Saturday Morning at the Dojo 7/7

Aikidokas: Sensei Tim

Ukemi: Not bad. Had a weird landing on one of the big falls. I didn't get the nice solid boom I usually do, but a thump instead. No pain was involved, but it was strange.

This was my first session after my demonstration and I though my releases needed work. So, that's what we worked on. We expanded the workout into more general areas and discussions.

The topic of kazushi (off-balance) came up, as it should in aikido. We discussed how off-balances play a role in the fight-or-flight response that humans, and probably most animals, have. If you've been attacked by someone, successfully avoided it, and generated an off-balance in your attacker you've put your attacker into a fight-or-flight situation. Because he's off-balance, his body's response is to get back on balance. He can't, physically or mentally, do anything in the way of an attack until he gets his balance back.

A number of aikido techniques have multiple elements to them (e.g, move off-line, move uke's center, push, turn and push again). To successfully complete the technique you need to get uke off-balance and, if the technique that shows up has multiple elements in it, keep uke off-balance the entire time. If you keep the off-balances in play, uke can't get back in the fight. Give up the off-balance and uke's likely to sit you on your keester.

It was definitely a good Saturday morning session, if it inspired me to write more than the usual gibberish

Thoughts?

Aftermath: none.