Going Solo or Tandoku Challenge Day 1

I was challenged by a fellow blogger Sensei Patrick Parker at Mokuren Dojo to comment on the Walking Form of Tomiki Sensei.  I highly recommend his blog to anyone out there.  He's a great martial artist and a great all round guy and much, much more prolific a writer than I am.

There is a huge amount of material in Tegatana no Kata, and I am not really familiar with this kata/exercise.  There's several things that come to mind, but this is an essay I was working on for a while now that this Shodokan Aikido form had me thinking of.  I did not have much training in solo Aikido practices until after I was a Shodan.  There are benefits and pitfalls, and other systems that do extensive solo practice.  I commented on the systems I was most familiar with, and my own experiences as a student.

I have seen a few videos out there for combining Taiji and Aikido ideas.  Some like Kumar Frantzis have gone further and claimed they are convinced O Sensei studied Chinese arts.

For people who have asked if Baguazhang and Taiji are the same as Aikido (and there are a lot of you out there):  Ueshiba Sensei did spend time in China, had Chinese contacts, and did spend time in a Chinese prison.  His religious advisor did go to China to announce he was the next Dalai Lama and O Sensei did have some residual ties to religious supporters in China as well. 

However, Ueshiba Sensei was an avid nationalist and a trainer for the Japanese military and had Tomiki Sensei prominently represent him as a military trainer in occupied Mongolia.  Tomiki Sensei and his many students served in the events of WWII on the side of Japan against China and others.  Ueshiba would be regarded as a possible traitor for having a Chinese teacher; his Chinese teacher would definitely be a traitor.

There is much evidence that Ueshiba's history has been heavily sanitized for a wide variety of audiences, and the legacy of his on his own art is actually unclear.  Students do come from every country now, making the art more murky - many Aikido people I know now have a background in Baguazhang and Taiji, as well as a wide variety of other martial arts.  Human anatomy has not changed much in a very long time, so you will see something like Aikido wrist locks from every corner of the globe. 

Aikido did also originally aim to take on multiple attackers, which Baguazhang does as well, giving goals in common, which leads again to a resemblance between arts.  There is little historical evidence, but I agree there is a superficial resemblance.  The link might not exist, or might be from the art Daito-Ryu (which is one of the precursors to Korean Hapkido as well as Japanese Aikido) or there are many things like Ueshiba Sensei's military ties and Shinto worship that were heavily sanitized before he was introduced to the larger world, so why not a Chinese teacher too?

I personally believe no proof is ever forthcoming.

The teaching methods are very different in many, many ways.  Or so I thought.  Ethically, Taiji and Baguazhang have no restrictions on what types of techniques can be employed and make no claims to the development of peace and harmony for all.  The practical difference is that Taiji and Baguazhang are predominantly solo practices, while the Aikido I was learning was almost exclusively paired practice.

In Aikido, I never really did exercises like Tai no Henka in isolation.  We worked in partner exercises almost right from the beginning.  We did do exercises like the Rowing exercise and the Four Directions, but not during seminars.

Sensei was also clearly was getting more powerful without rolling around on the mat with all of us, and I began to suspect he had a solo practice as well.  Occasionally, he’d give us a glimpse.  Gradually I came to learn that other systems of Aikido had a very developed system of solo practice. 

Shin Shin Toitsu Do has a very developed system of movements that feed back into waza.  When a new student is learning a technique they haven’t seen before, their sempai says, “start with tekubi joho kosa undo!”  (Or, more often demonstrates the crossed hand position the beginner has seen many times at this point).  Muscle memory and body position has been established and engrained.  A new engram forms.  The beginner has a superior starting point.  One example is a Tohei lineage student will do tenkan in isolation before having a partner introduced.

In the USAF, Tohei was a major influence in the beginning, and then he divorced himself from his students.  Consequently, older students learned by this method, but they were ordered not to teach to their own students this way.  Within a few years of Tohei Sensei’s death, some of the Ki no Taiso have been reintroduced in the 6^th kyu test requirements.

In the Iwama Aikido system, weapons work takes the place of solo exercises.  There are very well developed systems of Aikiken and Aikijo in particular.  One exercise I have seen demonstrated by Saito Sensei in video (as well as O Sensei) is repeatedly cutting with a sword.  In one of Saito’s books, he recommends hitting a bundle of sticks or a motorcycle tire repeatedly with a bokken.  A Kendo teacher told me 1000x/d was the usual recipe for beginners.  If you’ve never tried this before, try it for a month or better yet 100 days.  I tried this once when I was sidelined by an injury, and a chronically sprained wrist magically healed and became very injury resistant and strong.

Saito Sensei’s teachings unfortunately live in something of a limbo outside of his son’s association.  Nearly every dojo acknowledges the 13 or 31 Jo kata, some have some basic knowledge of the kumijo or kumitachi.  O Sensei is mistakenly often identified as the author.

