Kaze Uta Budo Kai Forum Archive

I was looking at some videos on Chinese push-hand drills. It looks an awful lot like our hand randori except they are not moving their centers in the few vids I watched.

I spent several months looking at push hands and stealing some of their good ideas over the summer.

I totally agree that Tai Chi offers a lot of good drills that we should be incorporating them into our work. I go through push hands focus times where I will do it solid for a month or so.

I like drills that fall into a flowing sequence. I do not like the fixed step work as much.



I made a collection of some of my favorite push hands artists with criticisms here.

http://tomikiaikido.blogspot.com/2009/06/good.html

If you search my blog under tag words bad and ugly you can find examples of the pitfalls of push hands work.

The one where they are moving together but not using any sort of kusushi or staying equal, Nick refers to in our randori as the cloud. Where you're just moving around nice and light and nothing real is happening, but you have to do this to move on to dealing with off balance and energy.

Tai Chi, at least the version I practiced, emphasizes dramatic weight shifts from foot to foot. So the hand motions can look like our randori, but the relationship from center to center can be very different.

There's a magic moment that can happen as uke pushes you back further and further, your back leg becoming more and more bent, where suddenly your front leg becomes totally free and you can step in any direction at all. Sadly it's not a moment my no-longer-20-year-old hips and knees will every experience again!

Eric Johnson wrote:
There's a magic moment that can happen as uke pushes you back further and further, your back leg becoming more and more bent, where suddenly your front leg becomes totally free and you can step in any direction at all. Sadly it's not a moment my no-longer-20-year-old hips and knees will every experience again!

This same idea can be applied to the hanasu no kata, and I often do. I let uke's attack breach my posture, causing one of my feet to leave the ground. The release motion is then driven by my choice of recovery.

Eric Pearson wrote:This same idea can be applied to the hanasu no kata, and I often do. I let uke's attack breach my posture, causing one of my feet to leave the ground. The release motion is then driven by my choice of recovery.

Say, you wouldn't happen to have a video lying around of what you're talking about, would you? 😉

(I love to see your experiments, and I'm interested in what you're talking about, but being a visual person--and somewhat slow-witted--I just can't get it from a written description.)

I have not been in a filming mood lately, but this is such a simple concept you should get it from words alone.

Let's look at the word 'hanasu' - it means release right? What are we releasing? A grip? Not the way I see it. We should be releasing energy.

By no means do I promote there is one way to work on the kata. Most people start moving early or on the moment of contact. This is all fine. But what if you are late? What happens when the attack works?

The wrist grab attack should not be a mere wrist grab. Like in the 17 uke is working on technique too. What does a real dangerous wrist grab do? It should cause kuzushi. An appropriate wrist grab should be like an entry for aggressive oshi taioshi. The moment the wrist is grasped energy/weight begins to get loaded. Usually in tori this will cause the weight to be shifted to the back foot, releasing the weight on the front foot.

Lets say it is happening from a cross hand grab - right foot forward. I am getting attacked. My wrist is grabbed. Weight loads on my system. My body adjusts and my back foot gets loaded while my right forward foot becomes unweighted. Now I have a choice! I have a foot with no weight on it so I can take a step!

If I step left - I move into the 1st release motion - or its related techniques

If I choose to step right I move into the 2nd release motion - or it's cousin techniques

Easy Peasy.


The key here might be to work on attacks. What is uke actually doing? What is he trying to accomplish by grabbing?



Is this clear yet? Still need film my friend?

Eric Pearson wrote:

Eric Johnson wrote:
There's a magic moment that can happen as uke pushes you back further and further, your back leg becoming more and more bent, where suddenly your front leg becomes totally free and you can step in any direction at all. Sadly it's not a moment my no-longer-20-year-old hips and knees will every experience again!

This same idea can be applied to the hanasu no kata, and I often do. I let uke's attack breach my posture, causing one of my feet to leave the ground. The release motion is then driven by my choice of recovery.

Eric, you know I still love the floating foot theory.. I started back on this kick with my senior guys last week... except they don't get to choose recovery direction, Uke gets to choose the way we "help him kick our Buttz".

Here are some hand randori based on sensitivity, tai chi and close combat skills ....hope you enjoy!

A good friend of mine trains with Sam Chin who is the master of IL Liq Chuan and contact flow randori based system that works well with judo and aikido...I have touched hands with Sam during one of his classes and he is very skilled I have also attended Attackproofs classes and seminars in New York and again there is a consistency of the sensitivity training with our randori..hope you enjoy

Interesting vids.

I vote thumbs down on the 2 sambrama vids. Lots of hand slap fighting. No one is achieving anything..balance breaks or position.

The third video of the contact flow looked straight up like pinwheel slap fighting to me. What is the round fellow doing kicking his leg out? Weird. A big thumb down for me.

The Sam Chin videos were more interesting and skillful. His guys do some rough throws though. I like his ever changing shifts. I have been playing around with similar ideas in my Aiki. He moves very direct in like a Chinese boxer, then connects and does balance breaks. Pretty neat.

The Samooobrama people took most of their ideas from the attackproof folks. The round fellow is John Perkins the founder of attackproof and I assure you if you touch hands with him you would have a good time as he has much skill and much to offer . Granted a video is very different from being there and feeling what is actually happening to your body. I have had this opportunity and I was blown away!!! but I'm not a master or extemely skilled.I'm just trying to grow and feed my aikido......The kicks he throws around is his simulations of multiple attackers coming from up behind him ...Glad you enjoyed Sam's videos he also is very skilled and his Il Liq Chuan is very effective...it looks like small circle aikido to me...

Yep, not seeing much help on the slap happy guys 😄