In The End It Is Always Kokyunage

KOKYUNAGE 呼吸投げ Breath throw. A cover-all term used to refer to a series of blending techniques with no common mechanical similarities

Saturday: Sensei worked us through some ushiro techniques starting with ushiro tekubitori (wrist grab from behind) and kokyunage and toward the end we worked on responding to kubishime (choke hold from behind) where I think we responded with Sankyo but stopped the kubishime after that.

After class I mentioned to Sensei that I thought he was leading us up to koshi nage. He admitted he thought about it as it is logical progression, but he decided to emphasize something else. He went on to say that you would use koshinage only if kokyonage was not an option. Then he dispensed this gem (to paraphrase)

“In the end it is always kokyunage”

He said you really only go (this is very much a paraphrase) with koshi nage when you must align yourself with uke to apply a technique but in a more pure approach kokyu nage would happen naturally and no such drastic maneuvers are needed. Then he pointed out that while strength is not a major part of koshinage it still takes more out of you than kokynage. He amended his cool aphorism allowing what you really want is the most appropriate technique for the specifics of the moment, but I think he meant that if you are aware you could generally position yourself so some kokyunage would be the easiest.

I don't think he meant this to be a special comment to me (the oldest person in the class) but he explained that when young you can use your strength with many techniques but as you age you are forced into wisdom since strength is not the option it once was, and that the goal is wisdom.

The second technique in the video above has an example of a the kokyunage we practice on Saturday, although when Sidney does it it is way smoother and way cooler.

Teacher Student Conference

It was Wednesday night and Charlie taught and Sensei was just a regular Joe like the rest of us. Except of course that he was not perplexed like the rest of us.

I've missed a lot of Wednesday classes over the past months so I have not worked with Sensei as a partner in a long while so tonight I made a point of working with him. And I really think it is one the really cool things about the dojo, that the Sensei wants to (I think) work with everybody at an individual level.

He doesn't instruct or even correct (much) but he does take his time and tries to figure out what you are doing and how to make it better. It really is like a 10 minute private session with an Aikido Master. Charlie brought his Tomiki style background to the mat but so we did some things slightly differently but Sensei focused on the responsiveness of what I was doing and not whether the techniques were slightly different that had practiced in the past.

We were starting from a static katate-tori stance and went to shiho-nage. At one point Sensei struggled to get me to recognize the timing I felt as he grabbed my wrist (somehow we went to a more dynamic start), and helped me work on responding to his movements as I grabbed his wrist. He used the analogy of a metronome where the musician must pace themselves the beat that is give. But then he switch to saying that once you are in sync with uke then nage takes control of the speed, direction and pace.

At one point I think we spent 5 minutes of him grabbing my wrist, I tenkan and “feel” when I need to shift back and go to shiho-nage. We didn't complete the throw but just focused on me getting a sense of his timing and using that to move the technique along.

Anyway, it was a great experience. I hate to “beat a dead horse” but I can't help but wonder what a master of something must be thinking when all this wisdom comes out but can only go to a perpetually clumsy pupil. But he is never acts as if it is an imposition to explain and help us even though we seem to forget it the moment after he tells us something

We did some other cool stuff but the above video (around 1:09) show what Sidney and I worked on, although I didn't do the neat break fall in the omote version although he told me how I should position myself to did it if I needed.

Slides Rule

Tonight we spent a lot of time on ukemi with much of it pure practice where we were not working on a particular technique and sometimes we just worked on falling and sliding while not working with a partner.

The goal Sensei was trying to impart is somewhat shown in some of the ukemi in the video (Please to note timestamps 1:04 & 2:52), but Shiba Sensei REALLY emphasizes the sliding or rather your center moving as you compensate as uke to nage's irminage. This is one of the cool things about practicing this art, in that there is the obvious beauty of the art but it is when you find a teacher who makes it special that really confirms why you spend the time to practice.

It looks like Sidney is simply sliding across the floor more than the rest of us, but by working on it tonight I saw that he is really moving his center and it is just that he lowers his center and goes with the flow. It is so freaking cool to see it in action and the thing is that tonight I may have actually gotten a little bit of the technique down. It felt so great to sense what I was supposed to do, even if I never actually got it exactly right. But I was at least on the right path.