Saito Sensei’s empty hand system was never meant to be divorced from his weapons.  The use of Kiai, Kihon versus Ki no Nagare, the many variations for a single technique name; the sheer complexity of his system is intimidating and often not even acknowledged.  I even once attended a seminar in a different association where we spent an hour covering the 31 jo kata, then a couple of black belts spent the entire supper break to trash “this weirdo off in California who was doing “Op” noises and Kiai with his techniques.”  These blackbelts were completely ignorant that these two things belong together.  I stopped training with this group, but many dojo seem to only do Saito weapons as exotic cross training.  The idea that weapon and empty hand is the same is not transmitted – it can’t be, as the weapon work truly bears no resemblance to the empty hand work of a non-Saito lineage student.  Without a huge amount of work, the weapons don’t inform the empty hands of a non-Iwama student.

Why cross train in Chinese internal arts?  Certainly when it comes to Taiji and Aikido, I get the appeal. 

In Aikido, I was pulled, pinned and stretched on 20 year old moldy, dusty tatami mats with my face pushed down on decades of sweat stains.  I needed to change cloths.  I needed to be at a specific place at a specific time.  If I wasn’t healthy, I was likely to get injured.

It took years before I started to enjoy the pain, years before I could actually think about alignment and relaxation.  I didn’t feel like I was meditating if I wasn’t feeling the pain of seiza, which meant I didn’t feel I could meditate if I tweaked my knee on a ski slope.

Contrast this with my first main Taiji teacher, who let us come and go during class as we pleased.  We had a gentle, relaxing, politics free and often sweat free workout (yet another rare teacher I never properly appreciated at the time.)  It gave me an opportunity to focus on relaxation and structure in a way I was too busy trying to stay in one piece to do in many early Aikido classes.  I could meditate in motion, or in standing.  We did standing meditation in every Taiji class.  When I tried to push my teacher over, he was either a puff of smoke or a mountain.  I couldn’t touch his power, but he never caused me pain.

I could practice Taiji on my own, like during the nightshift on my lunch break.  I could be anywhere, at any time (big deal as a new nurse working shiftwork.)  I could use my Taiji and later my Baguazhang to heal from injures that were inflicted elsewhere, from a dislocated shoulder, to skin scraped off my knees and feet, to a partial hamstring tear, to a torn bicep and broken elbow.

My Taiji started to inform my Aikido.  The “magic point” in an Aikido technique could often be brought down to a movement in a Taiji push hands game.  The magic point was the one split second in time that I could be reversed or I could take control, the one moment in time that made a difference between a successful technique and a complete failure.  I started to learn to focus on this one split second and see how I could more reliably find this “magic.”  I learned to do Aikido slowly and deliberately, as of course, Sensei had shown us to do all along.

The irritations in Taiji classes were those intermediate people who were ignorant of kinesiology or combat and who were too proud to admit it.  In Aikido, I was throwing and being thrown.  Fake Ergonomics meant I felt pain or weakness in Aikido, something Taiji people did not get to feel as often.  Now, whenever anyone tried to demonstrate a Taiji form or tried to give me a correction, my Aikido bruises gave me a framework for evaluating what I saw.  My Aikido started to come full circle and inform my Taiji.

Solo form work needs to be informed by partner practice, or very good correction.  How wide should my arms be?  A person who trains solo will not necessarily know; someone who had been striking or throwing people with any power will.  Solo work informs partner practice, and partner practice informs the solo work. 

The danger in solo work is setting useless, stupid engrams out of ignorance.  Some students gravitate to solo work because they don’t like to be touched; this will never produce a martial artist.  Some students don’t like their hallucinations to be challenged, and so a solo practice means they never have to wake up. 

Many students are already “informed,” that is to say that they already “know” what the exercise is supposed to be like.  So, a karate person training in Taiji solo form work probably is still clearly kicking and striking.  A Judo or Aikido person doing a karate form will look like they are doing a throw when the form calls for a change in direction as opposed to just turning and hitting someone else.  Solo work will not challenge who you already are and your engrams and belief systems can be further entrenched.  Partner practice will always challenge you.  Mistakes can crop up in solo practice without feedback, and become very difficult to correct.

I accepted that my Aikido practice was going to be in perpetual tandem with my Taiji practices, as I got such very different things from each practice.  I simply could not choose.  If the Aikido I knew had a rich solo practice or set of self training exercises like Karate or Taiji, would I have ever started a second martial art?  Maybe not.

I wondered at the differences in the various Aikido systems.  As time went by and I met people who did Sayu-Undo hundreds of times, I found my own training in Morote Dori Kokyu Ho against some very strong people gave me a better foundation for power – lessons that fed back into being a nurse helping a patient walk, or transferring someone from bed to chair.  I see the advantages of the Ki No Taiso, and I do use them to teach beginners but I quickly transition to paired work.

At one point, I was realizing playing with two arts was a bad idea, and I was at a loss.  Yang Taiji was my solo practice, and Aikido was my partner practice.  The two did not come together well at the technical level.  I finally asked Sensei about this, and as usual he thought about his answer first for a long time.  The day came that he was sick and I stayed in hospital overnight with him.  I had known Sensei for ten years and I had been Shodan for about a year.  I knew he had no family.

