That was understood, but even your "just a half step" had him really moving. Same thing when you go to do the boshiken and he is moved around by just your small rotation. Part of it is probably teacher/student bias, but getting your uke to sell the technique less might not be a bad idea. The same issue can be seen elsewhere in the video as well. The Quest and other videos are a good reference, but aren't really sources to learn or correct your form. In lieu of learning directly from one of the shihan, it is not the next best thing. As such, and since there is no way to objectively discuss the techniques, there isn't any point in saying much more. I put down a few points about the ryu, kata, and responded to what I saw in the video, so people can feel free to agree or disagree. Dunc feel free to PM me if you want to discuss this in more detail like before.
Thumbs up for PR´s points. I agree to 100%. Just to expand on the hidden attacks. The sinking low and attacking from a lower position than Uke is a really intreresting aspect. The attacks are indeed often hidden so they are next to impossible to defend againts. Even if you do detect them they are quite difficult to stop or deflect given the strange angle. I have been taught that in Koto Ryu the attacks come from a very close range which also makes them hard to stop. Regards / Skuggvarg
Apart from the excellent points already raised by RP, in general you really need to take care of your openings when stepping back. Everytime you open up your crotch for an attack to the groin. Concerning Yokuto: There are also big issues with the timing and rythm of your kick and the boshiken. In yokuto the boshiken and the first step happen at the same time. They must in order to stop the opponent. In your case you are doing two steps in order to strike with the boshiken. One step will already elicit a fighting response from your Teki. In the one step you will have achieved nothing if not made the situation worser for yourself. Also the boshiken you are trying to do is to obvious and is easily stoppable by a resisting Teki. The kick follows very quick after, depending on which densho variation for the footwork you are practicing sometimes even simultaneous with the boshiken. Your body movement up and down should be different. On the kick, the boshiken and the shakoken the body should go down, thereby creating balance and strenght in your body. By going up with the body weight you are bringing yourself out of balance and making your stance week. Just a few points, happy training!
http://bujinkandictionary.wikifoundry.com/video/10456545/Kokuu+no+Kata Koku 5.1 Interesting how things change.
I think when it comes to Koku it certainly can represent the empty space between you and your attacker, but as I look at some people I think it relates to the empty space between their ears.
For those who were following the Koku thread, this has just surfaced on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10203765383085619&pnref=story Soke gives a good demonstration of being open at the front (leaving the groin exposed) in Koku at the start and 6:13 and at 7:20
Reviving this thread.... Here's my attempt to reproduce the basic form of ****o (Koto Ryu) as it was taught when I was in Japan last month I am not hitting into the kyusho with any force or applying much pressure into it during the throw for safety reasons https://vimeo.com/145039092 Plus one of the formal henka All constructive comments gratefully received
Nice video. I'd say a few things to think about: Don't raise your elbow out when doing omote gyaku, it leaves your entire body open. Not sure if you were told anything about the direction of the strike. I was given kuden about it so can't say much here, but I'd think about the direction of the strike and what the striking hand does after the strike that can help facilitate the throw without having to rely on the omote gyaku as much. The step and strike should come at the same time and try not to lean as you throw, it is hard to keep a straight posture but it is a good way to counter being thrown over him when he hits the ground. When you do the henka with the kick, look at your plant leg position. It isn't squared enough so your base is a bit bad for balance and power.
