Aikido Alive Cornwall

Yokomen Uchi Nikyo Omote Waza

2020-01-03T08:30:44+00:00

In Aikido, yokomen uchi is a strike to the side of the head. It’s close to a round-house punch or a swing with a blunt weapon so our defence is very applicable to self-defence. One good place to move is toward the attacker with your foot just outside his, halting uke’s arm before it strikes and using you other arm to feint (atemi) to uke’s face. Then we can execute nikyo.

Aikido in Cornwall on Instagram.

Attack:	Yokomen Uchi	Uke attempts to strike tori’s temple with the side of the hand.
Defence:	Nikyo Omote Waza	Tori enters and intercepts the strike. Tori grabs uke’s wrist and elbow and turns out to lower uke’s arm to waist level. The pin is with uke’s arm vertical.

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A post shared by Perran Aikido Club (@konpontekina) on Jan 4, 2020 at 1:26am PST

Uchi deshi at Yama no Dojo

2019-11-18T20:36:44+00:00

In October, I was privileged to attend another uchi deshi at Toutain Sensei’s dojo in Serralongue, France. It’s a spectacular location up in the mountains and close to the Spanish border and we were there for five days’ training in Wanomichi. Our daily schedule was something like this:

8:00am Meditation
8:30am Bukiwaza on the football pitches
10:00am Taijutsu in the dojo
11:30am Ashtanga yoga in the dojo
16:00pm Informal practice in the dojo

It’s great to have nothing but Aikido practice for five consecutive days. We live in a nearby gite and, just like in Iwama, cook and eat together, plus help to clean the dojo and the accommodation. It’s possible to make rapid progress, because the training is intensive, and the group is usually small, so you have individual attention from Sensei.

We didn’t do much ukemi for the whole week - it’s interesting. There comes a point, in each technique, where uke is sufficiently unbalanced and cannot recover. At that point, it’s not really necessary to complete the throw, because both partners understand that it’s already over. The precision of your execution permits this and if you make a mistake, uke can highlight by resisting or you can feel the weak point yourself. This is a very positive approach to training.

Ukemi is fun, when you can fall safely, and you can use it to escape a technique or avoid an injury. It’s also very helpful for demonstrations. That’s because the essence of the techniques are subtle and difficult to see but a big break fall is spectacular and inspiring. But advanced ukemi is not required to understand technique. That means that if you can’t take ukemi, you can still learn.

Aikido Alive Cornwall on Instagram

2019-10-01T20:36:44+00:00

We’ve been using Instagram for a few months to post short videos that demonstrate what we’ve been studying. And they been followed and liked quite a bit by other Aikidokas of Insta. We’d also like them to help promote what we do to potential students so if you have a Cornish community of seekers after fitness and spiritual progress, please link to it. This is our feed.

Here’s a recent post:

Attack:	Ushiro Morotedori	Uke strikes towards tori’s face and then pushes tori’s defensive hand down, so she can get behind tori and grab both wrists.
Defence:	Kodegaeshi	Tori starts by moving his hips back so that his hands come in front of his hara. Then he raises one hand and turns under in order to escape the grip. Continuing to turn he takes uke’s hand and uses it to throw.

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A post shared by Perran Aikido Club (@konpontekina) on Sep 16, 2019 at 2:24pm PDT

Ushiro techniques are often practiced by tori turning his back on uke to allow her to take a grip. In this case, the more complete attack is shown, in which uke starts in front of tori and strikes his wrist down so that she can get ‘round. But this is a very formal execution in the dojo and doesn’t relate much to any real-world scenario. I’ve heard some people say that a martial artist would never let anyone get behind him, but how can you prevent that in daily life?