Sensei was grateful, and clearly touched.  In the morning, he pulled the curtain around his bed and said he wanted to teach me something very important, something that would make a big difference in my Aikido.

We did standing meditation and a solo exercise.

"Gluten Free Cheesecake"

Bragging you can make a gluten free cheesecake is like bragging you can make gluten free coffee.  You’ve got to really disrespect coffee to make it contain gluten in the first place. 

The basic cheese cake is cream cheese, eggs, and sugar.  You can add vanilla, sour cream, fruit or whatever else you want afterwards.  Cheese cake is really more of a pudding than a bread. 

I have a link to my easy cheese cake recipe here:
Simple Plain Cheesecake

And some Cheese cake improv:
How to make any flavor of cheesecake

The only time I add flour is if I am using a very watery fruit or a jam that makes the batter too liquid.  I never add more than 3 tbsp for a very large cake.  This step can be skipped easily.

The catch is the crust.  Crusts are usually made with some crumb made from something that creates gluten.

For a shortcut, I like to use cookies ground up in a food processor.  It has become very easy to find gluten free cookies at Whole Foods these days. 

16oz of crumbs of gingersnaps, animal crackers, graham or whatever ground into fine crumbs.

Add one stick of melted butter.  I find this crust needs a little more butter than a gluten containing cookie crust.

Add 1-2 tbsp cocoa if you want.  Add ground up toasted nuts (1/4 to 1/2c).  Add a little more sugar if it’s not to your taste.  Press it into your pan.  If it is now too crumbly, it won’t press well.  That means add more butter until it presses easily into a semi solid.

Then, bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes.

Let the pan completely cool before you add in the cheese cake batter or the cake will cook unevenly and bubble up at the sides.

Alternatively, with Baker’s Parchment you can bake the filling without a crust in a springform pan.  100% gluten free.

Maple Walnut Bread Pudding

My sister has access to a maple tree farm. Sap coming out of the trees, then boiled during the sugaring off. I would love to see it some day. What I do get is the occassional bag of maple sugar. The flavour is amazing in coffee, but I stopped drinking much coffee on my days off. So, a small jar had been sitting around for a while.


I had a couple of baguettes left over that had gone stale. Weaver Street has an amazing bakery, but baguettes don’t have much of a shelf life.

FIRST: If you add any dried fruit like raisins, (I don’t) add the fruit to the Rum and Spice mixture below the night before. With the fruit having soaked, the pudding will be more flavourful and the fruit will be softer. As the fruit takes up more liquid, you might need to add more rum.

RUM and SPICE MIXTURE: 1tsp of ginger, 1tbsp of cinnamon and a ½ tsp allspice. 6 tbsp of Rum (secret ingredient). If you don’t like rum, pick a whiskey or something for this step.

If you aren’t using dried fruit, then just measure your Rum and Spices directly in the Egg and Sugar mixture.

The two baguettes (about 7c) got cut into 1 inch squares, then got soaked in 4c of 2% milk until the bread was saturated. Big important step that too many places rush through – if the bread isn’t uniformly wet, then when it is cooked some pieces of the pudding are still dried out stale unflavoured bread. The milk also lets the sweetness get around. About 30-40 minutes should be fine, no faster particularily if you have a very crusty bread.

Egg and Sugar Mixture: 3 eggs lightly whisked in another bowl. 2/3c of the maple sugar, with 1+1/3c white sugar, and blend well.

I put 3tbsp of melted butter into a 12” deep dish pie pan. No tin foil, use a glass one.

Pour the milky bread, Rum and Spice, and Egg and Sugar mix together in one of the mixing bowls. I added 3/4c of lightly chopped walnuts here. Give a good stir.

Then pour the whole lot in the pie dish up to the top. I sprinkled more cinnamon on the top.

Bake for 35 minutes at 350. This pudding will have some liquid in the pan, so I didn’t need to do a sauce. One of my favourite experiments.

Tanto: What to teach and how?

Some Kohei were asking about getting more practice with Tanto.  This has been a neglected area of Aikido practice in our dojo.  Possibly, there is little reason for us to practice it.  As I’ve written before, several events during WWII and immediately following would have led to Tanto or pistol work being problematic to practice openly.  If the Ikkyu and Dan test requirements didn’t specifically ask for this, we probably wouldn’t do it, and the way it is taught I don’t know that we would miss much.  Our knife work is kindly referred to as “Dysfunctional.”

It was maybe not one of O Sensei’s favourite weapons to train with – there is mention of pistol disarms in Budo, demonstrated against an attacker with a Tanto.  There are some scenes using Tanto in the Asahi News video from the 30’s, but only disarms.  There is much, much less footage and time spent on Tanto than sword work, empty hand, rifle and Jo.  In these above mentioned sources, sword against sword is demonstrated, rifle against rifle is demonstrated, or empty hand against weapon.  I have not seen O Sensei showing tanto against another weapon, but one scene where he is using a fan (a short single handed weapon) against a swordsman.  There are no solo training sequences I have seen where O Sensei was using a Tanto.  If there is one, I would like to see it and please feel free to correct me.

