Northern Wind

Come here , dammit! No! But I wanna throw you! I couldn't help but notice an odd sort of paradox in my aikido and judo training. It seems to me that, in aikido, we spend our time trying to keep the guy off of us. He's trying to come at us, towards us, and we're looking to either maintain an arms-length distance, or get behind his arm so even though we're in close proximity, he's not facing me. Then we get into judo and now I'm trying as hard as I can to get close to him, to connect our centers so I can throw him, and he's trying to keep me out (while trying to do the same to me). In other words, it seems like my budo practice is either a game of  "get away get away get away" or "come here come here come here." And I can't help but wonder, why am I trying so hard to do the opposite of what the situation is giving me? If uke's trying to get to me, why am I trying so hard to keep him at a distance?  And when uke's...

My thoughts lately are on the subject of space. I'm still working out the best wording to describe it, though. I want to say "controlling the space," but for some reason, using the word "control" feels a tad unsettling. It sounds as if I'm trying to make something go, trying to force something that I want to happen, as opposed to remaining open to the flow of things. But they are intentional, and they do serve a purpose. When do I do one thing over another? I suppose that's the flowing part. At any rate, there are moments when I want to occupy some of uke's space. Uke is like a stream, flowing down his predetermined path. I am a large stone placed in that path. I'm not trying to stop the stream, like a dam, but interrupt it, send it veering off on a path it never intended to follow. At other times, as uke flows like a stream and I dig a narrow trench in the dirt. Again, his path is diverted, this time drawn into my space. Sometimes...

It occurred to me a little while ago that the term "balance" as I have always applied it to budo might have another meaning. My definition fell along the lines of "a state of equilibrium or equipoise; equal distribution of weight." Standing up without falling down. So when it came to "breaking use's balance," I assumed my job was to make my uke physically unstable, tipped over in one direction or another, on the verge of gravity pulling him down to the ground. But then I started thinking about other dictionary definitions of "balance" I realized those could apply as well. Balance between objects Balance also means "to arrange, adjust, or the proportion of parts symmetrically." In other words, when two otherwise separate objects equal each other in some way, be it weight (as on a scale) or size or position, etc. When we begin in budo, tori and uke face each other. Both have all their proverbial weapons (arms, legs, cen...

There's a section of our "walking kata" or tegatana no kata in aikido that I find very, very useful in judo. After stepping forward and back diagonally, the side to side, there's the part where you turn 90° by pre-turning your foot. It looks a little something like this: You step to your right first, then return to the start, then repeat the same action on your left side. Be sure, of course, to step with your hip still over your lead foot. In other words, don't put your foot over there, then move your hip over it. The two should move together. Here's how it applies to nage waza. First, I do the pre-turned step to my right (for example; you could start on either side). Uke will find that he's no longer facing me, so he'll turn as well in order to square back up again. As he's doing so, or just as he finishes, I make the same pre-turned step to my left . Doing just that creates such a wonderful kuzushi with all kinds of possibilities. Thi...

Friend and fellow judoka (and aikidoka) Scott Weaver had a pretty good idea a while back to try and use the old "envelope drill" in judo similar to the way we use the "walking kata" (tegatana no kata) in aikido. It could just be something we do as a part of our everyday class at the beginning of the ne waza half of the hour. If you're not familiar with it, take a moment and watch this: Our problem was, our little morning class didn't know the envelope drill. Soooo, we've been breaking it down into bite-size chunks and practicing those. It's actually opened a few doors to other little "sub drills" if you will that I think are kind of fun. Here's one we worked on this morning: Part 1 1) Begin as you would with the regular envelope drill: uke lying on his back and tori in kuzure kesa gatame . 2) Uke rolls toward tori, who then transitions into mune gatame . 3) Uke rolls away from tori, and tori transitions back to his own sid...

This has been an odd day. Not because I did anything odd, per se, but mostly because I did very little at all. I ate, I did a load of dishes, took the trash out. But out of an entire Saturday to myself, that's about as productive as I've been (outside of this blog post). All that nothing left me with a lot of time to think.  Mostly, I thought about my health and well-being. You see, while it might seem surprising for someone who does aikido and judo, I'm just a tad overweight by at least 50 pounds. I know it's not good. I know how bad it is for my health (mental and physical). I want to change, and not just so I can look better. I'm not so much concerned about sporting 6 pack abs as I am avoiding heart disease. Yes, I'd like to be able tuck my shirt into my pants again, but I'd also like to have the energy to keep up with my kids. I've done it all before—twice, in fact—so I know it's possible to eat right, exercise and loose the weight. S...

I heard a story once about a woman—let's call her Jill—who was preparing to cook a roast as her little girl watched. Noticing that Jill cut off the end of the roast before placing it in the pan, the little girl asked why. Jill paused. "Actually," she admitted, "I don't know why. That's just they way my mom always did it." She had assumed it had something to do with how the meat needed to be prepared, but now that she thought about it, she couldn't figure out what purpose it served. Out of curiosity, Jill later called her own mother to ask why she always cut the end off of the roast before cooking it. Oddly enough, Jill's mom also admitted she didn't know the reason, either. It was just something her mother had always done. Now even more curious than before, Jill called her grandmother, a very old, frail, but happy lady. "Grandma," Jill began, "mom and I were just wondering—why did you cut the end off of a roast be...