Rythm?

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[drDalek]

What is this rythm stuff that some people keep going on about?

How do you discern your attacker's rythm?

I can understand that when you go for a protracted punch-up with someone you might start figuring out their particular rythm and then do something to disrupt them, but this is not how Aikido works is it?

Please try and not respond with a "with more practice, it will become obvious" type post. I hate those. Thanks

[SeiserL]

IMHO, the best way to enter and blend with your uke is to meet or pace their rhythm, move at their speed. It is very hard to discern another's motion when it matches your own. This is the physical practice of being one with your enemy.

Try it. Enter by moving faster than your uke. Now move slower. They will feel heavy. Now, match their rhythm. Feel it?

[Ron Tisdale]

One way is to time their breathing. The kokyu ho dosa exercise that most aikido styles practice is good for learning to time someones breathing and match that with your own breathing and movement. An example might be that someone has almost completed breathing out, so you use your breathing and movement to force them to breathe in suddenly, making them weak. Or you force them to breathe in at the 'peak' of their breath before they can exhale with power.

Then at more sophisticated levels, you can run into people who are very good at controlling their breathing, so you have to go to their pulse to find a weakness.

Some of these methods are rather sophisticated, and I don't know how usefull they would be in a 'dust up' unless you were *very* comfortable in that kind of environment.

Ron

[Steven]

I hear Ron has good rythm. Was talking to members of his dojo and they mentioned the dirty dancing he does and the strong hip ....... Oh wait. Wrong rthym ... never mind.

[Ron Tisdale]

:) Hey, if they said **anything** positive at all, I'm happy :)

{waves}

RT

[Josh Bisker]

Guys, I hate to say it, but i'm not sure that we should be giving all this praise to rythm. Statistically it is proven to be the least effective of any form of contraception, and it does nothing at all to prevent the transmission of disease. Ron, your dojo might say that you're very good with it and everything, but you're headed for disaster, man. I think it's time that we behaved more responsibly as an community and did something proactive here instead of giving all this positive lip service to such a dangerous kind of lifestyle. Come on guys. Really.

[Bronson]

Statistically it is proven to be the least effective of any form of contraception...
There's a word for people who use the rythm method....parents :D

Bronson

[Adrian Smith]

All contraception kidding aside, Wynand, in our dojo the sensei talks about 'awase' (harmony) a great deal. Rhythm as far as I know refers to 'blending' with your partner/opponent - learning their patterns, their body motions and how they react in various situations. When you train with many people you begin to see patterns of balance and learn how people react as certain speeds and to certain motions. Then you can use that knowledge to your advantage.

Just what I've learned so far - it's probably all wrong. :)

-Adrian

[Ron Tisdale]

for all the rythm jokes... :)

Thanks, I needed a good laugh...

RT

[Ted Marr]

As far as I can tell, the easiest part and type of rythm to detect and disrupt is the rythm of their walking. Not that I'm any good at that. But we will very occasionally do an exercise in my dojo where we get the other person moving around us in one of those irimi setups, and then try to feel when the appropriate moment for reversing the direction of our movement into the throw is. I think it is just as the person's weight is moving off the back foot and over where the front foot will land, erring slightly on the "before" rather than after. And, of course, the same sort of thing applies in reverse for a "down" sort of throw, which (I think) does best as they're taking the last of their weight off the back foot.

[NagaBaba]

Well, there are many good exercices for a rythme.

You may start by very basic: two attackers attack you regulary, no resisting, ryo-katadori(both shoulders grap) and you throw them basic kokyunage.

It should be one attack-throw, second attack-throw, one-throw, two-throw....continue something like 10 minutes. After a minute you should go like metronome for music one-two, one-two.....

Do it until you fell what rythm is about.

Other method is to practice weapons:

Uke hits with jo yokomen on tori's head, tori bloks it and hit uke's head.Uke bloks and attacks tori's head....etc

If you practice in fluid motion, you get:

Attack-block, attack-block...etc.... so basically the same rythme one-two, one-two....

All such exerises must be done very fluently, cool, there is not notion of efficiency of techniques.

Once you feel a rythme, you may wish learn how to break rythme.

In first exercice, enter in the rythme, end suddenly instead of waiting for attack, you are going in direction of attacker choosing a moment when he hardly get up, or starting to get up. And go back to the rythme. And break rythem again.....etc

If your breaking rythme is right, attacker will never know how he landed on the tatami or what kind of technique you did.

Normally such things should be teach in the dojo not here ;) But from the replays I saw that almost nonone understand what rythme is about, only blah blah blah about "harmony" LOL

hope it helps

[SeiserL]

In FMA we used to rhythm train all the time. We would attack-block-attack-block with a partner to the beat of conga drums. As they saw we had the rhythm, they would pick up the pace. It hits a point that you cannot consciously keep up and they pick it up again. Total auto-pilot full-tilt full-contact stick fighting.

When I first started Aikido I would turn on some slower music and do Tenkans. As time went by I would use faster music or go from half-notes to quarter-notes to eighths.

When all else fails, I have been known to whistle while I work.

IMHO, rhythm is an important part of timeing which is important to entering and blending, especially in kokyu-nages.