I had one teacher talk about “Jo Style Movement” (which looked like what Iwama style would call Kihon) and “Sword Style Movement” (resembling at times what Iwama style would call Ki No Nagare) but when I asked him about Tanto Style Movement, he digressed. 

Sword work has hands close together and working in concert.  As our art becomes more influenced by other systems and cultures, we move away from the influence of two handed weapons and really start to do movement with each hand expressed separately.  Is this Tanto Style?  Or, is this really empty hand style and Tanto style movement is redundant?

The system of Aikido that seems most influenced by Tanto work is the Shodokan system.  Were these kata discarded from the other Aikido systems because Tomiki himself was made persona non grata?  Were these really Tomiki’s own innovations?  As a military trainer in China/Manchuria, Tomiki would have had to respond to the Chinese martial arts techniques the soldiers were encountering and pistol work would have been necessary. 

Kawahara Sensei had a very developed sense of what Tanto Dori could be, and asked for a variety of types of movements.  Movements could be lethal, damaging, pins and disarms without retaining the knife, pin and disarm retaining the knife and finally disarms (stripping movements) without any pin.  It seemed Ikkyu students had to show they knew how to break an arm, but Sandan students were chastised for resorting to the same movements.  Nothing was written down or formalized to my knowledge.  If Kawahara Sensei had a strict Tanto syllabus for us, I was unaware of it. 

In general, Aikikai seems to defer to Saito Sensei for all Sword and Jo work.  Saito Sensei’s books and videos have many Tanto techniques I find familiar, but there is still much less of a focus on the knife than on the sword or Jo.

So, in setting up a short course of study in Aikido Tanto work, what to teach?  Do I just try to stick to my memory, or to a specific association or do I try to give a good overview?

People were learning this for their tests, moreso than any martial need.  Shomenuchi Gokyo and Yokomenuchi Gokyo without question, Kotegaeshi from Tsuki, Shomenuchi, and Yokomenuchi.  Higikime movements seem universal.  I wanted to do a little more:  There was a history and a period of development of this weapon, and there are implications for Aikido with one hand full.

For the first class, I started with Aigamae Ate, and then proceeded to Shomenuchi Gokyo, Shomenuchi Kotegaeshi, and Shomenuchi Higikime.

Second class: From Kawahara Sensei, Udekimenage.  This is apparently  variation of Gedan Ate from Shodokan.

Variations after the initial opening movement: 

Uchitenkan

Shihonage (with a discussion on the dangers of Tenshin body movement)

Gyaku Kotegaeshi

For the third class, Sokumen Iriminage/Gyaku Gamae Ate leading into pins and disarms then switching gears to Kubishime, Haragatame, and Iriminage.  I had intended to keep Ura Ate variations separate, but it just flowed that way.

Fourth class, all Shomen Ate variations, then leading to Wakigatame, Kaitenage, and Gokyo.  Half of the class was over 6 feet, and half were 5 footers.  Arm wrapping variations were practiced from overtop and underneath.

I did a variation of Yoshinkan Morote Dori Kokyu Ho #1 the first class to emphasize not using a knife with a boxer’s jab, and this seemed to help.  In time, I did let this dissolve into Tanto Nage, and I found this was helpful for teaching people to avoid unnecessary grabbing in their empty hand techniques.  Sometimes I see a student wanting a more “martial practice” and they start keeping closed hands and get grabby – I made an effort to show that not grabbing means I can have my own tools or I can use the hand to disarm and not just contain.  The open hands of the “softer, more fluid practice” are actually an opportunity for a very martial practice.  I came up with a wrist warm up that involved transitioning the blade through the four basic grips, and I found this actually applied to our empty hand transitions as well.  I did a couple of demos using a remote control against a Tanto.

I have one class left.  I’m not clear on how to keep everything I want to do to one hour.  Responses to Kubishime, Knife at the side of the head, behind the head, behind the abdomen, collar grab and stab.  Probably a bit of Gyaku Yokomenuchi.  Maybe a variation on Tanto Nage with a wallet instead of a weapon.

For anyone out there, what do you consider essential basics to Aikido Tanto practice?  What would you include or discard?

Take the knife?

One of the ideas for Tanto Dori that I keep hearing is that the Nage should always take the Tanto from Uke.  It sounds good.

The tanto is a very dangerous weapon in close quarters.  I think if you don't have control of the weapon and the Uke, then you are very likely to get cut.  If I close badly, I give the Uke a chance to kill me that he might not have had otherwise.  This idea also feeds into any freestyle practice - we should respond to what attack we are given, and not try to force a losing position.

This clip is of some high ranked Tomiki practitioners (Shodokan Aikido) showing all their basic movements using a tanto.  No attempt is made to disarm, the knife and the uke are just thrown.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHKzOoSqUx4

This clip is of Gozo Shioda Sensei, the founder of Yoshinkan Aikido.  The tanto work by this man is very dynamic and fast, with no attempt made to control the knife.  I have seen clips of videos like this where he eventually takes control, completely on his terms and his timing. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzRJkcxe0ns

In both clips, no one has tunnel vision on the weapon.  The attacker is controlled instead, quickly and briefly and from a distance.

