Aihanmi katatedori ikkyo omote

Let's start the discussion: Defender (tori) does not step off the line of attack and raising his hand is also not completely appropriate. Here, tori raises his arm/hand so that he makes only a minimal step away from the line of attack. After this, he steps forward with his rear leg and pushes the attacker backwards and lets him fall without being controlled by the defender. This makes the technique look as if the attacker dragged the defender down while himself going down. Due to the lack of control and proper ikkyo cut, the defender almost loses his balance and he needs to focus on not having to fall with the attacker. He leans forward while almost running after the attacker. As he loses control over uke, uke can move relatively freely, so tori again does a cut-like move when turning uke into prone position to start doing the pin.

 So now how ikkyo ought to be done:

 Ikkyo should include a cut through the head to the front irimi point. (Ikkyo ura is also a cut to the front irimi point; I'm sure many people disagree with me on this issue but we'll surely explain it some time later). Raising the arm, moving away from the line of attack, and cut from this position is supposed to be one continuous movement. The defender has to get out of the line of attack with all his body, he shouldn't leave his rear leg in there. At the end of the cut, the defender takes the attacker off balance based on the attacker's position of his feet. During the execution of the technique, the attacker should always be kept in front of the hips, and stability should also be kept at all times. Otherwise, the attacker can easily spot the unstable position of tori and counter the technique.

A common mistake to correct: both uke and tori need to keep tegatana. If you lose tegatana (arm is bent at the elbow), tori will simply cut the head of the attacker who will lose all his chances to come back and use possible mistakes from the defender. Alternatively, if the defender's arm is bent, the attacker can get too close to him and eventually punch the defender with his other hand.

A bit of theory and philosophy:

In aikido, we always need to connect with the attacker; our movements need to be connected to the line in which uke attacks. With only straight moves without circles and hip movements connection is almost completely impossible.

A secret:

When I was a beginner, I also learned this kind of technique execution, but if we think about the principles of aikido, i.e. circular movements, cuts, connection of directions and energies, we can see that in techniques executed like this in the video, these principles do not really appear.

If you would like to share your thoughts, opinion or any ideas related to this topic, you are more than welcome to do so.