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Thread: Aikido and ShorinjiKempo

  1. #16
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    Default re Adrian's last post..

    The problem is if we go the other way and drive ourselves into the ivory tower of 'technique', when it all gets very academic, and frankly, not much practical use. Hard sparring, pad work and fitness have always been part of my training and will remain so. I feel I can include this type of training in my classes without effectively diluting the SK in any way - punch - kick combos are just as much a part of SK as they are of kickboxing etc.
    Second time in about a week, I agree with Mr Simpson entirely. The Four Horseman will be galloping over the horizon anytime now...

    I never have dispute that other systems can offer extremely effective techniques, but I would dispute that the only test of effectiveness is whether you would prevail in a ring or worse yet a cage.. I don't kid myself about this, I have very little doubt about what would happen to me personally in that kind of environment, especially if outmatched in terms of size and weight.

    I had a recent discussion with somebody else who's going the cross training route about a former sensei of the Glasgow University aikido club. The other party to the discussion said that the only real test of whether said sensei could fight -and whether aikido stands up as a system - would be in a ring bout with the best representative of a style like MMA. I remain stubbornly impressed by the fact that the sensei in question had been attacked by people weilding knives and lived to tell the tale.

    Tony Leith

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    Default

    Cross Training... That and "Randori" have produced some of the longest and most eagerly contested threads of a few years ago. A search will find them, but you'll need a few cans of beer and some popcorn handy, they run to several pages and each one is a "white knuckle rollercoaster ride of emotion".
    David Noble
    Shorinji Kempo (1983 - 1988)
    I'll think of a proper sig when I get a minute...

    For now, I'm just waiting for the smack of the Bo against a hard wooden floor....

  3. #18
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    Default Summarize

    Gassho David-san!

    Just summing them up for us in a few, well chosen words would be great!

    Kesshu,
    ______ Jan.
    Jan Lipsius
    少林寺拳法
    Shorinjikempo
    Humboldt University Berlin Branch

    "An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind." Gandhi

  4. #19
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by tony leith
    From what I've seen (stress limited experience) aikido ukemi are executed in a quite different way from those in SK. There seemed to be more emphasis on using them simply 'on the mat', so for example the equivalent of mae ukemi didn't have the same insistence on cushioning the impact with the hands and arms before rolling to fuko gamae. Having tried ukemi a few times on concrete , I can attest it's a very different experience from even a sprung wooden floor never mind a mat, and PROTECTING THE HEAD AT ALL COSTS is paramount - even a grazing contact with the ground can be pretty bloody disorientating.

    Nage waza might well be a different story - I simply didn't attempt nage waza in the aikido context so have no idea of its level of similarity or otherwise to SK.

    Tony Leith
    Yes we recognized that it is different but we are of the opinion that we needed to get more mat time and familiarity of the body mechanics of falling rather than experimenting on hard wood floors.
    Raul Rodriguez
    Shorinji Kempo New York City Branch

    http://www.ShorinjiKempoNYC.org

  5. #20
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    Default re Luar's last post..

    Raul
    Yes we recognized that it is different but we are of the opinion that we needed to get more mat time and familiarity of the body mechanics of falling rather than experimenting on hard wood floors.
    I hope you will forgive any impertinence of the 'teaching grandmother to suck eggs' variety, but I think the best solution to this is to just incorporate ukemi into most classes as part of kihon - cumulatively this means everybody gets a lot more time in on ukemi, and also means that they get to be regarded as a normal, and unexceptional, part of class.

    We usually start beginners off on mats, but my experience is that the more you put off the point where they try ukemi on the floor the bigger the level of apprehension you build up (of course this applies to floors of the sprng wooden variety - if you have the misfortune to be training on something that just doesn't yield, I might well agree that getting access to mats would be a very good idea).

    Tony Leith

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    Quote Originally Posted by JL.
    Dark history? What dark history?
    We were sort of kinda a little bit teensy weensy not a club for a while. Apparently, the first time Hombu heard of us is when in the eighties a bunch of Glasgow Kenshi came over for training and they went "Glasgow Dojo? We have no Glasgow Dojo!" It's all in the past now, of course, and merely adds to the "Glasgow Uni Far North Frontier Dojo" image that we (don't really) have. Others more in the know feel free to correct.
    JC McCrae

  7. #22
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    Default oh for ****'s sake..

    Seeing as Jame has decided to put his somewhat inaccurate version of the Glasgow club's history on the world wide web, I feel I should offer a couple of corrections. One, SK has been around in Glasgow since the 70s, and was originally introduced here by (I think) a Malaysian 2nd dan called Benny Wang studying at Glasgow University. As the BSKA (predecessor to the BSKF) became better established, the club became affiliated to it.