It does not matter if I (or you) are blown away by these demos.  These are two systems developed by two major and direct students of the Founder of Aikido that show people very comfortable with throwing someone without pinning and without disarming. 

For the USAF requirements, I don't like having to close and disarm unless I am feeling confident and safe.  Distance means I can run, or arm myself.  I can throw something, close a door, get to a car, get help, get far enough to pull a gun safely.  In a work situation, I might need to have a tool in my hand that I don't want to discard - which means I cannot grab something else (disarm).  A cop should not be discarding handcuffs, radio or sidearm to grab hold of a knife hand.

This idea of not taking control of the knife and Uke might be strange to some, but it has a lot in common with the old USAF Nidan test requirements of tachidori against two attackers.  The weapon was not retained, and Uke were not pinned when other armed attackers were coming.  I only got to try this once, and I was able to use one sword against the other with classical technique.  The sword was still to be discarded according to the rules, and not held on to.  Pinning the Uke would effectively pin myself on the spot as well.

I'm not saying no pin/no disarm is the best idea, or that I think this is the best option.  But, maybe give yourself permission to engage on your terms.  Enter when you are in charge of the situation, when Uke is tired and off balance and the knife can be properly controlled.  The idea has merit, and precident. 

The (Un)Reality of the Tanto

So, I was told a long time ago never to learn about knife fighting from someone who had not been harshly tested and was not a veteran of many knife fights.  I am not that guy.  I have never disarmed someone with a knife in a real situation.  A few blunted small tools have been taken away from weakened, partially sedated and cognitively altered individuals and most of the time I had additional people assisting me.  So, I might not be the guy you even want to read, and maybe you just want to go on to the next blog.  I’m okay with that, and sorry to have wasted your time.  Wannabe terrorists:  I actually tried to say very little of use.

The Tanto is one of the three main weapons of Aikido officially, but it is given much less weight than the Bokken or the Jo.  I think history and philosophy have conspired to reduce our knife work to questionable levels.  It is still required for the USAF Ikkyu test, and frequently asked for on Dan tests.  Think of this essay as a disclaimer, but also hopefully the start of a conversation.  Some of the new generation of Shihan are critical of our knife work, but little is being done to correct that.  The rich, deep systems for Jo and Bokken practices do not seem to have their Tanto counterparts in Aikikai.

The earliest videos I could find with Aikido using a Jo were from the 1950’s.  The 1930’s book by O Sensei actually had no mention of the Jo, but instead mentioned bayonets, rifles, and spears.  It is my belief that the technology changed during the war, but also that the American occupation of Japan led to a change in practice.  O Sensei’s eventual anti-government stances and the arresting of his religious advisor, the government sanctioned attempts to destroy his chosen religion and his enlightenments during the worst fighting of the war advocating peace undoubtedly played a role, but Aikido practice would have continued to be outlawed if students were routinely practicing Aikido with rifles and bayonets.  Rifles vanished, and Jo appeared within a few years of Japan’s surrender.  Atemi also became very de-emphasized post war.

I believe these above-mentioned factors also heavily changed what Aikido does for Tanto work.  Aikido practices had to be pasteurized to avoid ending up in trouble with the American military.  In the Second Doshu’s book on Aikido technique, he makes mention of three ways the Tanto is practiced:

1.       Uke has the Tanto, and Nage defends

2.       Nage has the Tanto, and throws or controls Uke

3.       Both have Tanto

This would seem to imply that there was a type of Tanto-suburi in Aikido at one point.  I have never come across another mention of the second type of practice, Tanto Nage, except in Tomiki Aikido (a style with extensive roots predating WWII and the American Occupation).  I have never seen Aikido teachers demonstrating the third type of practice.

In Budo, Tanto Dori is demonstrated, but the training manual mentions that these techniques are also useful against pistols.  I have my doubts.  One thing worth mentioning is that logistics and field conditions were not great prior to the end of WWII.  For example, in the Battle for Singapore, Japanese against the British, both sides were running out of food and ammunition hours before the surrender after only one week of fighting.  The front lines were treated with contempt by their superiors.  The Japanese were moving faster than their supply lines, and the British had not even stockpiled the necessary ammunition nor deployed the necessary number of soldiers to repel an attacking force, nor did the British even think the jungle was passable and built their defenses accordingly.  Field care of weapons was highly individual, and still an issue that had to be addressed years later in the war in Vietnam.  While there is some validity to the use of these techniques against firearms, the firearms and military of today are very different (far superior) from the early 1900s when O Sensei had his firearms training.  I strongly advise against trusting Tanto Dori against a pistol if you have any other choice.

