Re: Throwing with shihonage
 

Hell

yeah.

BB gets a gold star.

Re: Throwing with shihonage
 

Ditto that. Don't turn if uke isn't off-balance, posture-broken, something.

Re: Throwing with shihonage
 

Dear Tim,
Let me ask you a question-does your Uke hit the ground each time you do shiho nage?If the answer is yes, why do you need to have to throw with power?Is it not enough to simply make sure uke hits the deck? When I trained with Sekiya Sensei[ Chiba Sensei' father in law] he never at any time used powerful waza.At the same time he always pinned or threw you with ease-totally painless and safe.
Shiho nage done incorrectly with power can dislocate the collar bone and also plays havoc with the elbow joints.
Rather than try to be Rambo or King Kong,why not forsake power and acquire skills?If you receive /use power its unlikely your or your ukes body will be fit after 30 /40 years training.
your throwing direction imo is not qite right.Ask yourself the question , do you want to send uke to the floor or throw uke up in the air and thiry feet away [for example]??I would suggest you should send uke to the floor in the shortest route possible ie to the ground [downward to the mat ].
Have a nice day , Joe.

Re: Throwing with shihonage
 

Joe, I want to protect my uke as much as possible so I have refrained from throwing with shionage I feel like I may rip there arm out of socket so I,m back to taking balance on the turn and cut to the mat.

Re: Throwing with shihonage
 

Dear All,
I may well be biased here,since Chiba Sensei is my teacher but here is a good example imo of shiho nage,.Check out on youtube' Chiba Sensei on O Senseis evolution of ShihoNage'.Dont know how to give your the url no.
You will hear /see Chiba Sensei stating that O Sensei was open to a foot sweep from his uke.O sensei apparently modified the Shiho nage to resolve te issue.Enjoy. cheers, Joe.

Re: Throwing with shihonage
 

Dear Tim,
Good news here. You will no doubt be more popular in training.Cannot have guys with one arm missing can we? Might end up calling Aikido Un armed combat!!.Cheers, Joe.

Re: Throwing with shihonage
 

Groan

Re: Throwing with shihonage
 

I LOVE that footwork. Just love it.

Re: Throwing with shihonage
 

Just to echo what Mr. Curran here is saying, sure, you can fairly easily perform a powerfully nasty shihonage, especially on an unsuspecting (read that untrained) person. That said, spending the time and sweat equity to learn to do it smoothly, softly ending with a proper pin is a higher level skill that (at least IMHO) will serve you well. Even after a whole lot of years I find it to be a challenging thing to accomplish, especially with injuries and some congenital problems physically. That said, at this point doing it in a mean and nasty way ain't all that difficult. If you can do it in the way Mr. Curran has described, you always have the option to make it quite devastating. That option is always there if you need it a and get there from the right direction, so to speak. But if all you have is the mean, nasty, bust stuff up version, there are times you might find that you have no other options but mean, nasty, and bust stuff up. I'd rather have more options...

FWIW I've had my share of injuries from overly ambitious shihonage being applied to me. Frankly, these days, I'll bow out of training with anyone I don't already know. The body just can't take the enthusiasm any longer...

But all that said... Lots of opinions and ideas on these topics... All have their merits depending on what you're looking for.

Best of luck.

Re: Throwing with shihonage
 

The other thing about skill vs. power: particularly when dealing with an untrained person, when (not if) that person does something completely unexpected, which will serve you better, power or skill? Never mind keeping them safe, just in terms of keeping you safe -- isn't "acquiring a higher skill level" going to serve you better?

Re: Throwing with shihonage
 

Absolutely. Seriously power moves (at least in my experience) are rather difficult to abort or transition to other things mid stream if you feel things changing. I like the flexibility of being able to deal with changes (basically kaeshi waza).

On a related note, I truly dislike when I see people do things in the dojo way too damned fast. Many shihonage are done that way by way too many people. What I see is someone using speed and power to compensate for poor form. Yeah, it makes it harder to exploit the openings in a student's technique, but maybe that student should be focusing on not having the openings in the first place.

