(1808 posts)
Apr 6, 2011 7:57 pm
Aikido's Walking & Judo
Aikido's Walking Kata is a set of 88 movements. We count from one to eight, and execute different sets of movement. Here's Nick laying these movements out on video.Now, we know the first three sets of 8-count apply directly to Judo, as can be seen here.
A week or so ago, I had an epiphany while doing the walk. As we begin the last 8-count, there is an opposite hand-foot turn. This is just like the ippon-seoi-nage we see in Judo's Nage-No-Kata! The lightbulb goes on.
So, for the past week or two I've been looking at the rest of the walk and wondering if there's more stuff there that's directly Judo applicable. The 4th & 5th actions remind me a lot of gripping functions. The 10th movement reminds me a lot of tai-otoshi, though you really have to perform the action the other direction as well!
We've encountered some pretty neat stuff relating to body rise dynamic (which makes for realllllly slick foot sweep actions), as well as sode-tsurikomi-goshi, fish hook entry, tai-otoshi and others.
Have any of you other guys ever played with these functions? Give them a try and let me know what you find.