuating the legacy of outcasts  - the aikido rift. And what’s worse, we’re alienating our own students from the greater aikido world.

The first step is to let go of outdated and incorrect ideas like “This is the only style of aikido that does randori” or “We’re the only ones with any real self-defense techniques”. And then the next step is to begin integrating the techniques of other styles of aikido into our lessons. I’m not saying we need to learn everything under the sun, but every style has a lot to offer, and if we’re missing out, then we’re missing out.

When I tested for ikkyu, I performed the 16 Double Releases, some randori, a few tanto-waza and some basic ne-waza. I’m putting together a curriculum right now that will add, at the ikkyu level, an understanding of tenchi-nage, irimi-nage and shiho-nage, specifically as thrown in the AIkikai.

This doesn’t change Tomiki sensei’s method one bit, but compliments it. I admit it’s a lot to learn. In addition to the Walk, the 8 Releases, the 16 Double Releases, the 17 and the Big 10, a black belt in this re-integrated aikido will be basically proficient in four Aikikai-style pinning techniques: ikkyo, nikyo, sankyo and yonkyo; and five specifically Aikikai-style throws: shiho-nage, irimi-nage, tenchi-nage, kaiten-nage and koshi-nage. He will be able to demo these techniques forward and backward (omote and ura), against five different attacks. He’ll also have a working understanding of kokyu-ho and the kokyu-tanden principle.

OK, this is the kind of thing that ticks off everyone. But I'm willing to go out on a limb and discuss whatever differences we're going to have about it. The problem has always been that certain selfish attitudes and paranoid mindsets haven't allowed us to train as a unified body of aikido deshi. Exclusionary tactics have been the norm for a long time, but we have an opportunity to change all that, beginning now. It will take time, but we can make some exciting moves toward a reunification of O-Sensei's aikido, if we get started on it right now.

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[1] John Stevens, The Essence of Aikido, p. 16

[2] Kisshomaru Ueshiba, The Spirit of Aikido, pp. 7-12

Bridging the Aikido Rift, Part 3

If competition was one reason for the rift in aikido, another reason for the rift is no competition. See, according to the Aikikai and most other aikido organizations, we Tomiki folks are wrong for practicing a form of competition in our aikido. Geis sensei and a number of other teachers, mainly in the US, agreed, but for different reasons, and removed the competition aspect from their syllabus; and now the JAA and some other sources would say that we’re wrong for not practicing a form of competition in our aikido (there is a scoreable randori system, but that’s something different from JAA-style shiai).

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What Geis sensei and the others saw was the difference between judo and tae kwon do. What I mean is this: Tomiki sensei introduced competition into aikido, with the intent that competition would do for aikido what it had done for judo (let’s not forget that Tomiki sensei and his senior guys, including Geis sensei, were already accomplished judo players).

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The trouble is that, in order for a fighting art to undergo a sex-change and become a sporting art, certain things have to be removed. And one of the important things they cut out of aikido, in order to sportize the art, was the element of danger inherent in the techniques.

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Watch the old videos on YouTube of O-Sensei demonstrating his kokyu-nage. Looks like it hurts, right? And anyone who’s been studying in the Aikikai for any length of time should have seen the modern rendition of a shomen-ate. Now, mind you, O-Sensei didn’t give it the name shomen-ate. This was a Tomiki innovation. Until Tomiki sensei codified it as its own technique, it was considered to be just another version of kokyu-nage (within mainstream Aikikai-style aikido, the term “kokyu-nage” refers to a whole category of throwing techniques, not just one throw, and what we Tomiki nerds think of as shomen-ate was originally a technique hidden within this category).

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Tomiki sensei considered this to be the primary technique in his version of the art, and today it’s the first throw taught in most Tomiki dojo. Instead of “shomen-ate”, it’s frequently simply referred to as “number one”.

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It’s a defensive technique, and consists of three parts. First, tori steps off the line of attack in a kind of inward-turning step, and “locates” (blocks) the attacking hand. Second, he shifts control of the attack from that hand to his other hand, and “locates” uke’s center By placing his hand squarely on uke’s chin. Third, he locks uke’s spine back and step through uke to execute the straight, forward throw (uke does a straight backfall).