The two weapons we make the most use in Aikido of are two-handed weapons.  A few movements like Hasso-Gaeshi and Tomae-Uchi exist in Jo, but these are not the primary way the Jo is used.  Bokken also have a handful of one-handed techniques, but again the hands are best working together and usually only a few inches apart.  Tanto work allows for a single-handed use of a tool and the second hand is not tied to the movements of the first.  Tanto is also different from the Jo and the Bokken in that it is not a weapon associated with an enlightened person:  Miyamoto Musashi is associated with the Bokken and Sword, Muso Gonnosuke with the Jo.  There is no Tanto-Do to my knowledge, but there is Kendo and Jodo (The Do implies a way of life and an enlightened path).  I have not heard of Tanto being given the veneration that the sword is.

The small size of the usual Tanto means it does not develop momentum.  Deep cuts or hard impacts do not come from the physics of the weapon, but rather the structure and strength of the user.  This is also different from the sword and the Jo.

Tanto has a few defining characteristics in most Aikido:

·                         A single edge and a point, with no gut hook or partial blade on the back edge.  Stripping motions on the back edge are relatively safe, as opposed to a two edged knife.

·                         6” roughly uniform blade length – a one inch long knife can kill, but it is difficult to strip with so little available leverage.  Techniques like Shihonage or Kotegaeshi Omote are possible at this length, but more dangerous with a one foot or longer blade.  (The Katana has a longer length, but a longer handle that is manipulated to do Shihonage safely.)

·                         Despite the text in Budo, Tanto-Dori does not necessarily take into account any projectile weapons.  If tanto really can be substituted for a pistol, then I would not want to pass a pistol in front of my abdomen with the barrel pointed at me for any length of time.  Again, Shihonage or Omote Kotegaeshi.

·                         No pommel, no hand guard or tsuba.  A longer handle or another grasping surface means someone else can manipulate the knife effectively in your grip.  Some other fighting knives have a skull crusher on the pommel, some will have a second spike or a second blade, some offer protection to the hand or an additional striking surface.  Some devices like the Kubaton keychains had a flexible attachment that would be harder to block and use for control.

Additionally, I did have a Japanese Kenjutsu student tell me that the Tanto is only used in the right hand and never in the left hand.  This might be true; I don’t know and it’s not how I practice.  This was not Musashi’s example, nor is this how knives are used in European, Filipino, Chinese, Okinawan systems…the list is probably very, very long.  Too many Tanto-Dori students do not pay attention to any danger from the second hand.  No paired weapons, no stick and knife, no shield and knife, no combination barehand hold and knife work…

We have a very determined practice of attack and defense.  The few knife attacks I have heard of, the few tools I have seen used in a fight; there was no warning.  No bad 70’s movie dialogue, “I’m gonna get all knifey and knife fight you with my knife!”  No telegraphing, threatening or posturing before the stab.  Even our ushiro techniques are threats rather than killing motions.

The Tanto is a very clearly and strictly defined tool, structurally not much different from a steak knife.  A knife or a shiv can be made out of anything (the Indonesian Kris traditionally has arsenic folded into the metal during forging), and then dipped in anything.  A prison guard I once worked with said he would rather be stabbed with “hand-forged metal, folded one thousand times” rather than the devices he had seen inmates come up with.

Knives are dangerous at close range.  A small motion can cut you badly, as opposed to a Jo, which is not as harmful when the distance is closed.  Many styles like to slash and stab and move continuously with multiple attacks.

Most of the Tanto-Dori taught now in Aikikai involves only the Uke has the knife (and only one knife, of a specific design and length), and makes a single, well announced, usually face-on attack, usually only with the knife hand.  The Uke is then controlled and pinned without injury, and then the knife is removed and retained by the Nage while the Uke is kept pinned.  Graduated responses are seldom taught.  Realistically, this may not be practical.

One source of concern for me is the difference in styles.  In the CAF, Ikkyo to Yonkyo appeared on every test, giving these pins the same weight and required practice time as Iriminage, Shihonage and Kotegaeshi.  Throws like Shihonage and Kotegaeshi often ended up in pins too.  Control techniques are not emphasized to this degree in other associations.  If you are someone who is better at a throw than a pin, you might not want to get down on the ground with an armed attacker.  You might well be better off disengaging and running.

Some people have borrowed from other styles to flesh out their own Aikido Tanto work.  The second rule for O Sensei’s practice is to be ready for an attack from any direction at any time.  Some of the very effective Jujitsu movements where both attacker and the attacked are laying on the ground are not effective for multiple attacker work but might save your life.

A couple of Aikido styles like to slash the brachial artery, causing the Uke to bleed to death in roughly five minutes and probably damage the triceps and biceps to the point the Uke will never handle a weapon effectively again.  At least, that is the physical motion made and most of the people I see doing this have no sense of what they are actually doing.  My Sensei was against mutilating someone pinned and helpless.  The law would also condemn such an action.

A small one-handed tool is, in my opinion, a more common weapon to come across than a long stick or a sword.  Tools are not less important or less common in combat today, the tool just might be a cell phone or a radio or a flashlight instead.