Hi Great points as always - thanks Quick question if I may: if you don't take the omote gyaku grip with the elbow out, then bring it to your side (as I do) then how do you twist the wrist? Also could you explain how the body is exposed with the elbow out (in this situation)? Thanks so much
Leverage is the quick answer. The long answer is a lot of practice. How you manipulate your wrist and elbow(along with your chest and footwork) will determine if you can do the technique without opening outwards or not and it is hard to describe. If you open up your elbow, your ribs and body are open to kicks or friends(theirs). So it is basic to most martial arts not to open your arm like that(especially when thinking about weapons based arts). You might think that since you are holding his arm/hand, it is safe to do so, but not really. Taking omote gyaku by opening the elbow outwards is okay in the kyu grades, but as you advance, one should move on to other ways of doing the technique that are safer and more protected while being more effective. The point of ****o is to use the strike and continuation after that to do the throw, the omote gyaku is just there as insurance, so it isn't the main focus of the technique. EDIT: I'll go into a little more detail about the elbow. Think of what happens to your wrist vis a vis their hand when you lift your elbow and how the elbow changes as you start taking omote gyaku. Now, is their another direction that your elbow can move besides outward to create the same effect? You don't want your elbows open out wide or behind you when you fight, because you lose the ability to cover body shots. Even though our arts have body shots in them, most people don't practice dealing with them like they do dealing with head shots. A good body shot can end a confrontation, so knowing how to protect your body against them is important. There is also a sinking and footwork component to getting the omote gyaku off without winging your elbow out but these are the main things that contribute to doing it successfully.
Looking into this a bit more There is a short clip of Manaka-sensei performing ****o here https://youtu.be/dY9ai8ESloM?t=35 His elbow position is high and dropping, but perhaps this is linked to the fact that he's performing it against the more "normal" attack of a choke The timing of his strike is a little different too.. I'll work on this tonight and share my progress
Looking further into the elbow movement to figure out if it's: - a "bad habit" - a beginner level technique or - a viable option Concluding that it's probably a viable option as you set up omote gyaku Either way I am keen to see if I can figure out how to get sufficient leverage with the approach outlined by PR - watch this space
I guess the question I always ask is, "Is there a better way to do what I'm doing?" Regardless of what you were taught, what you may have seen, or what you believe, if there is a better way to do something you're doing, then you should question why you are still doing it the way you're doing it. Sadly, this kind of critical analysis of movement and technique is often missing in the Takamatsuden. It's always, Soke says, or so and so taught me, or whatever. That is fine up to a point, but then you have to break away and stand on your own two feet. Dunc at least is trying to do this, but I see people mimicking without understanding, following without knowing, and teaching without ability. The elbow movement is a basic technique, it can also be viable, especially if you are faster or better than the opponent. But then again, that could be true of many techniques. That doesn't mean that there isn't a better way, a safer way, a smarter way to do things. There are plenty of reasons why you wouldn't want your elbow to be open and your ribs exposed in a fight, the question is, are there better reasons why you'd want to? If the answer isn't to the affirmative, then how do you keep your body protected while still accomplishing the technique? There is a way to do so, I've seen and experienced it many times. However, like most things in these arts, getting to that point means challenging what you think you know and how you perceive the technical side and biomechanical side of things. If you don't have a guide you can trust to show you such aspects of the arts, you don't have much recourse except trial and error and even if you do have a guide, you still have to question what they teach you and see if it gels for you. Omote gyaku is a very basic technique found in most of our ryu. You basically start learning it from day 1. However, there are a myriad ways to do it and when it comes to the kata in the ryu, you should be building on your foundation, not defaulting to it's most basic expression. In ****o, the idea isn't to take omote gyaku, but to do the strike/throw while catching omote gyaku(it's insurance not the main point of the technique). If you are busy trying to twist his wrist and think about omote gyaku, your strike into the throwing action will be compromised. Again, if you are a beginner student doing any first level technique, there is a particular set of ways to do the technique. These change and are refined as you advance. The grosser and more obvious movements give way to more subtle and efficient methods as you grown and progress. Otherwise you are just repeating the same level of training year after year and you don't get anywhere. No offense to Moti, but that video is exactly what I'm talking about. I don't see the principles of the kata/ryu in the demonstration, and I wouldn't mimic those versions of the kata because they don't represent what I've learned and seen in Japan, nor the basic tenets of efficiency, simplicity, correct taijutsu, or good nagare(flow) and biomechanics. On the elbow, if you are opening it straight out to the side and then bringing it backwards behind your body, think about what direction that makes his hand/body move. It's a bit hard to tell from the angle of your video, so you might want to start side on to the camera so you can see what the relation of your elbow is to your torso. The position your hand starts off in as you cover his grabbing hand, the position of your hand to your elbow, and the distance of your elbow to your body and your opponents may sound like picky little points, but they can totally change the effectiveness and viability of a technique. Thing about if you were in a cast or couldn't move your hands/elbow around freely, would you still be able to do omote gyaku? If the answer is no, then you have to wonder if it is merely impossible or perhaps you are missing something(or concentrating on the wrong things).
