The space in this rhythm

[handslive]

Our aikido club's fall seminar was this past weekend.  One of my sempai always remarks that there's a theme in every seminar.  Sometimes this is certainly the case, but I've stopped thinking of it that way.  (The last time we talked about it, he said I'm the one who first pointed it out to him.  WTF?!)

The thing I've been reaching towards in practice lately is the rhythm of technique.  Not the timing of the attack and defense, but the shift in weight as I move my partner and move myself.  People want to stand up or at least avoid falling.  We feel the unstable parts of our posture and move into these "holes" instinctively.

There is a maxim in judo, "push when pulled; pull when pushed".  One of the things I've been working on lately is that I'm not overextending my partner, which is what this piece of advice suggests, but that I want to create one of these "holes" that they simply cannot help but move into.

And this is where the rhythm comes into play.  The "hole" isn't where I throw my partner although you may have thought I was going to say so.  What comes next is that I move my own weight and change your direction of movement just as your own weight transitions.  I create a hole for your weight to move into and then shift both of us together at the moment you begin to transition.  At this moment, your weight is like a pendulum swinging and one of your feet/legs/hips is anchored in place, unable to move.  Now I can throw you.

To me, that swinging of your weight is a single beat to which I add a syncopated beat of my own.  Sometimes, when things are going very well for me, that space into which I add my own beat also feels like a hole that my weight must move into.  Sometimes, I struggle to add this beat as I sometimes do when I'm playing the piano and the rhythm is not coming instinctively to me.

When I was practicing karate, we were often told that the key to successfully breaking through our partner's defense was to "break the rhythm".   I used to struggle to be intentionally arhythmic, and this did sometimes work.  I think now that this other approach, which joins the rhythm of my partner and adds a syncopation to it, is better.  A break in the rhythm might make it difficult to move my partner's weight.  But I need to practice this more and think on it.

Comments

[greenjavatroll.livejournal.com]

Interesting. In fencing I always worked to first copy my opponent's rhythm, and then break it at the last second.

[handslive.livejournal.com]

It's a question of what is meant by "break". Do we mean "arhythmic" or do we mean "off beat"? The thing with "arhythmic" is that suddenly it doesn't matter what my partner's rhythm is as long as mine doesn't match it. With an off beat, my partner's rhythm matters a great deal because the beat I'm about to add to that rhythm has to be at the right time in terms of his rhythm.

Does that make anymore sense?

[oldgoldalsatian.livejournal.com]

Just fucking hit him. What did Musashi say? "Strike him with your body until he is dead" or something.

I love the hitting.

[handslive.livejournal.com]

Okay, so you made me go home and pull out my copy of Go Rin no Sho. In the Book of Water, Musashi talks about To Hit the Enemy "In One Timing", which is sort of like "Just fucking hit him." He also talks about The "Abdomen Timing of Two":

When you attack and the enemy quickly retreats, as you see him tense you must feint a cut. Then, as he relaxes, follow up and hit him.

That's what I'm talking about. Uh, I think.

[greenjavatroll.livejournal.com]

By your definition, off beat. The trick was to lull them into a rhythm and then use it against them.