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I know most of the folks reading this blog already know all of this. I include this description simply to bring us to this point: In some modern competition-based Tomiki schools, shomen-ate is done with the hand on uke’s chest or shoulder, instead of on his chin. It can be argued that this isn’t shomen-ate, but is rather a different technique altogether ("shomen ate" translates as "front of the head strike"). Why did they change the technique?

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Efficacy has been sacrificed for safety and aesthetics. When someone attacks you, they must do so my moving their weight toward you in an aggressive manner. Otherwise, it’s not much of an attack. If their momentum is met by a stiff-arm to the chin, that’s what you might call a stopping technique. If it’s met by a stiff-arm to the chest, not so much. But, in competition, where it’s all about scoring points, there’s no need for that kind of efficacy.

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Instead of doing for aikido what it did for judo, competition had done to aikido what it had done to tae kwon do. It had sacrificed its best part in favor of its least important part.

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So at some point, a number of American schools (and some in the UK, I believe) removed the element of competition from their curriculum, thus preserving dangerous techniques like shomen ate for future generations.

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What we have now, then, is not only a rift between the Aikikai and Tomiki philosophies, but a second rift between competition and non-competition Tomiki schools. Of course, it doesn’t help that there has been at least one physical incident between American, non-competition students and Japanese competition-based guys, and that incident turned out badly for the Japanese, for whatever eason (see "A Legacy of Outcasts" http://tenguhouse.typepad.com/aikikuzushi/2008/07/a-legacy-of-outcasts.html).

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But if you watch the techniques closely, you can see that there is very little difference between them, aside from what I would call normal inter-school variation. Shomen-ate is still primarily an off-balace technique, as are the rest of the 17 (or the 23, depending on your school). There are more- and less-effective ways to do it, but it's still a shomen-ate.

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My point is that, in the same way that an Aikikai aikidoist and a Tomiki aikidoist are both still doing aikido, within Tomiki aikido we're all still doing basically the same thing. Competition or no competition - seems like a petty thing to allow such a minor difference to tear the worldwide community apart.

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So what do we do about it? Well, I'm not a high-ranking teacher, but I have given the matter a great deal of thought over the last few years, and I have a few ideas - which I will delve into in Part 4.

 

(Thanks to Winchester Judo & Martial Arts Club of Winchester, England for not killing me when they see that I've shamelessly used their shomen-ate image)

Bridging the Aikido Rift, Part 2

 

The Book of Fred.

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On the Aikikai side, they like to say that there’s only one aikido, as opposed to an Aikikai aikido, a Yoshinkan aikido, a Tomiki aikido, and a Ki aikido. It’s all one. But even within the Aikikai, there are several hundred different “styles”.

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For Aikikai folks, it’s all about your shihan. Morihei Ueshiba famously said, “You’ve seen my aikido; now go out and find your own.” And many of his students did just that. For example, the style of aikido taught within the AAA (American Aikido Association) reflects the highly technical style practiced by their late founder, Akira Tohei shihan. And what you might learn in the ASU (Aikido Schools of Ueshiba) differs in that it has a stronger spiritual component, as taught by its founder, Mistugi Saotome shihan.

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So are Tohei shihan and Saotome shihan teaching different arts? Of course not. It’s all aikido, and both organizations operate with the recognition of the Aikikai Foundation, the worldwide aikido hombu dojo in Tokyo.

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Another example is my shihan, Hiroshi Kato. Kato shihan (8^th dan Aikikai) uses a specific type of hip rotation in his movements – a very pronounced, quite obvious body turn, right in the middle of many techniques – although the Doshu, Moriteru Ueshiba, uses very little hip rotation, if any. Is either style incorrect? Of course not. They’re simply two different translations of technique.

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But what about Tomiki? Aikikai aikidoists may have difficulty recognizing a Tomiki shomen-ate, ai-gamae-ate or gedan-ate. They may even have some difficulties with the basic stances of Tomiki aikido (there are no hanmi stances in Tomiki). So, how different can we get, and still maintain that it’s all one art? Again, let’s check our history.

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After WWII, Tomiki shihan was invited to teach at the hombu dojo by O-Sensei. By this time, Tomiki had begun codifying the techniques of aikibudo into kata for use in training. But his ideas weren’t well received by the technical directors of the hombu, and by the late 1950s, Tomiki shihan had left the hombu and started his own organization.

