Little differences

Vincent: But you know what the funniest thing about Europe is?
Jules: What?
Vincent: It's the little differences. I mean, they got the same shit over there that we got here, but it's just – it's just there it's a little different.

There are two reasons for starting the post with this quote from Pulp Fiction. One, they arrived at these lines by talking about Amsterdam where I happen to work. Two, when I moved to the Netherlands and found a new dojo, I got to know some little differences in aikido techniques, explanations and approaches. In this post, I would like to list and discuss some of the differences I observed, and I'm wondering what you think about them.

I already talked about the zig-zag vs. step-out-and-straight-forward differences when doing tenchinage (heaven-earth throw). Just to summarise those points: I was taught to step out of the line of attack then move forward (parallel to the line the attacker follows). Then here I was told to step out then step back onto my original line of movement/stance. Hopefully the figure below explains this difference better. Last time I concluded - and since I have received positive feedback about it - that both are valid movements, they are just used to utilise different positions of the attacker. Zig-zag assumes that the attacker turns towards you a bit and hence, his irimi point moves to the original line of movement, whereas the step-out-and-go-forward method assumes that the attacker does not turn towards you (they have no reaction or you don't let them turn towards you) and hence their irimi point remains next to the line of attack. See the figure.

Another little difference between my old and new dojos is in terminology. The difference is only slight, so we call iriminage iriminage, we call an entering step irimi, and a pivoting step tenkan, just like before. The difference is that what I know as irimi point is (sometimes?) called sumiotoshi point here. The latter also makes sense, because the technique I know as sumiotoshi is - in addition to numerous (if not all) other techniques - uses the irimi point. On the other hand, I keep thinking about what the irimi point has to do with the irimi step. The above difference might - again - be the result of students' interpretations of a teacher. The traditional Japanese way of teaching is teaching by letting students observe. There is not much explanation, students are expected to grasp the essence of a technique by watching and practicing extensively. I guess several students saw the concept of the irimi point but since the teacher might not have mentioned any name, they made up some. Some made up irimi point, while others used sumiotoshi point. I can also imagine easily that the same teacher had different names for the same concept over time, or used different names for the same thing (the irimi point) in different situations. A couple of years ago I trained with someone who didn't know the concept at all. I was shocked because, for me, that was the basic concept behind all the techniques, so I thought 'How can someone train without knowing what an irimi point is?!' This person might have had a different teacher who did not mention the concept of irimi point explicitly. And some teachers talk a lot, some don't. My teachers used to explain a lot of things, digging into details so we knew all the points they thought were important. My current teacher does not talk a lot but he sometimes comes to you, says a couple of words or shows the technique one more time, and I can still learn. Both approaches can lead to very good aikidoka, though I think that it's a bit better if the teacher explains a lot than if I only need to try to copy. We might not have enough time to finally grasp a particular technique's main principle in our 10th year of training, especially if we don't have the luxury of going to class every day. It's probably part of the quick-fix, learn-everything-at-once way of life, and the increasing demand for even more efficient teaching (not just in aikido).

There is another technical difference I found interesting. This concerns ikkyo. But before going into the details, an interesting story: during my years of training I have identified several concepts/principles of the aikido teaching I was given that I didn't understand. It's not the kind of not-understanding where you are not ready to understand, it's the 'I don't agree with this' or 'I don't see why it's like this' kind of not-understanding. One of these not-understandings is the way we did ikkyo. The basic movement of ikkyo I was taught is as follows: let's start with aihanmi katatedori (left hand grabs left wrist, or right grabs right). Step out of the line of attack. Turn hips a little bit an let turn the attackers pushing movement into a hand-raising one. Grab the elbow with your free hand as soon as you can. Until this point everything is the same in all my dojos so far. Now, the old-dojo approach says: cut down through the head of the attacker and, at the same time, step forward. Then fix uke, step forward with the other foot, go down to shikko dachi and pin down uke. The new-dojo approach says after raising the grabbed hand and grabbing the elbow of the attacker: cut down BUT don't step forward. After the cut step back to the line zig-zag style, and then go down to shikko dachi and pin down uke. Very similar things but when to step in is different. With the first approach I have had the problem that it didn't seem logical to cut and step at the same time. My understanding is that, for cutting down, you need a very stable stance, a ground that makes sure you stay stable during the cut (Connor has already emphasized this in one of his posts). However, if you step forward while cutting down - according to my understanding of how things work - you will definitely lose stability. One foot is sliding forward so that one is not fixed to the ground. So it makes sense to cut and turn the hips first and follow these up with a step. On the other hand, if you need a stable back foot that pretty much means that you expect some pressure on it from uke. If uke applies some pressure on you, however, it means that you do not execute the technique using all their energy, you need some point (heel) that helps to absorb some energy. So if uke is properly off balance and you use their energy then the back foot should not be needed and you should just be able to step forward at the same time as cutting down. The funny thing is that if a technique is applied fact (which assumes that the attack is fast not that you just want to do it fast!) it doesn't make a difference whether you step or not. I tried it a couple of times with a fast uke, and there is no difference. (The background info is that I tried to conform and tried not to step in but many times my long-practiced step-in type ikkyos kicked in). So you can't really tell if one approach is absolutely better than the other. I can easily imagine that after you do ikkyo 10000 times without any explanation from the teacher, or direct instructions as to when to step, you will form your own idea about when to step when doing ikkyo slowly, i.e. when teaching it to beginners. I guess this is how the 'when to step' difference occured. Two people watched the same movement and tried to arrive at some rule, and they arrived at two different rules. I wonder whether this theory of mine holds :). See the poll about the ikkyo cut here.

Difference number four: I am used to kotegaeshi as a pretty good throwing technique. Step out of the line (soto tenkan, I wonder how others call it), grab the attackers wrist, wait until they turn towards you or gently help them find the right direction, raise the hand a bit, cut through the head into the irimi point and uke will fly (and they will fly somehow whether it's omote or ura). Last week I was told not to raise my hand at all, which makes sense in a way but it will be much harder to draw that big circle and throw uke. In my current dojo what we are doing is small circles which don't really get ukes in the air. Furthermore, ukes seem to know what's coming and they seem to 'die' too easily (perhaps I shouldn't say this because I'm usually the one who flies too easily). I'm not saying that not raising the hand is bad, just that that way, drawing a circle and cutting through the head is harder and ukes won't fly. What is also strange is that I've seen an instructional dvd by the Doshu and he seems to go for the gentle, non-flying way of doing kotegaeshi. Some senseis demonstrating at the same event as the Doshu, however, send ukes flying, and still looks quite gentle (so it's not sudden pushes and pulls, far from that). So maybe this detail of kotegaeshi is some sort of personal preference, and both are good. I'll say more about this after some experimentation, in a couple of years :).