Throwing yourself into it!

Going with the flow!

It’s always fascinating teaching Aikido, for a subject that people study ostensibly for self-defence, you spend a lot of time on the floor!
But of course the first reason to be able to fall and roll as an Aikido student is for your own safety. Almost any student’s first lesson in Aikido can involve a technique that will have them heading quite quickly towards the mat! On the other hand  Karate students may spend the first year of their training without ever having to concern themselves with this problem. Indeed the Karate philosophy in general is to make sure falling is the other guys’ problem! Very important when conditioning students in a combative type style.

Everyone, whether martial artist or non-martial artist, should learn to fall just for their own personal safety. There are many occasions in life (ice or DIY perhaps!) where you can find yourself heading very quickly towards a none to friendly embrace with the hard cold ground! For an ‘aikidoist’ it is the stock and trade of their journey within martial arts.

The system of pure aikido is deflection, flow, and transference of energy through the circular nature of the techniques, the only end to the constant movement of technique is when the opponent hits the floor. So with the necessity for constant practice and repetition of these throws and takedowns everybody involved must become competent at protecting themselves being thrown.
But this is only the first level of appreciation of a break fall technique, as we know in martial arts there are three levels of understanding; first you do, then you know, then you are! We need to practice our falls not just to be safe, but also to understand the throw we hope to execute in greater depth. If you try to throw yourself through the perfect flight path towards the floor, then you begin to feel exactly the points of commitment you must move through, this commitment can easily be reversed in your mind to understanding the instability that an opponent must be guided towards for the throw to work perfectly and hence destabilise your attacker towards the end point…the floor!

So to state the obvious, an aikido student can never learn to understand and love aikido until they learn to love and truly understand being thrown!

Now go to it! 🙂

Take A Stance…

I have currently been giving a lot of thought about our stance work in the dojo. Especially after some really good questions from private students who wanted to improve their own footwork. We all know how important correct stance work is; for balance, stability and for us to be able to perform martial arts successfully at a high tempo. As you can imagine its a subject that i’ve needed to talk a lot about over the past 15 years as a personal instructor in the martial arts.
I think we can improve our stance work by simply understanding some core principles and know reasons why a stance works or doesn’t, plus some simple exercises we can try at home; all of which should really help a student improve!
So i’m currently writing an article on footwork that will include these things for our members area that will also appear as part of our new Wisewarrior Resource page on this core subject. So i hope you will enjoy both the article and the download when it comes out.
Regards, Richard Trafford

The Perfect Muscle

Often as Senseis we get asked by students; what are the best things they need to practice, or what are the muscles they need to build up etc.? All of which shows us that the student is serious about their training and eager to improve, and thats a good thing! But here is the one muscle I want us all as martial artists to work upon – the brain!

The longer I spend training and teaching martial arts, the more i believe in this; that the power of thought is everything! The more we believe in ourselves, and our ability to perform and demonstrate  a technique, then the better it becomes.

Of course it comes down again to our old friend; focus (Kimi). But  talk of this in the dojo, can make it appear to a lower grade, ‘if you like’ as a mystical subject. So think of it this way; If you wish to improve your punch, then you can punch a hard focus bag every day, or even better; a brick wall! You would learn much, ‘over the months and years’ about your punch. That when you tightened your fingers incorrectly you broke your small knuckle, and that with the first 100 punches you fired in to the bag – with a misaligned wrist – you sprained it! Yes indeed, after a couple of years doing it that way, you would have an experienced punch. (Also a damaged and  arthritic hand me thinks!)

Or you can really listen to what your Sensei is trying to teach you. Listen, absorb all they are telling you. Take each lesson, and use it for a chance to become enlightened about the technique being taught to you. Think a better punch; and it will be! Save yourself months, even years of trial and error! This is what the student is paying for – expert tuition! So use it, learn it and most importantly: think it!

Our tuition is based not just upon the strength of the Karate or Aikido technique, for that has always limitations. But upon the inner strength of yourself! The subjects of the martial arts are only ever that; just subjects. Think about them as just very good ways to train the self – for the self has no limitations. Unlike body strength or technique.

We must begin with our minds and not just the body – so lets start thinking better today!