No one should study Aikido Tanto Dori and expect to be able to disarm a knife wielding attacker, let alone an attacker armed with a pistol.  So, if our knife work is so questionable, why do it? 

I learn to be at a disadvantage.  The students who try to block every punch or ignore every atemi now realize they need to move more when the practice knife comes out.  Every movement of someone’s hands is now treated as a potentially a deadly threat no matter how much bigger or stronger we are.  We get to re-explore the basics and fine tune them and become more aware of what our basics actually mean to us martially.  We get an additional stressor and learn to calm down and deal with it.  We learn to be aware of just one more thing and take it into account while we train.  Some movements need to be performed differently, but the physical principles and our mental approach should not be any different from our practice without weapons.  We learn a deeper level of awareness that hopefully leads us deeper into our practice in general.

So, for me, Tanto work is really not about the knife, it is about revisiting everything in Aikido.

 

The Ballad of Bob (or, my limited Tomiki experiences part 2)

Bob (not his real name) had severe head injuries.  In a fight years before, his head had been struck with a baseball bat multiple times, leaving him legally blind.  His ankles, knees, shoulders, and back appeared to be made of glass – his first forward roll attempt left him too injured to practice for a month.  All the instructors at this school quickly wrote him off, which meant he came to me.  Seiza and any ukemi were all seriously painful and seriously injurious to him.

Bob was also 6’8” and around 320lbs.  When I tried to load him in a koshinage, he could leave his hands and feet flat on the ground while lying across my hips.  He could not arch backwards without his back spasming – a simple backbend left him sitting out for half the class.  His shoulder would spasm when he was gently stretched in Ikkyo.

This wasn’t my school; I had moved to a new city after getting my Shodan in 2000 and intended the move only be temporary.  The head instructor there had Shihan aspirations and was something of a rogue in our association.  He had his own way of doing everything, but he had skills that I was interested in and this was the only Aikido school in town.  The instructor also had other influences besides Kawahara Sensei, and really planned to be an equal of his shihan rather than a student.  To his credit, this teacher did achieve the rank of shihan before his untimely death.  This was not a Kawahara Sensei dojo, and this dojo was soon to be thrown out of the CAF.  The CAF test syllabus and Kawahara Sensei were not followed there.  Many things I wish I had known before I moved there for work and family reasons.

When Bob would ask me, I would tell him Aikido might not be for him.  He would take it as a personal challenge, redouble his efforts and show up for every class (spending most of the class in too much pain to do anything resembling Aikido as I had been taught it.)  I was completely at a loss.

He would take the bus to the dojo, then by the time class was over the bus would have stopped for the night.  Legally blind, he would walk miles on icy streets in the dead of a cold, hard, windy winter to get home to his trailer.  I started to drive him home after class. 

It was very apparent that his size had not been enough to keep him safe in the past from his injuries.  However, his size alone was enough that a local security company hired him as a night watchman.  I was nervous for him.

He quickly got bored and frustrated practicing Tenkan.  He could not receive anything on the entire 5^th kyu test in the CAF.  He was determined to test, even to perform the koshinage.  It didn’t matter that Kawahara Sensei took one look at him at a seminar and said not to bother – “John, he’ll never do koshinage for real.”  I learned this was like waving a red flag in front of a bull to tell Bob this:  he responded by trying to do koshinage to everyone in the dojo.  His hips came up to my rib cage when he stood naturally, and he could not bend his knees much without pain, and his back would be messed up for several minutes just for taking any weight on his low back.

Weapons work was not a solution.   He never wanted to practice solo.  His shoulder and wrists would quickly get injured with any momentum or impact and he couldn’t raise his shoulders above his head comfortably.  His vision also meant that he would swing at the vague outline of the person in front of him, with no precision really possible but enough power to make any of his partners nervous.  Bob stated he would never carry a stick with him, he wasn’t allowed to use one at work, and the average ceiling was too low for him to do a Shomen uchi.  Really, a Bo staff fit him like my Jo fit me.  His mammoth neuropathy-fraught hands would frequently lose control of the jo and send it flying/falling in a variety of disconcerting directions. 

He still said he loved Aikido.  I offered to drive him to a Taiji class, knowing he would not quit if I asked him to.  I was disgusted with the actual instructors at the dojo who continued to encourage him while never instructing him.  He injured himself with frightening rapidity, and I got exhausted just listening to the litany of damaged muscles and joints.  He had people telling him all his life even before his injuries that he was a freak and a loser and not good enough.  His life had been a hard, long list of challenges that mostly beat him down.  He had pride, determination and a desire to Eat Bitter like no one I ever had the privilege of teaching.

 

 

A neurologist had been teaching Aikido briefly in Saskatoon and had retired from Aikido.  As part of leaving the Art, he donated a large number of books to Saskatoon Aikikai.  I had jumped on a number of books at the time, and found two small thin books by a woman named Dr. Lee Ah Loi.  I knew very little about Tomiki Aikido.  The books sat on my shelves.  The material was too vastly different from what I was training in, so I thought someday I would return to them when I was ready.