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By the time of the fourth generation (basically the 1960s), it was clear that the Aikikai Foundation was not interested in the teachings of Kenji Tomiki. The decades-old rift, a division between “aikido” and “Tomiki’s aikido,” was now written in stone. And here’s the rub, the reason for the original split. It’s all summed up in one word: COMPETITION.

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See, in codifying his teaching methods into aikido, starting back in the 1930s, Tomiki shihan had done the unthinkable: He’d introduced an element of competition (shiai) into his aikido training. An 8^th dan in Kodokan judo and a physical education teacher by trade, he’d seen the success that Jigoro Kano sensei (the founder of judo) had enjoyed at the university level, and he wanted to translate that into similar success for aikido. But to get there, he would have to make some changes.

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By the early 1960s, O-Sensei was in his seventies, and although he never slowed down all that much (he was still doing demos up to four months before his death), he was beginning to be regarded as something more than a budo teacher. People all over Japan (and in a few other places) were beginning to consider him something sacred. And in Japan,  if there’s one thing you don’t do, it’s go and change something the people hold sacred. To make sweeping changes to the curriculum and teaching methods that O-Sensei had laid out for three or four generations, was something like a modern-day Christian adding his own book to the Bible, after Revelations. The Book of Fred.

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Now, I realize that some may take exception to my biblical analogy. My sincerest apologies. But to continue: Imagine if someone did that. Say you’re in a Christian book store and you pick up the new edition of the NIV or the Annotated King James, whichever you prefer, and you notice the addition of a completely new Book of Fred at the back. Your reaction could run the gamut from mild surprise (you have questions, but it’s not necessarily a big deal) to absolute shock and outrage (you organize a field trip to protest with ten thousand of your closest friends outside of the offices of the publishing company). Either way, Fred and his addition would enjoy very little credibility.

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It’s not a perfect analogy, because anyone adding anything like that to the Bible is almost certainly a false apostle, whereas Tomiki sensei was the real deal. And there are other problems with it, from a purely research perspective, but you get the idea. Tomiki sensei never intended for his version of teaching the art to take on the status of its own version of the art itself, but that’s what happened. And when the most established and best-known  aikido shihans at the hombu dojo rejected his methodology, he left the Aikikai Foundation for good to found his own teaching organization.

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Tomiki actually didn’t like the name “Tomiki Aikido,” and when he established his headquarters dojo he named it “Shodokan,” or “House of the Clear Way” [not to be confused with the unrelated Shotokan style of karate]. Today, the international governing body for Tomiki’s aikido is the Japan Aikido Association, or JAA – although a significant number of schools operate well outside of the JAA structure. My background is in one of those “outside” schools.

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So we’ve established that over the course of about 30 years, Tomiki shihan built a new system for teaching aikido that committed the unforgivable sin of introducing a sport aspect to aikido, and that this was the primary difference between what he was teaching and what the other shihan were teaching within the Aikikai. This became an underlying philosophical difference between the two aikido worlds, and was an early reason for the formation of the rift.

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But competition wasn’t the only reason, as we’ll explore in part 3.

Bridging the Aikido Rift, Part 1

This is the first in what’s bound to be a long series of articles on the subject of healing the rift that has developed between “American Tomiki” stylists and those who’ve stuck to other forms of aikido, primarily Aikikai.

Definitions being what they are, even in that paragraph there are several misleading assumptions. Let’s start at the very beginning: What is Tomiki aikido, and why is there an “American” version?

Tomiki aikido is aikido, plain and simple, taught by using a different teaching methodology. That’s it, folks. There’s no great difference between this and other forms of the art. And by “American Tomiki,” what I mean is this. There is a form of Tomiki aikido that’s practiced mainly in the States that differs slightly from what’s being taught at the JAA in Japan and in most UK dojos. These are technical differences; the politics of aikido is something I’ll leave for a more interested writer.

To understand this, let’s look at our Tomiki history.

Like most great Tomiki teachers (including Tomiki himself), Karl Geis got his start in the martial arts by studying judo. He was eventually the only American to be promoted to 6^th dan by Tomiki, and he is largely responsible for the propagation of the Tomiki style here in the US.

 

But as is the case with all martial arts teachers in all forms, what you pass on to your students is never exactly what was passed on to you – it’s simply impossible to avoid adding your own flavor to what you’re teaching.