    The turn to the 'dark side' occured when the senior black belt up here back in the mid 80s decided he could run his own grading system without reference to either Hombu or Mizuno Sensei. This meant that when some Glasgow kenshi visited Hombu (including John McCulloch, who told us this first hand) they did indeed find that they had no official history, and that to put it mildly they had been misled by their then instructor.

    The club membership decided that it wanted to rejoin WSKO and the BSKF, despite the fact that this meant having to start again at 4th kyu (we still have one member of this generation training, Alan McHardy - and the rest of us owe that generation who could see past their egos a big debt, because if they hadn't done that there wouldn't be any Shorinji Kempo in Glasgow).

    Since then we have been a fully accredited WSKO branch, and indeed Mizuno Sensei himself acted as our branch master for a long while until our current branch master Sensei Niall Anderson, achieved his sandan.

    Jame:
    Others more in the know feel free to correct.
    Next time, others less in the know feel free to ask . In fact, I insist on it.

    Tony Leith

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    Default

    Apologies to all, should have checked my facts. Will try not to let it happen again.
    JC McCrae

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    Default

    Strewth, when I meant dark history, I was only referring to the day Tony joined. No need to air the family laundry in public!
    A-D-R-I-A-N (Space) S-I-M-P-S-O-N, just in case you need it spelled out, big brother.

    Whatever happened to deep throat?

  10. #25
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    Default hmm..

    Strewth, when I meant dark history, I was only referring to the day Tony joined. No need to air the family laundry in public!
    I tend to agree, but if it's going to be 'out there' it might as well be a reasonably accurate account. Can't actually vouch for the foundation of the club by Mr. Wang personally, but everything else I have heard from people who were training at the time.

    I suppose it also might help put my concerns about cross training instructors in some kind of context.

    Tony Leith

  11. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by tony leith
    (we still have one member of this generation training, Alan McHardy -
    Actually that makes it 2...... John McCulloch is still alive and well and training in Canada.... actually Branch Master of a very prosperous (and aiming at world domination very soon ) branch in Toronto.
    Steve Williams

    Harrow Branch.
    Shorinji Kempo UK.
    www.ukskf.org




  12. #27
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    Default Rolls

    Gassho!

    One thing that seems to me worth discussing in an Aikido-Shorinij Kempo thread (and that I know something about myself) are rolls. I think they're also a good example to show differences and similarities between the two arts:
    Aikido rolls are very soft and round. They're aimed at giving the least resistance when touching the ground thus using the impetus from the fall to get up again. This is definitely extremely fast, effective and good-looking.
    Shorinji Kempo rolls on the other hand take most of the impetus of the fall away with the hands/arms before making a more controlled roll with some power of one's own.
    The basic difference in the ideas behind the rolls is, IMHO, the attack: in Aikido the roll is mostly used to escape being driven into the ground by a throw, whereas in Shorinji Kempo we assume an attack like being pushed from behind and turn after the roll to face the attacker.
    The main difference in the effect of the rolls is, again IMHO, that while Aikido rolls work fantastic on soft floors and if done well very good on hard even floors they're not something I'd want to do on, say, gravel or anything that might just have the occasional stone or whatever to break my spine when hitting into it with a lot of speed. Of course Aikido rolls also aim at making the time where the spine touches (or rolls over) the ground as short as possible, but it can't be completely avoided.
    The advantage of Aikido rolls I see in getting up very quickly, using as little time and energy as possible and the surprise effect of being in a completely different spot very quickly (instead of lying on the floor with a broken nose).
    Any comments on that?
    And an additional question/problem that came up in training from time to time: is it possible (and how) to stop someone being thrown with a Shorinji Kempo throw (say, Gyaku Gote) to roll away before being pinned?

    Kesshu,
    ______ Jan.
    Jan Lipsius
    少林寺拳法
    Shorinjikempo
    Humboldt University Berlin Branch

    "An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind." Gandhi

  13. #28
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    Default

    Hello Jan,

    It is very interesting to see how perceptions differ. If you don't mind, I am going to intrude once more in the SK forum and I would like to go through your post bit by bit.

    Quote Originally Posted by JL.
    Gassho!

    One thing that seems to me worth discussing in an Aikido-Shorinij Kempo thread (and that I know something about myself) are rolls. I think they're also a good example to show differences and similarities between the two arts:
    PAG. In aikido the normal Japanese expression for a roll is ukemi (receiving body). However, in English it is customary to distinguish between rolls and breakfalls (German?). For me, a roll is exactly as you describe in your next paragraph. In its most basic form there is contact with with the mat along a line from the hands, wrists, arms, shoulders, back (diagonally) hips, thighs, until the person rises. And you can do the same roll backwards. With a breakfall, on the other hand, there is less continuous contact of the body with the tatami. There is a flip and the person actually loses contact with the ground and then lands on the ground. Is there a similar distinction in SK?