Then, thanks to the internet I found out Tomiki had been six feet tall.  He had not been the usual 5’5” or less that I was used to seeing in Japanese instructors.  O Sensei had a student that must have towered over him and everyone else in the dojo.  I started to re-read those two books.

The differences really were in the basic starting point.  The “Hand in the Face” that I had never heard a name for had several distinct specific variations.  In practice, we seldom did these motions but they did feel natural in randori.  Except, we never practiced the falls out of these techniques, so they scared everyone in randori.  Even when this technique was appropriate to do, we had a laundry list of techniques we tried to do instead.  A certain aggressive personality type became associated with “Hand In The Face.”

In contrast, this dojo was trying to teach Bob Shihonage, Kaitenage, Koshinage, Aikiotoshi and Suwari Waza.  He could sort of do Iriminage or Kokyu Ho (Sokumen Iriminage) but the upward motion meant he tended to miss my head (the top of my head could have rested in his armpit).  He would miss Ikkyo and hit me in the head at least as often as he would control my arm.

He loved Shomenate right away.  His vision let him dimly see my head, and his bearpaw hands covered my whole face.  I had to work on my own ukemi to avoid a concussion.  The first three Tomiki techniques came very naturally to him.  The third in particular was very strong from a high position.  He was thrilled and felt like he was making progress.  He liked my poor attempts and adaptations of the releases.

I hoped I would never offend any Tomiki teachers if I met them – and I had no illusions that I was doing their techniques well.  I vaguely knew some Aikikai teachers would be angry I had gone in this direction if I paid Tomiki Aikido credit – but few Aikido teachers even knew what Tomiki Aikido looked like.  At this point, the local head instructor was out of the country all the time and his own students did not teach anymore.  I had inherited a regular class time by sheer attrition.  I was only in this particular city temporarily, and it was getting time for me to leave.

Bob insisted on being tested for 5^th kyu.  I was not present.  The local instructors asked him to do an otoshi variation for koshinage that left him too injured to practice or work for a month just for attempting it.  I had even told them Bob was given dispensation specifically from the technical director of the CAF, and this was only an optional technique for anyone anyway.  Bob was given his 5^th kyu by those present.  Months later when I was living in the USA, he called me upset when he found the test paperwork had never been sent in or filed.  He never received a 5^th kyu certificate to my knowledge.  The dojo had collapsed after I left, and Bob had been ordered to quit Aikido by the people who “promoted” him.  He missed my classes.  For all the times I asked him to quit, I felt livid on his behalf.  I have lost contact with him, and I hope he is happy and in good health.

The lesson I learned from my brief and poor study of Tomiki Aikido was that different heights do make a difference in how techniques are performed.  O Sensei did not demand the first Aikidoist 8^th Dan he ever promoted act like a short man.  The heavy emphasis on “traditional samurai suwari waza” was nowhere near as evident.  The more-difficult-to-apply but safer standing pins were given more emphasis.  Atemi were given more emphasis.

I also learned about my own technique – at 5’11” I was the second tallest in my original school.  My one time nemesis was, of course, the taller man at 6’1”.  All I had known at the time was this one person was harder to throw than the 5’8” guy who had been my uke for years for grading.  With 6’8” Bob, my ego had to be left at the door and I had to wake up.  My Ikkyo was for a taller person against a shorter person; most of my techniques were.  I had to spend huge amounts of time playing with hanmi handachi (either role) to find out what I decided Tomiki Sensei already knew.

Someone with superior height, superior reach and superior stride did not have to be a “bad,” challenging Aikido student.  I could teach a tall man to work to his strengths.  I did not have to order Bob to imitate someone 5” tall to have him practice our art.  I could practice and teach around devastating injuries – and no one has ever come close to offering the same challenges that Bob did. 

As time went on, I also learned that Tomiki was the original Wartime Sensei.  I had been shown many practices that were declared “more martial” by the dubious virtue that they were painful and injurious to practice by all concerned.  In “Angry White Pajamas,” the Yoshinkan student author states that too much Aikido practice meant he had to stop running and take up cycling instead.  By contrast, the powerful simple movements that Bob was practicing also were less harmful to his body.

I am unhappy that I was never given the name of “Hand In The Face,” nor a specific training method for it and it’s variations.  For any Aikido students reading this, I highly recommend the Randori No Kata of Tomiki Sensei as worthy of study.  The first four techniques do not appear on our test requirements, but they are so fundamental that they appear spontaneously in our free practice all the time.  This is a piece of Aikido heritage that I recommend we embrace.  Damn the politics.  We all know this technique.  It has a name and a teaching method.

I really enjoy Nick Lowry's work on Youtube.  If you, like me, never learned the name of "Hand In The Face," check out his video on Shomen Ate, the first basic in Tomiki Aikido:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urELp6i07u4

The Second Technique, or Aigamae Ate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaJv7LHHfps

The Third Technique, or Gyaku Gamae Ate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA_eWzV8too

There are 17 techniques in Randori No Kata, and I recommend the videos whole heartedly.