Remember that of the six or seven billion people on this planet, not a single one walks, talks and thinks exactly like you. Therefore, to some extent, everything you do, say or even think is influenced by your own personality. In Buddhism, we say that everything about each of us is influenced by everything about everyone else, because there’s no such thing as a permanent and completely independent self.

So, no matter how hard I try to stay within the boundaries of what my sensei taught me, what I teach to new students CANNOT be exactly the same – especially with such a complex set of principles and techniques.

What Karl Geis did went far beyond these differences. He changed the system considerably. I don’t see this as necessarily a negative thing, because he was concerned mostly with issues of efficacy and usefulness in certain situations, and his intention was to improve the “does it work” factor in each technique. For a time, his dojo was something of an aikido laboratory, wherein techniques were dissected and then tested, tested and re-tested until they could be developed into something that would work practically every time.

Several of his students continued this work after branching out on their own. Chuck Clark founded the Jiyushinkai, an organization devoted to teaching Tomiki aikido from more of a randori perspective. LF Wilkinson founded the Aikibudokan, a Houston dojo known for its technical instruction in principle. Nick Lowry, in writing what I (and many others) consider to be the bible of our art, at least at the beginning level [up through the Big 10 if I’m not mistaken], included certain changes to one or two of the techniques, based on his own personal experiences, or those of his students.

 

All of these teachers have made important contributions to the development of what I’m calling American Tomiki, and it’s easy to see how someone who learned his aikido in, say, Texas, and studied under Geis, Clark, Wilkinson and Lowry will have a different philosophy about the execution of technique than will someone who learned aikido in Japan, and never heard of those American teachers.

Be Careful

 

The problem with frauds is that they degrade all of us.

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Becoming a Black Belt (or, earning a black belt) is in itself the recipient of a million adjectives. The three I like most are humbling, demanding, and rewarding – although in any other context I’d avoid rewarding like an overused plague simile.

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The bottom line is this: Earning your black belt is, in any martial art, not only tiring, humbling, sometimes humiliating, sometimes painful, and almost always difficult, but it’s all these things for years on end. And perhaps that’s why there are so many frauds out there.

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Now, if you know me, you know that I’ve had my run-ins with martial arts wannabes. I swear I’m not on some kind of crusade to rid the world of these poseurs. It’s a laudable goal, sure – it’s just not my calling. But all you have to do is 1) earn a shodan rank in anything, and 2) put yourself out there as someone who wants to train, and you’re going to meet them.

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They’re everywhere.

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Well, actually it’s probably more like they’re in a few places. But you’ll definitely run into them. The other day I was walking through Barnes & Noble, and when I walked up to the “Sports” section, where the martial arts books are, there was a man standing there, flipping through a big, colorful book about “Japanese swordsmanship”. I’ve flipped through this particular book before, and it’s clear from the many glossy, color photos that the author doesn’t know jack about handling the Japanese sword. He’s shown wearing and holding the sword upside-down, tucking it through the wrong place in his improperly-tied hakama, and bowing incorrectly (very incorrectly). I understand that different schools will vary in their interpretation of these things, but none teaches its pupils to wear the sword upside-down, or to bow to a sword that has been drawn from its scabbard and placed on the floor with its exposed blade toward the pupil. I should also point out that the foreword in this book is written by the granddaddy of all American martial arts fakes (I won’t pollute by blog by assigning him a letter; I’ll just let him fall under Soke Bob of Hoboken, a conglomerate character of my own invention). I’ll call the author of this book P (as in, a Person of low moral character).

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I’ve also been made aware of an aikido shihan in Texas whose credentials are questionable, at best. For the purposes of this essay, I’ll call him C (as in, the worst kind of Charlatan). This guy claimed that his shodan certificate was signed by a legitimate shihan who never signed a shodan certificate in his life, and C’s subsequent rankings had all been awarded by yet another known martial arts fraud with a history of selling fake rank certificates through the mail.

And of course, we all know about my personal favorite, the guy I mentioned in a previous post, who exhibited a level of general martial arts knowledge, intention and attitude that would embarrass any day-one white belt over the age of twelve, but claimed to be a “master”. For this essay, I’ll call him “F” (for his Failure to realize that what it means to be a real martial artist transcends the wearing of a belt of any particular color).