    Quote Originally Posted by JL.
    Aikido rolls are very soft and round. They're aimed at giving the least resistance when touching the ground thus using the impetus from the fall to get up again. This is definitely extremely fast, effective and good-looking. Shorinji Kempo rolls on the other hand take most of the impetus of the fall away with the hands/arms before making a more controlled roll with some power of one's own..
    PAG. In aikido I think this depends on the attack and also on the throw. For example, there is a famous 8th dan Japanese shihan named Isoyama whose speciality is a throw called kataguruma, or ganseki otoshi. In the reverse form of this, the attacker ends up braced over tori's shoulders, facing upwards, and the only way of avoiding injury is to bring the knees up to one's chest, do a backward flip and attempt to stand upright. This type of ukemi seems to me close to what I have seen in SK demonstrations at Hiroshima University (by the guys wearing the black tunics, not the beginners). In the non-reverse form of this throw the attacker is thrown up and over the shoulders, facing downwards, and is dropped straight down. I would think you would have similar shoulder throws in SK.

    Quote Originally Posted by JL.
    The basic difference in the ideas behind the rolls is, IMHO, the attack: in Aikido the roll is mostly used to escape being driven into the ground by a throw, whereas in Shorinji Kempo we assume an attack like being pushed from behind and turn after the roll to face the attacker..
    PAG. I think that there are some techniques in aikido where it is sometimes difficult to escape being driven into the ground by the throw. Do you have a technique in SK called shiho nage? In this throw you can set up the architecture of the throw to focus on the shoulder or on the elbow and this focus will determine the type of roll or breakfall possible. If it is from the shoulder, it is highly likely that the throw will be straight down.

    Quote Originally Posted by JL.
    The main difference in the effect of the rolls is, again IMHO, that while Aikido rolls work fantastic on soft floors and if done well very good on hard even floors they're not something I'd want to do on, say, gravel or anything that might just have the occasional stone or whatever to break my spine when hitting into it with a lot of speed. Of course Aikido rolls also aim at making the time where the spine touches (or rolls over) the ground as short as possible, but it can't be completely avoided..
    PAG. Yes. I understand this. When I was younger and more foolish I took part in a demonstration in the USA. It was designed to show that aikido could be practised effectively by women, so the attackers were all men. There were no real tatami and the floor was concrete. I was the attacker for the kata guruma-type throws I mentioned above and this meant landing on concrete from a height of at least one metre. I was able to land effectively, i.e., land, get up and attack again, but I would have appreciated tatami.

    Quote Originally Posted by JL.
    The advantage of Aikido rolls I see in getting up very quickly, using as little time and energy as possible and the surprise effect of being in a completely different spot very quickly (instead of lying on the floor with a broken nose)..
    PAG. Well, as I suggested, I think this depends on the attack and the architecture of the throw. I teach my own students to roll as 'economically' as possible and get up. But in aikido this is not always possible.

    Quote Originally Posted by JL.
    Any comments on that?.
    PAG. Well, as a 'guest' I have given you a few. I hope that some SK members with a similar training history to mine (35 years of aikido, 6th dan, but feeling age creeping on) might give some opinions.

    Quote Originally Posted by JL.
    And an additional question/problem that came up in training from time to time: is it possible (and how) to stop someone being thrown with a Shorinji Kempo throw (say, Gyaku Gote) to roll away before being pinned?.
    PAG. Is this throw also called kote-gaeshi? (See the similar threads in the aikido forum and my exchanges with Tony Leith.) In aikido kote-gaeshi is sometimes treated as a throw (nage waza), but fundamentally it is a nage-katame waza (a throw which ends in a pin). The throw focuses on pressure to the attacker's wrist and lower arm, but the pin should focus on the attacker's elbow. If the elbow is not controlled immediately after pressure is applied to the wrist, the attacker can roll out of the throw. There are many other issues here, but these are the most fundamental, in my opinion.

    Perhaps it would be good to have a joint aikido/SK ukemi workshop.

    Kesshu,
    ______ Jan.[/QUOTE]

    Finally, you asked a question about Senior Moderators. I have been away teaching in Europe and so have been absent from E-Budo for a while. After I came back, I watched a very interesting discussion unfolding in the News from Japan forum, involving someone calling himself Haiyomi. Usually, moderators cannot intrude on the threads of other moderators, but occasionally, when John Lindsey has been away, some moderators have had this power. I gather that there were some software problems, and George Kohler also had family problems, so some moderators had 'senior moderator' powers. For some reason Joe Svinth could not moderate in his own forum, but I was able to do so (and moved some threads).