So this is where I got to on this I tried various ways to control the grip without flaring the elbow I was able to get a reasonable hook on uke’s wrist without flaring the elbow, but I found that I could not find a way to get my fingers and thumb sufficiently in place to fully control uke’s wrist. As a result it was relatively easy for uke to release the grip and pull away This was particularly true when their skin was sweaty Without flaring the elbow I was not able to manipulate uke’s wrist or set up omote gyaku if they resisted to any meaningful extent. With the elbow flared this was relatively straightforward (although I appreciate that I’ve worked on this approach for a lot longer) So far the only situations where I can set up omote gyaku without flaring the elbow are: (a) they hadn’t got hold of my clothing or (b) they weren’t resisting Both situations are perfectly viable & in my view can be set up with good timing and/or accurate striking Will keep trying, but am struggling to see a way to get the grip secured and the optimal angle of rotation without flaring… I went through some old notes that cover the detail of the set up and strike and reflected on PR’s comments with a view to refining it further Also I thought it would be helpful to share a little of how I try to train and improve on the structure in my forms: I start by trying the get the big picture to a workable level (last week’s clip) Then I isolate each principle movement and work on the structure behind it, trying to make each constituent component as effective as possible. I find passive resistance helps a lot here Then go back to the big picture adding some passive resistance on each iteration When doing this training I find it best to minimise the “punch” behind any strikes as landing strikes can allow you to get away with poor structure on the other elements Here’s the edited highlights of my training for your entertainment https://vimeo.com/145397391 As always constructive criticism will be gratefully received (people’s observations from outside the Bujinkan would be very interesting to hear too)
In fighting, you want your elbows in a position to protect your body, attack, while being in a position to attack and absorb force. Your original elbow position is not conducive to that effort because it is behind your body(you see the same issue at 20 seconds in). It is also hard to do the technique without lifting your elbow outward because you are concentrating on doing omote gyaku instead of hitting him while stepping forward and changing the position of your body to his. Doing such will put you in a better position to be able to do omote gyaku without having to rely on moving your elbow out and away from the fight. Also, the use of your chest is very important to help make omote gyaku more simple to apply. How you hook with your wrist and fingers(thumb included), is the other key piece in the puzzle. Without this, you will have a lot of difficulty getting this more advanced and subtle way of taking omote gyaku. When you are isolating the striking arm, you are only pulling or pushing. The point is to strike and throw, not to pull or push. The striking footwork creates the power to start the throw. The way your hand goes from a strike to a hook helps it out but it is not something you rely on. Since your footwork is less involved than your moving of your arm, you are missing out on the ability to throw him without arming it. Trying to throw someone like that isn't really beneficial because the footwork is missing and it wouldn't work on someone resisting. The forward momentum of the footwork and the way the strike affects his structure sets up the throw, the hand then just attaches to him and leads him down. The idea isn't to move the elbow to start a lock on his elbow either, the whole point is to strike and throw, not adding, but simplifying your role. The footwork powers the strike which sets up the omote gyaku which adds to the throw as you sink down to a sitting position. Subtracting, not adding is how to improve. When you do the technique closer to normal speed at the end, you are pushing with the strike but it is coming after you are trying to affect his grip with you omote gyaku side elbow and wrist lock. That is backwards. The technique is the other way around. You don't lead with omote gyaku. You step forward and strike. If you want to get better at this aspect, you might want to just try working on the strike and step to throw without adding the omote gyaku in.