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Again, I’m not in the business of exposing frauds. But I have to admit that it does irk me to think that there are people out there who simply claim what I had to work so hard for. Another problem with these people is this: If you didn’t learn your art from a real teacher, what are you teaching your students? If you didn’t learn aikido, for example, from someone who can trace his or her lineage to the Ueshiba family, are you really teaching aikido?

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And to continue the analogy, if you’re not teaching real aikido, are any of your students paying to learn real aikido? Are they getting what they’re paying for?

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If your students are paying for genuine Shaolin Kung-Fu and you’re selling them something that was made up by Soke Bob of Hoboken, is that an honest transaction? Even if you’re positive that what Soke Bob of Hoboken teaches is both in line with the spirit of traditional Chinese gongfu, and street-effective in modern society, it’s still not the real thing, is it? If it didn’t come from Shaolin, and can’t be traced directly back to Shaolin, you probably shouldn’t call it Shaolin.

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So the guy in the bookstore, who was flipping through this book written by P, looked up when I approached. I was looking for a book on aikido, but when I saw the book in his hands, I said, “He’s a fake.”

“Sorry?”

“He’s a fake,” I said, smiling. I was trying to be dismissive, but I was really just looking for my book so I could get out of there.

“Yeah, they probably all are,” he said.

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See? It degrades all of us. Because of people like P, C, and F, and their grand poobah of fakery, Soke Bob of Hoboken, if I were to write a legitimate martial arts book of some kind, and if I were good enough and fortunate enough, and hired the right agent, and if the planets lined up just right so that my book could stand on that shelf at Barnes & Noble with the other notable martial arts books, it would probably be dismissed by jaded consumers as just another fake. Yeah, they probably all are.

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No, sir, they are not. The vast majority of martial arts teachers, serious students, and authors are perfectly legit. Real martial artists probably outnumber the fakes by a hundred to one. But that one percent is a force to be reckoned with, and carry their own dangers. You could end up being taught something that’s made up by Soke Bob of Hoboken, or you could end up paying your money every month and sweating through your uniform three nights a week for nothing.

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So what can you do about it? Here are some tips.

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First, you have the most powerful tool in the human arsenal to rely on: your own good judgment. If a “master” or teacher of any sort tells you that he has developed superhuman powers because of a near-death experience, perhaps this should set off the little warning buzzer in your head. Likewise, if you visit the teacher of a popular dojo on the other side of town, and he insists that you sign a contract and train only with him, that should tell you something too. Believe your gut. Even if you just get the feeling that something isn’t right, there’s probably a reason for that.

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Second, Do your homework. Ask to see certificates, and take note of the signatures on them. Then, contact the signatories and ask about your potential teacher. Dig into his or her lineage. Pursue leads, and follow them all the way through their martial arts organizations. Any teacher worth his or her belt should be able to provide you with a complete lineage and history of their school, their art, and themselves. Check references, look up contacts, network with others in the same art. Talk to people on internet forums. Find out who’s who and what’s what – and then, in that context, make your decision about a potential teacher or dojo. Lineage is important, and anyone who tells you otherwise should be avoided.

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Third: Even if you do run across a fraud, don’t bother exposing him. It generally doesn’t make much difference. The guy I’m thinking of mainly for the “Soke Bob of Hoboken” character has been well-known as a fake and a fraud for more than thirty years, yet he continues to this day to run a black belt mill, and continues to claim advanced rank in more than ten different martial arts. The best thing to do is simply to train, and ignore people like this. At least, that’s how I see it right now.

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They always react according to certain patterns. First, they’ll try to confuse the issue by blurring the lines between fact and perception (“if ten people say it’s true, does that make it true?”). Then they’ll plead with you or try to appeal to your compassionate side (“come on man, I’m just a guy trying to make his way in this world”, or “let’s just learn from each other, okay?”). And when that doesn’t work, they will try name-calling and intimidation (“I’ll come to your dojo and teach you a lesson”, or “you’re all a bunch of hate-mongers”). But the one thing they almost never do is change their method of operation. A fraud is a fraud, and that’s that.