Sword and Aikido, the connection.

Do Aikido and Sword Compliment each other?

Having spent quite a few years studying Sword and Aikido type movements the similarities of these two martial arts always resonate very strongly with me.
But why ask the question?
Well it’s a good question if the answers may improve the aikido of an Aikido-Te student or improve the sword of the sword student!

But we can come to that a little later, first its useful to understand that although the origins and who the first practitioners of a style of movement we now call ‘Aikido’ are and who they were is often open to debate, we can be certain that its lineage comes through to us from the Japanese warrior caste; the Samurai, who were mounted warriors practiced in the arts of Sword, Spear and Bow.
So we can detect these ancient combat strategies and movements within modern Aikido, unlike say Okinawa Karate that has its own unique development and lineage different from the Samurai arts.
If you think of how the Katana (Japanese sword) generally cuts, then it is all within circles and arcs, this best utilises its curved cutting edge, the Aikido student too uses their body and hands in a similar fashion, moving them within circles when meeting an attack or confrontation. Also we see the mirror in the footwork and stances of both styles, to derive maximum cutting power down through or up though a target, the swords man will need his hip behind each cut, deriving this power through wedge shaped angles downward or upwards, this again is the same for Aikido, a student who wishing to meet an attack, and redirect and then throw the opponent away, will need to find these similar spiral and 45 degree wedge shaped movements, doing so through their hips and stances, so often then a swordsman’s stances and foot work will mirror that of Aikido.
So I have found that an Aikido student will move easily to sword and weapons while the sword student feels just as at home in the cutting type movements needed to throw somebody within Aikido, much more than the Karate student does with their linear power and fixed stance work.
But to me the beauty and understanding lies in the beholder of these subjects, the mind of the martial artist if you will! If an Aikido student perceives the need and the simple imperative of the ‘cut’ then their Aikido achieves this same purpose, and dynamism, so often lacking in pure practice, while the swords man who feels the flow and connectivity required in Aikido for their sword, and who blends effortlessly with his opponent must perceive mastery of sword one day!
So do Aikido and Sword complement each? In the eyes of a true martial artist, the answer must be;…”why the question!”

Sword and its Simplicity

For most students of sword the simplicity of sword appears anything but simple! It takes many years to perfect Iado, that is the draw, the cut and the resheath, then there are Ken-Jitsu katas and movements to understand, that is the free style movement of sword, then there can be bokken work and sparring that allows you to explore the ‘Budo’ nature of sword, then finally the ultimate test of the swords man, that of Tanden work, which is spontaneous sword, performance of sword work that you create from nothing, which has no relationship to the patterns you had learned in the past, so simple yes?….No!

But that’s not what i think the origin of the expression ‘Sword and its Simplicity’  means, maybe the ‘simplicity’ refers to a more Zen like concept if you will.

Once all of that knowledge, experience and technique has been learned you must, if you like, forget it! To try and explain the invisible and impossible think of three elements, there is the swordsman waiting to perform, the sword waiting to cut and lastly the cut waiting to exist, each of the two elements needs the other to give reason. If as a swordsman you let your mind dwell upon either one of these three elements you will not find this simplicity we are talking of nor even the ultimate truth of the sword, this mythical concept that is sometimes referred to as ‘sword of no sword’.

Think of the sword in your hand and you doubt, think of the cut to be performed and you doubt, think of yourself…and you doubt, each doubt leads to the mind, and the mind to the ego that fails to be in the moment.
So first we must learn of sword and all its complexities but then seek the simplicity of ignorance, let go and forget everything, join with the sword and the cut and you will disappear in a true cut, a cut that breaths life and not takes it.

Self Defence…What If?

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Our work shop on self defence will soon be upon us and has sparked a lot of conversations in the blogs and facebook pages. Although we have run these courses before and will do so again, these events do focus the mind upon this important subject – that of the defence of the self.

It is of course the reason most of us gotten in to martial arts in this first place, one day we asked the question ‘what if?’, and for most of us the answer was; ‘I’m not sure!’ So the next logical step was to find a martial art club…and here we are!

