Aikido HAMAKAZE
浜風合気会横浜
The interview with SEKI Shihan
Moment of “touch”
Starting with a disadvantage is also keiko.
--- It is often said that “you should make your opponent holdyou rather than be held”. What do you think about this?
Sometimes I use such an explanation. But I think during practice, it is all right not only make uke hold but also to be held.
Being held means that I put myself in a slightly disadvantageous situation. Even in sucha situation, we need to train our body in various ways in practice. After many trials in various situations, you finally become advantageous yourself when you are held. When you learn to physically sense the positive side of ‘being held’, in the end this becomes ‘making uke hold’. Therefore it is not possible to assert that ‘to have uke hold you’ is good without having the experience of ‘being held’.
In the meantime, it is very important to prepare in advance. It is not that you just put out your hand as uke comes near, but rather that you put out your hand after preparing yourself to move quickly towards uke. With a little effort you can do this even from the very beginning
Through practice you will learn the distance at which uke is too close for you to move as you intend. At what distance you still have options, at what distance you need to be watchful, these are different for each person. Since each person has different height, power and speed, it is through repeated practice that we can find our own distance or timing. As an instructor I do tell people “that’s too close”, but in the end, we must decide for ourselves what is the most suitabledistance and timing for our movements.
This is same as for uchi-waza such as showmen-uchi, yokomen-uchi or tsuki. In order to understand “making someone hit” not “being hit”, you have to do trial and error through keiko, the same as being held. When we are caught off guard and are hit, we can’t move as we wish and become disadvantaged. I think after we come to know the various disadvantageous conditions, we will develop our own timing.
The matter of distance lasts from the moment of touch between tori and uke until the end of the waza.Tori tries to break uke’s balance. The trial of breaking the opponent’s balance lasts until the finishing pin for a pinning technique or the throw for a throwing technique. The distance, where you can keep breaking your opponent’s balance through the changes from moment to moment, and keep your most advantageous posture, is your distance. This means that it is important to keep the sense of the tension of the moment of touch until the end of the technique.
WAZA is disrupting each other’s centre
Would you please give us some advice for when I have my partner hold my hand?
It is better to have your partner hold your hand so as not to force his/her reaction. If you show hostility, your opponent will come on stronger. If you give your hand unselfconsciously and directly without straining, uke will hold it naturally.
There are people who, when held, move against uke’s grip, or move after applying force, but theiropponents follow those movements because they are doing keiko. However, when tori attempts to move suddenly, putting in power,the human response for uke should be to reflexively try to stop the movement. Therefore it is better to try to move using the same power as when you have tori hold your hand.
Then regarding the sense of being held, I try to receive uke’s power with my elbow instead of my arm or shoulder. You need to be in a good posture in order to receive the power with the elbow. If you back away or take a crouching posture, the transferred power is stopped at the shoulder. Therefore I try to stand well and connect the contact point of uke to my belly. This sense is the same with throwing techniques. When I throw uke, I try to throw from the bottom of belly not with the power of my arm.
---Is it the same when uke holds tori?
For example, when uke takes with katate tori (one hand), uke shouldn’t approach without awareness and grab from above without care, but should grasp as if with a poke/push. Then, of course, uke must pay attention to the distance before the movement and try to hold with the best and most stable posture.
If we put aside the question of whether or not to push/press tori, we should not simply pay attention to the wrist, but should be conscious of our partner’s belly through that contact point. In other words, uke is trying to grasp their partner’s centre.
We often hear that waza is the process of destablising each other’s centre, however, we should attack firmly up until the moment of contact, but thereafter it is important that uke should follow tori’s movement without blocking or conflicting. At that time, we might think that uke should do nothing but simply follow tori’s movement, but that is not actually the case. When your balance is broken you should not continue out of balance, but should attempt to keep a connection such that you can recover and reorient yourself to your partner’s centre. Uke’s balance is continually being broken, but you should always attempt to maintain your ability to move well. Do not fall until you are thrown, but always keep the connection and the feeling of moving towards your partner. In this way keiko is more enjoyable. However, having connected practice is not the primary aim. I think that through connected practice we can develop better technique– it is a means to that end.
Face the opponent seriously
--- When you face an opponent, please advise what should we keep in mind.
Face the opponent seriously.
Usually your keiko partner may be acquainted with you. Even if you know how to move your partner, you should assume that they are a complete stranger. Your partner may be very strong or have sharp movements. In that case, you might feel tension. Normally it is important to practice with any partners seriously like this.We usually practice techniques which are decided in advance, but ideally we should be doing techniques according the requirements of each specific moment.
There are many techniques in Aikido. Why is this so? It might be enough with one technique if ikkyo or shiho-nage covered all situations. But we keep learning through daily keiko in order to deal with various situations with the best skill and movement.
Unfortunately, we often repeat patterned movements unthinkingly in the a situation. For example; someone puts their foot to the direction of irimi before uke starts his attack. In the case of Ikkyo, their foot is toward to uke, it isn’t good when their foot moves outside especially for irimi. It is quite obvious that tori is going to the direction of his foot, so uke will attack in that direction naturally.
We misunderstand that we are able to do some techniques because partners will take ukemi. But it is not so easy to throw a person who has several dozens of kilograms. However, I would like to repeat keiko with my partner in front of me, facing seriously, and to aim to improve little by little.