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These are not people who are interested in working for what they get in life. In fact, I would go so far as to say that many of these frauds aren’t exactly mentally stable. I’m no psychologist, but the several fakers I’ve had the displeasure of meeting so far have all been off their rockers. It was most evident when they reached the intimidation stage, so watch out for that. Choose your teachers and your fellow students carefully, and avoid unstable braggarts with questionable backgrounds.

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Bottom line: be careful, and enjoy your training.

 

Children and the Martial Arts, Part 1

  Before I got into aikido (but after I decided to study the Japanese budo), I showed up at a karate dojo not far from my house. I met the sensei, an affable fellow whose rank I believe was 2nd dan.

Anyway, I'd called the sensei earlier in the day from work, and had asked if I could come in and observe a class. We all know that many of the karate schools in the area are mainly for kids, so I'd specifically asked to observe the adults class. "Yeah, no problem," the sensei had said. "But why not participate? Just wear sweats and show up ready to work out."

So when I showed up that evening, wearing my sweat pants and a t-shirt, I met the sensei and started stretching. As it got closer and closer to time for the class to start, I started wondering where all the grown-ups were. The place was filling up with children, and when it came time to bow in, Sensei and I were the only two people in the building who were over 13.

Now, there can be many reasons for this. Maybe a new war had suddenly broken out, and all the adults in the area had gone off to fight the evil hordes, and the sensei and I hadn't got the word. Maybe there was a plague that only affected adults, and the sensei and I were the only two survivors.

As it turned out, neither of those was the case. There simply weren't any adults in the "adults" class. So when it was time to practice "sparring", my nearly-300-pound self was paired up with a 10-year-old kid. Imagine this. Nothing quite like karate sparring, when you outweigh your opponent by more than two hundred pounds. Too bad it wasn't judo.

Now, mind you, I have no doubt that kids can learn martial arts, at least to some degree. It's silly to think that a child can master a video game that's complex enough to make me give up in shame in the space of about half an hour, but lacks the mental accuity to learn a solid reverse punch or zenkutsu-dachi. The problem, in my view, is the child's focus.

Psychological markers being what they are, I think each of us learns at a different pace, depending on how interested we are in the subject matter. This is why video games get mastered before complex mathematical theory: math is less interesting, less fun, than saving the world in a brightly animated game. And that in itself wouldn't be too bad a problem, except for one other factor.

Sometimes, I wonder if I ever really grew up at all. I'm just a big kid. But I'm a fairly well-behaved kid, in that I can pay attention when I'm asked to, and I always could - even when I really was a kid. Maybe this is because I had good parents, or maybe because I never got all that wrapped up in video games - whatever. But it seems like there are some parents out there who place a rather low priority on training their children to behave properly, opting instead to pass that duty on to the kids' affable karate teacher.

So what you end up with is, instead of simply a karate school full of kids, a karate school full of unruly, loud, obnoxious kids running around with reckless abandon.

And me, standing there in my sweats, trying to learn how to throw a proper reverse punch.

Needless to say, of course, I never went back to that school. The location, price, and instruction were actually all quite good. But some people simply prefer to avoid the awkwardness of training with small children - let alone the legal issues in the event that one of them gets hurt. And here's something else to think of.

If you do train children at your dojo, I might recommend that you require them to show up and leave in their gi, effectively reserving the right to change on-premises for the adults. This does two things. One, it practically eliminates the possibiliy of a child student forgetting or losing parts of the uniform; and two, it eliminates the possibility of some adult walking in on a half-naked child in the changing rooms, and whatever safety and legal issues that may arise from that. This is why my first dojo didn't accept anyone under 17 for training. It's just easier to avoid the awkwardness. It's just a bonus that in four years of training there, I never once had to square off with a ten-year-old.

The Legend of Fuzzy Butt

 

Not a very good excuse for missing class…

First, a little background.

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A couple of years ago, one of the Buddhist nuns at the Fo Guang Shan temple asked me to adopt this cat. He was stray and hanging around looking for scraps. He’d just appeared at the temple, and the nuns were afraid he might get hit by a car or something.

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Of course, I couldn’t say no to a request like that, especially since I’d been thinking about getting a cat anyway. The one at the temple was a gorgeous long haired cat, which I have since identified as a “Maine Coon Cat”, or derivative thereof. Beautiful creature, but seriously high strung and high maintenance.