But during the years of our training that question is often replaced by the enjoyment of training and the discovery of skills we didn’t even know we possessed. So a workshop always brings that question back to the forefront of the mind…’what if’? And strangely enough, despite the grades we wear often that answer is still elusive, but that’s the good news!!

The true gift of martial arts is ‘awareness’, or what we call ‘Zanshin’ in the dojo, even the awareness that we might not be good enough yet, so we had better keep getting good!

Unfortunately the people who might run into trouble out there usually never saw it coming till it was too late, never questioned the environment they were in, the people they were with, or the physical state they were in, they probably think they don’t even need a ‘self defence’ work-shop!

So these skills of awareness, focus, and environment will be the main lessons we will be trying to teach in our workshop, indeed these are the skills that are being hammered into you during every dojo session without you even knowing! Not just during a combat sessions, but during Katas, during weapons, even during exercise sessions! Even as you walk into a room full of other martial artists your awareness skills will grow, the sense of self becomes heighten, and all this is so much better than having to throw that punch!

So as martial artists you might still ask the question; ‘what if?’ Don’t worry you always will, that’s your advantage over the other guy!

See you in the Dojo.

Sensei Richard

The way of guitars and the martial artist!

“Private lessons or group lessons, which one is best?” Is a question we often get asked as instructors, the answer is quite simple…. both!

The best analogy which I think might answer this great question is the example of learning a musical instrument, and I know a few of our students are musicians so I hope it makes sense!

So imagine you are a budding guitarist, dieing to become the next Hank Marvin or ‘Slash’ (If you are younger than 50!)This young lad has bought his chosen ‘Axe’ and he sits on the edge of the bed trying to pluck some notes, and find some chords out of this amazing instrument of musical potential, despite the; ‘how to play guitar in 10 easy steps’ book open by his side, or these days, one of the 100,000,000 YouTube sites dedicated to teaching you anything from learning guitar to mobile phone repair! Flickering open upon his laptop, the noise this young lad is making sounds awful! Nowhere near sounding like the ‘Guitar Hero’ he wishes to become!

So this is the stage when 2 things can happen, just like someone interested in martial arts, he can; A. learn enough from YouTube to impress girls, and tell people he plays the guitar, he might even mess about with his mates and get no further than 3 chords, perfect to play punk! or B. find a teacher and become good! The second option of course takes work and expense, in fact putting yourself out! That’s why good musicians (and martial artists) are rare!

But having aspirations and dreams, this young man chooses B, which means our story can continue, he has looked, and we hope found a caring teacher who teaches the type of guitar he wants to learn, and is patient enough to sit still and listen as this young Kohigh of the guitar wrenches sounds out of the Sensei’s chosen instrument of choice!

Our budding student has now found the chance to be good, with private lessons the teacher can devote all his attention to teaching mastery of the guitar, going at the pace that is best for the student with no distractions from a class of mixed ability students…. great! Just like in a private martial arts lesson.

But that is only half the story, for when the young man picked up the guitar; he had an unformed wish to be a ‘musician’. A musician is not someone who learns the next piece of technique, puts it in his metaphorical pocket and then goes home to his bedroom to play to his mirror! A musician plays to other people, he if you like, transmits his passion for the music to the watcher, and maybe one day, if he is very lucky, transforms somebody by his music.

So our guitarist should join a band! He needs to sit with other musicians and make music. As each band member tries their best, each is driven to greater levels, (that’s how the Beatles did it!) All his teachers’ lessons can now be used and thus understood. Then they should book a gig, and leave the garage in which they practice in, now their journey really begins!

This, as a martial artist, is when we train in a class together, mixing and sparring with other martial artists, testing each other and becoming great together, we go to gradings, or perform demonstrations together, truly playing and understanding our art together.

Then like our musician, who next needs to play a more advanced piece of music, we go back to our sensei for a personal lesson, which will help him understand the next level he needs to play at.

Then who knows, one day this now experienced musician who once nervously unwrapped his brand new guitar, might decide to give some words of advice to someone else struggling with his art form, and then the circle is completed.

For every instructor in martial arts, of what ever style is only ever trying to hand on what he was taught, no one should be arguing who is the best guitarist or has the best band in the world, merely hoping their music might one day transform another persons life.