So when all that is there, in place, and good form rules the day, it is trivial to break the attacker. You can destroy them at any point if you wish. To me that's the difference between crude but what may be effective technique and a person who is truly good at martial arts.

Just an observation pointed at no one in particular.

Re: Throwing with shihonage
 

Keith you point about speed is really well taken. Speed and momentum obscures flawed technique and those flaws invite injury. What I find myself doing these days is taking uke’s attack at whatever speed it comes in at and then buy the time the throwing kazushi occurs I have slowed down and often find myself shedding momentum from my hara only half way through the movement and letting the arms die. The throw occurs at reasonable speed but I get to do the initial parts just as fast as uke enters. I don’t know if I would have trusted myself to do this 5 years ago.

Re: Throwing with shihonage
 

I'll have the students try to do it at as slow a speed as possible with uke trying to feel if there is any opening anywhere. And by that I mean a loss of lead, kuzushi, connection or slack coming in to play. Then, and only then, start going a little faster. Or have them adjust the speed constantly to just mess with uke. So they can feel what's really possible and that the point isn't the speed and power, but the connection and smoothness.

Or is it just that silly aiki thing again? Hmmm. :P

Re: Throwing with shihonage
 

Or... One mantra. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

IMHO speed should be a potential that instantiates with proper skill.

Re: Throwing with shionage
 

Spain or Ohio? lol

Re: Throwing with shihonage
 

Who do you train with that teaches this orientation to uke?

thanks!

Adam

Re: Throwing with shihonage
 

Training the technique a few thousand times poorly, with no concept of what's making it work, does nothing for you.

Re: Throwing with shihonage
 

Keith:
I just had the “we practice slow but can speed up just fine” concept revalidated for me. One of our sandans who has been out for about 5 years (overseas), rejoined us. He originally trained in Japan under a hardcore Japanese war vet, likes to go old school hard and fast.

So while sensei took a brief vacation he decided to speed things up in front of a couple of kyus. To be clear there was no malintent on his part, a little ego (but let he who is without sin cast the first stone), and an honest intent to demonstrate a bit of reality and more intense level of training. Boom kaiten nage off of punches full speed, half power. It had been several years since I trained that and it came out like butter. Yeah the arm intercept shifted from wrist to elbow, due to speed and depth of entry, which made it easier and potentially a much harder throw if I had goosed it. Most of the time I didn’t even have to touch his neck, the arm was so connected (yoked) to his elbow.

What was nice is one of the kyus who has boxing, wrestling, and hsing ye experience (however that is spelled) said “wow it really does speed up just fine”. Felt great because as an accomplished martial artist in other styles, I’m sure he had some doubt about the speed up and power up claims we make in this art. Now if I can just get the sandan to slow down so he doesn’t pop the screws in his shoulders I‘ll consider it a total victory. Because even with me shedding energy before peak power, the throw is much harder. Nice to feel it and be reminded that it is easy to ratchet up, but I’d rather extend my injury free streak. I’m with you on the mantra Keith, I would add “he who does not break trains longer”.

Re: Throwing with shihonage
 

of course it does something for you. you are just very good at doing it poorly. :)

Re: Throwing with shihonage
 

Gotta comment that there is a happy middle ground to this. I agree completely that just talking about it is a waste of time. But then again so is constant practice without guidance and purpose (the "figure out it as you go" model). Me, I'd like some guidance, a few questions answered, and lots of practice as I'm doing all those things.

Funny how in an on-line forum things tend to sound like each person ends up in one extreme or another when most probably realize quite well that there is a happy medium.

Not saying anyone is actually advocating any extreme. The reality is that practice is important and so is discussion. So with that said... Gonna go practice a few things before class tonight... :)

Re: Throwing with shihonage
 

Yeah that's true. It's easy to misinterpret intention online. I guess my comment was more toward people I see having a lack of understanding of how a technique works and teachers by telling others to 'just practice more.' There is definitely a potential for too much talking on one extreme, and too much "doing the wrong thing" on another. I feel like finding a balance between the two is probably a little more tricky than most suspect.