    However, I think this is a temporary measure. I gather from George Kohler that John Lindsey is back from Iraq from a while and they will make whatever arrangements necessary to ease the burden on George while John is away.

    So I am not really a Senior Moderator, rather a Moderator who is Senior (i.e., older than the rest).

    Best regards to all
    Last edited by P Goldsbury; 10th September 2005 at 13:31.
    Peter Goldsbury,
    Forum Administrator,
    Hiroshima, Japan

  14. #29
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    Default Thanks for the information

    Quote Originally Posted by P Goldsbury
    Hello Jan,

    It is very interesting to see how perceptions differ. If you don't mind, I am going to intrude once more in the SK forum and I would like to go through your post bit by bit.
    Hello Peter-sensei!

    I hope I didn't make the impression of seeing You as an intruder! I'm very glad about all the insides provided by so senior a Budoka.

    Quote Originally Posted by P Goldsbury
    In aikido the normal Japanese expression for a roll is ukemi (receiving body). However, in English it is customary to distinguish between rolls and breakfalls (German?). For me, a roll is exactly as you describe in your next paragraph. In its most basic form there is contact with with the mat along a line from the hands, wrists, arms, shoulders, back (diagonally) hips, thighs, until the person rises. And you can do the same roll backwards. With a breakfall, on the other hand, there is less continuous contact of the body with the tatami. There is a flip and the person actually loses contact with the ground and then lands on the ground. Is there a similar distinction in SK?
    As far as I know all of this applies to Shorinji Kempo, too. And in German we also distinguish between "Rollen" and "Fallübungen" (or simpler "Fallen"=falls).

    Quote Originally Posted by P Goldsbury
    I think that there are some techniques in aikido where it is sometimes difficult to escape being driven into the ground by the throw. Do you have a technique in SK called shiho nage? In this throw you can set up the architecture of the throw to focus on the shoulder or on the elbow and this focus will determine the type of roll or breakfall possible. If it is from the shoulder, it is highly likely that the throw will be straight down.
    The names of the techniques are different from what I know since they're usually simply descriptive and there are a lot of ways to describe a technique (see Aikido techniques Ikkyu, Nikyu...). But there are some Shorinji Kempo techniques that LOOK similar to Aikido techniques (whether they're the same or based on the same principles is, of course, one of the topics of these two threads). Gyako Gote for example uses a line that is used in Aikido, too. Whether it's called Kote Gaeshi I do unfortunately not remember, but I'm pretty sure someone here does.
    From a certain level on it is very common to do our techniques in a way that make sure Kosha (=Uke) does a spin that will disable Ukemi (partially answering my own question here, maybe ), which sounds pretty similar to the described technique in Aikido.

    Quote Originally Posted by P Goldsbury
    When I was younger and more foolish I took part in a demonstration in the USA. It was designed to show that aikido could be practised effectively by women, so the attackers were all men. There were no real tatami and the floor was concrete. I was the attacker for the kata guruma-type throws I mentioned above and this meant landing on concrete from a height of at least one metre. I was able to land effectively, i.e., land, get up and attack again, but I would have appreciated tatami.
    When we occasionally train rolls on really hard ground (our Dojo has soft floor) we usually come to understand how bad our rolls really are very quickly. I suppose, that breaking the force of the fall before rolling is sensible on hard floor and especially outside. But it's far from making sure we don't hurt ourselves. Which leads us to the last point since at least IMHO we do not spend enough time training rolls...
    Quote Originally Posted by P Goldsbury
    Perhaps it would be good to have a joint aikido/SK ukemi workshop.
    I think that's indeed a very fine idea. In fact we even had an Aikido sensei who was also teacher at Feldenkrais (a school of moving the body) over for an Ukemi-workshop at one time. It was pretty interesting but the focus was definitely more on Feldenkrais exercises than on Aikido.

    Best regards,
    ___________ Jan.
    Jan Lipsius
    少林寺拳法
    Shorinjikempo
    Humboldt University Berlin Branch

    "An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind." Gandhi

  15. #30
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    I hope that some SK members with a similar training history to mine (35 years of aikido, 6th dan,...
    ..... Sorry Peter, I think there is a fifth Dan and maybe a few third Dans that read the threads on E-Budo, but the "years in service" is even trickier. The British contingent were celebrating the 30th anniversary of Shorinji Kempo in Britain just last year. So perhaps if we get a couple of third dans to form a team ...
    David Noble
    Shorinji Kempo (1983 - 1988)
    I'll think of a proper sig when I get a minute...

    For now, I'm just waiting for the smack of the Bo against a hard wooden floor....

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