For me ukemi with iriminage is difficult, although if the nage is really good they compensate for my weaknesses. The less sensitive the nage the worse my ukemi is with Iriminage. But tonight I think I got a little bit closer to knowing what to do. I can't emphasize this enough, it is like magic when you find yourself actually practicing magic while practicing Aikido it is...well, magical.

Of course I'm scared it will all be gone by the next class.

Old News

This is from last week when I was in Phoenix and drew the Barry Flannagan sculpture. I had hoped to find a photo of the sculpture of a elephant with a wild hare dancing on top of its head.

That night I was walking to an restaurant and saw a real life hare (or rabbit) with its really long ears. So in place of the sculpture I give you a photo of a real hare to take the place of the one that I started to draw but ran out of room.

Man On Wire

After my bicycle ride I walked to the nearest Movie Theater and saw “Man On Wire” which IMDB says

...A look at tightrope walker Philippe Petit's daring, but illegal, high-wire routine performed between New York City's World Trade Center's twin towers in 1974, what some consider, "the artistic crime of the century”

It is pretty amazing and the video of Philippe walking and laying down on a wire across the WTC towers brings you to tears. Of beauty? Of magic? Of what?

But it really is stunning.

I saw it on the anniversary of 9-11 so it had some extra poignancy which might have been interesting to address in the movie (it was not).

Probably improperly I have sympathy for this guy, in that he does things that have no objective value. Of course my value-less hobbies are not nearly so stunning.

Ride Baby Ride

After Arizona I went to the San Francisco Bay Area.

Today I went to Bike and Roll and by 8:30 AM was on the road on a bicycle to the Golden Gate Bridge. I rode across the bridge to Sausalito where I had a latte while waiting for the ferry back to San Francisco. Then I landed near the Bay Bridge (not the Golden Gate Bridge) and rode along the piers back to the Golden Gate Bridge except that I turned left and rode up through Fort Mason on the road to Golden Gate Park.

Along the way I stopped for a couple of slices of pizza and a couple of glasses of wine. After lunch I went to a bookstore next to the pizza place where I was scolded for writing down the titles off books since the owner didn’t want to have her store used as a display case and the people buy them elsewhere. She was really pissed about it. I ended up buying the book I had planed to but I thought about stalking out in a huff, but I did not.

After that I rode through Golden Gate Park which was nice but somehow I took a wrong turn ended up bypassing most of the park and ended up at the far west end of San Francisco .

I managed to get back to the rental place around 3:30 PM after a lot of huffing and puffing up some steep San Francisco hills.

So it was a great day with a lot of Bicycling.

Oh yeah, I went to Seattle Aikikai last night. I practiced and looked like a total wimp, but it was good.

The picture shows my route in orange.

Art and such..

I’m in Phoenix tonight and while there was no Aikido available I spent a few hours at the Phoenix Art Museum today when I had a few hours to spare between work tasks.

It’s a nice museum with a nice range of genres and artists.

The first sketch is from a bronze sculpture by Kiki Smith from 1998. From a quick web search I gather there are a number of these around and that they represent the world of feminist suffering.

The statue is a fountain and the water drips from the hands, but it so reminiscent of tears it I naturally assume it meant she was crying. Whatever the artist’s motivations it was amazing. I spent a long time trying to capture the angles but the above is all I came away with.( a pretty poor result)

While Kiki may have wanted to make a feminist stament what really struck me was the pigeon that landed on the hand. It seemed to indicat the world is not really so sad.


Then I went into the exhibit “You who are getting obliterated in the dancing Swarm of Fireflies” by Yayoi Kusama. You walk into an completely dark room alone and there are thousands of Christmas lights on black wires in a smallish room walled with mirrors. Immediately you are disoriented and the impulse is to turn around and go back to the entrance. As you step into the room the lights somehow change intensity and color as you walk around.

I later read she meant it to show her loneliness but at least for my first time it really lifted my spirits.