patparker

In my last post I asserted that junokata is not an abstract, aesthetic, demonstration thing intended for aging judo masters.  Rather, it was deliberately designed by Kano as practical randori education for relative beginners.  At least, that's what Kano says/implies in his memoirs. . Of course, your next question to me should be, "Well, what are all those amazing randori lessons hidden in Junokata?" Short answer -  I don't know for sure.  I can't lie to you and claim to have gleaned... Read Full Story

When judo was young, back in the 1880's, the randori practice and concept was what made it unique and special.  The ancient jujitsu schools from which judo was derived were predominantly kata arts.  They had limited or no concept of randori.  Because of Kano implementing this randori idea in judo, judoka were able to gain a ton of practical experience and dominate the competitions between Kodokan and the older traditional kata-based jujitsu schools. . As the Kodokan grew, there came a... Read Full Story

So, per my post from yesterday, I suggested that you might get more mileage out of your randori experiences if you will learn a variation of your tokuiwaza that you can execute on uke when he is moving forward, backward, left, or right.  Today I have a couple of examples. . Coming up through the ranks I often had a lot of trouble getting into osotogari.  Turns out, I only knew and practiced two directions of that thing.  I could throw osotogari when uke moved his right leg forward, or... Read Full Story

Ok, so now that we've gotten all this "randori is an experiment - not a contest" and "randori is not about winning" business out of the way, how about some real hints on how to really trash some bozos... This particular hint applies more to judo randori, but i guess you can stretch it a bit and get some aikdio randori benefit out of it. You need to be able to throw your tokuiwaza (your 1-2 best throws) whether uke is advancing or retreating with their left or right legs.  So... Read Full Story

It is not the purpose of randori to see if you can defeat the other guy a few times.  Randori is absolutely not about winning. . The purpose of randori is for both partners to gain experience in giving and taking various techniques outside of the constraints of kata.  Approaching randori as an experiment, like in the previous post, your intent should simply be to run the experiment many times. . This does not mean that you should not attempt to throw.  You have to approach the... Read Full Story

In the previous post, I compared randori to a physics experiment. In a science lab, experiments are often performed over and over and over again, carefully controlling the experimental variables and changing one variable at a time to see how the varaibles affect the system. Randori can be very profitable when approached in a similar vein. Often it is not the end result (someone falls down or gets in an armlock) that is the most interesting thing in an engagement... Read Full Story

Randori plays such a central role in judo and in aikido, that I thought I'd spend some time this month writing about this practice, how to "do randori" better, and how to get more out of it. First, what is randori? The Japanese word, randori , means something to the effect of "laying hold of chaos" or "taking freedom." There are basically two classical modes of practice for Japanese jujitsu - kata and randori.  Kata is an exploration and demonstration of the form of a thing... Read Full Story

I like to occasionally peruse Henry's wonderful list of principles that make aikido work .  Lately I've been working my way through this list, blogging about my thoughts on each one, and I've worked my way up to #3   Nothing Ever Works   Also occasionally stated as, "I wouldn't bet my life on THAT!"   All martial arts have assumptions and presuppositions.  Axioms that they use as starting points.  One of our most foundational assumptions in aikido is that it is near-useless to rely on... Read Full Story

Please join  our ongoing discussion of Steven Pearlman's excellent tome, The Book of Martial Power In this chapter, Pearlman covers the much-talked about topic of Relaxation.  I have previously covered relaxation in several articles here .  Pearlman doesn't seem to add too much in this chapter except that his previous chapter, Heaviness , really has the meat of the issue in it. What I did find interesting was Pearlman's typically elegant description of the issue, "...power comes... Read Full Story

If there is one principle that is discussed and trained extensively, perhaps even obsessively, in aikido classes and some judo classes, it is the idea of ma-ai. Ma-ai is usually thought of as a boundary around your body, the inside of which is defined as your personal space.  So long as uke is outside of ma-ai, he cannot touch you without first moving toward you.  If you allow uke inside your ma-ai then you cna potentially be attacked without having time to respond.  Typically, ma-ai... Read Full Story