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So I brought him home, and almost right away it became apparent that he’d never really learned how to be an indoor cat. I named him Freddy, as in Freddy Kruger, because he was a little too fond of his claws in those early months at my house. Nowadays, I mostly call him Fuzzy Butt (his real name, given by the nuns at the temple, is Lai Shi, meaning “happy” or “happy pet”).

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So I’ve had him for about two and a half years. I still keep him inside, but I let him out to terrorize the neighborhood for an hour or two a day. I figure that’s got to be healthier for him than to keep him cooped up inside all day. And, with one exception, he’s always come home on his own, before bedtime.

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Anyway, obviously I have no control over what he gets into while he’s out, and evidently he got into something that didn’t agree with him, because he was sick yesterday. I first noticed it from the smell, when he came around sniffing at my sandwich in the afternoon. Uuuggghhh – I picked him up and carried him back to his litterbox, from whence he’d clearly just emerged. He little guy had no interest in revisiting his litterbox, and he quickly returned to the couch, where he continued to stink up the living room. I mean, he smelled real bad.

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Now, all this is happening on a dojo night. I’ve only recently signed up at a new aikido school, and am in that phase of my career there wherein people are watching me. When a new student begins in any dojo, he or she is watched closely. This is the period during which his or her attendance, teachability, and overall dedication are being evaluated, and the student is establishing something of an identity as a deshi, with that particular dojo. Those of you who’ve taught a few (or more) MA classes will know what I’m talking about. Well, that’s me, right now: the brand-new student. So I have this brand new dogi, bright white, and I’ve got it folded neatly on top of my gym bag on the couch, next to the door.

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All is ready to go to class tonight. Just let me finish my tea, and I’m out the door.

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But it was not to be. When I’d had just about all I could stand of the litterbox smell in the living room, I ran a bath for Fuzzy Butt. I figured at this point that he’d just made a mess of his fur, and needed a little help getting clean.

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Hey, we’ve all been there – am I right?

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Now, if you’ve never tried to bathe a cat, I’ll write up another post about that some time. I’ve done it a few times (Fuzzy Butt is a particularly messy cat), and it’s never an easy endeavor. This time, he made the usual drench-the-whole-house mess, and while he was still dripping wet, he ran straight to his litterbox.

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That’s when I realized it wasn’t a hygiene issue, but rather a something-he-ate issue. Poor guy – he got dunked in lukewarm water and scrubbed down with a washcloth for nothing.

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But to be perfectly honest, I didn’t have time to address it just then. Way I figured it, I could deal with this when I got home from my aikido class; if I left now, I’d have just enough time to get there before class starts.

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So I left the cat alone, started moving toward the door, and reached down to grab my dogi.

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And it was then, right at that exact moment, that Fuzzy Butt -- still smelling bad, but now soaking wet and covered with cat litter (when a wet cat jumps into a litterbox, he comes out absolutely caked in litter) -- decided to jump up onto the couch, run up onto the pristine, white, neatly-folded outer surface of my brand-new dogi, and do his business.

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Number Two. And not just any number two, but the number two of a cat with a gastro problem.

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So what would you do? First of all, let’s not say “kill the cat.” He’s only doing what he needs to do (he’s the one suffering here, not me). I did toss him outside, but that’s only a precaution – and as I mentioned above, he already goes outside for an hour or two a day anyway, so he’s fine, and the world is his litterbox. But what about the gi?

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As it turns out, there’s a dry cleaner within a block or two who stays open until seven, so I was able to just barely beat the bell (I rinsed it off best I could before presenting this mess to the kid behind the counter at the dry cleaner). By the time I’m done with the dry cleaner trip, class is already in session.

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Now I couldn’t go to class anyway, because I had no dogi. It’s a poor excuse, I know, because I should have had a backup ready, just in case,. No such luck, of course. My other dogi, the one I’ve been training in for years – well, I mentioned above that I’ve only recently switched schools, and the older, less-white and less-neatly-folded dogi has the patches and markings of that other school all over it. Hardly appropriate for my new digs.

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So there ya have it, folks. Compared tot he legend of Judo Gene LeBell's pink judogi, the legend of scruffysmilface's...um...brown gi may not withstand the test of time. But it does illustrate a point, whatever point that may be.

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And by the way, Fuzzy Butt is just fine. Whatever it was that had made him sick, he...ahem...got it out of his system over the course of the evening.