Kaze Uta Budo Kai Forum Archive

This is something we don't often get around to talking about in class, but I've found that dealing with multiple attackers carries with it a certain set of "rules" or strategies (for lack of better words) that are almost unique to that situation. We were practicing a little with this in the morning class, which brought it to mind, so I thought I'd see if I could get a little conversation going.

I'll start with one I've found helpful: Keeping your gaze "on the mountains". Basically, if I'm staring at one guy, it's a lot easier for the other guys to slip past my peripheral vision. But if I keep my eyes sort of unfocused, looking at nothing in particular, I can see a much wider berth.

In fact, I was playing dodgeball with a bunch of kids a couple of years ago, and I noticed that when I was facing two kids, each one with a ball, and I focused on one or the other, I could dodge the first ball, but always got tagged by the second. When I stared off at "nothing" I could see both kids, and successfully dodge both attempts to tag me. (Ah, the lessons of budo are far-reaching...)

Anyone else care to chime in?

Keep moving!

One attacker at a time. It's a safety thing, especially once you start playing with throws.

In the beginning stages, focus totally on evasion. Once that is working well, add a hand touch to break the attacker's balance. Once that is working well, experiement with different techniques & joint-locks to control uke.

Hi Sean,
don't we all kinda practice multiple attacks when we are on the mat when there are many others on the mat as well?

On the mat you have to "help" your partner not fall into the others around you.
Off the mat, you have to "help" them fall into the others around you.

To piggy back on Kyle a little:

First start w evasion only, I have my students put their thumbs in their belts so they are not tempted to use there hands and rely strictly on moving their feet to evade uke, and learn to stay alert of all the attackers in play..

Once they do that well, you can play "touch and go".... simple triangulating the hands out in front of you and lightly touching uke as he goes by..

Next, start playing with different off balances once you make contact and...

Finally start playing with different techniques as they present themselves...

As mentioned before... one attacker at a time and go slow.. multiple attacks has the potential to get out of hand quicker than any other method for teaching.. I wouldn't recommend throwing people until you've played with multiple attacks for several months and have players that are mature enough to handle the situation..

As a side note.... Once you start thinking about what your doing its time to stop and let someone else play... it is an exercise in training the subconscious...

in multiple attackers situations I have learned that you want if possible dispose of the biggest opponent first which could discourage any further attacks that is of course if you cannot run and get the ***## out of dodge....secondly keep one opponent occupied i. e. take care of one at a time and place yourself in a position so that you use his body to shelter you from the other attackers...if you can dispose of uke in the direction of the other attackers and use him as a bowling ball to slow down the others do so...don't hang out to admire your work and when possible scram out of there!!!

This morning in Aikido, Sean led the class with some excellent randori building skills. He first started out doing the releases with multiple partners one after another so that with the repetition you sort of get to a place of not thinking but reacting which he called using misogi to attain mushin.Maintaining the principles we have repeated over and over to place them under duress makes them come alive...This no_mind body/muscle memory drill is an excellent way of ingraining responses into your neuromuscular responses so that your body and not your mind remembers what to do...If we can continue and have time to drill all our releases and our 17/23 there is no denying we would have an awesome arsenal of self protection deeply ingrained into our muscle memory and reactive mind... Absolutely awesome!!!!

grinning ear to ear