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-   -   When is koshinage not koshinage? (http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9745)

seank 02-01-2006 05:25 PM

When is koshinage not koshinage?
 
We have an ongoing debate about the correct way of performing koshinage and wondered what people thought....

Is koshinage done from low on the back, over the hips, or is koshinage performed by throwing uke high over the back in the classic breakfall type technique?

The lower version is still very effective and at lets uke of all experience receive and roll out of technique whereas the high breakfall version requires more experience.

What do people think of the various ways of doing koshinage (do you have your own version of it?) and the merits of one type of throw over another?

aikigirl10 02-01-2006 05:49 PM

Re: When is koshinage not koshinage?
 
At our dojo we've always practiced it from low on the back. My sensei may do variations of it from high on the back but the only one i've ever done is from low on the back.

Edwin Neal 02-01-2006 10:45 PM

Re: When is koshinage not koshinage?
 
i still have lots of problems with koshi, but i seem to prefer the high up one... i get more 'hold' or 'feel' on uke, the other two just don't 'feel' solid to me... its the one part of my testing videos i hate watching... looks like i'm a koshi moron...

Devon Natario 02-01-2006 11:02 PM

Re: When is koshinage not koshinage?
 
Feel free to correct me.

Koshinage is a softer version of Ogoshi Nage. Koshinage is done with lower back and more of a sweep. Ogoshi Nage is done when you pop the hips out and throw them Judo style.

The difference is in blending. With Koshinage you are using the persons forward momentum to throw them as with Aikido. With Ogoshi Nage you are going to be able to take their balance and use your hips to throw them. Thus making one a blending throw and the other a hard throw (Ogoshi Nage).

Carl_001 02-01-2006 11:14 PM

Re: When is koshinage not koshinage?
 
My instructor teaches on the lower back, because then if you load them up high you are using you back muscles as apposed to your hips. I believe this is the correct way but schools will vary and thus teaching styles will be different.

batemanb 02-02-2006 12:41 AM

Re: When is koshinage not koshinage?
 
Koshi nage = hip throw (koshi = hips).

Lower back, just above the hips. Anything higher isn't koshi, and can put a lot of undue stress on the back. There are other throws done higher, such as ganseki otoshi, but I wouldn't call anything higher a koshinage.

rgds

Bryan

Edwin Neal 02-02-2006 12:49 AM

Re: When is koshinage not koshinage?
 
Ganseki otoshi!!! one of my favorites!, but 'categories' of techniques are somewhat loose and broad because of variations that overlap certain areas... we categorize lots of throws as kokyu nage, but i have seen and done some that might also be described as koshi or at least koshi like... for example yokomen uchi kokyu nage irimi (scarf throw) reminds me of uki goshi (floating hip throw)...

batemanb 02-02-2006 12:54 AM

Re: When is koshinage not koshinage?
 
Quote:

Edwin Neal wrote:
Ganseki otoshi!!! one of my favorites!, but 'categories' of techniques are somewhat loose and broad because of variations that overlap certain areas... we categorize lots of throws as kokyu nage, but i have seen and done some that might also be described as koshi or at least koshi like... for example yokomen uchi kokyu nage irimi (scarf throw) reminds me of uki goshi (floating hip throw)...

Hi Edwin,

I agree that there are many blurs with descriptions of techniques, but I still wouldn't call any throw done higher up the back a koshinage, because it isn't :).

rgds

Bryan

Edwin Neal 02-02-2006 12:58 AM

Re: When is koshinage not koshinage?
 
true enough... since those are nearer the shoulder and would start to fall under shoulder throws...

ian 02-02-2006 02:08 AM

Re: When is koshinage not koshinage?
 
I used to think it was best more over the hips (thus hip throw). However I now prefer to use better timing. If you stick your hips in too much it stops the movement and is less fluid. I think it often (but not always) depends how stationary the technique is. Using alot of hip with hard attacks tends to either produce a clash, or put you so close to their body that it is difficult to keep extension and thus lots of energy is used. Practically I'd consider using alot of hip similar to kicking uke's closest leg during techniques e.g. ikkyo, to unbalance them - it's not necessarily the objective, but if you've failed to correctly unbalance the person you are still left with them attatched to you and its better than doing nothing. Thus, in normal training I'd do both, but generally aim for less hips and more focus on uke's displacement (for example I think there is a grey area between tenkan tenchi-nage and a koshi nage).

P.S. the only thing I would say, is that if you are supporting someones body weight during the technique, it is much better to support them on your strong hips, so that only your leg muscles are supporting them, rather than anywhere further up the back (unless you can get your shoulders right under them and you can stay pretty vertical).

Also - I'm not too keen on any technique that requires vertical displacement between feet, hips and shoulders as it provides a potential advantage to uke. Saying this though, Ueshiba can be seen to use 'leaning forward' to displace uke, especially in suwari waza.

odudog 02-02-2006 01:43 PM

Re: When is koshinage not koshinage?
 
Quote:

Bryan Bateman wrote:
Koshi nage = hip throw (koshi = hips).

Lower back, just above the hips. Anything higher isn't koshi, and can put a lot of undue stress on the back. There are other throws done higher, such as ganseki otoshi, but I wouldn't call anything higher a koshinage.

rgds

Bryan


It is a common misconception that {koshi = hips}. Koshi = lower back. When I tell my Japanese wife that my koshi hurts, she then massages my lower back. You are supposed to load uke onto your lower back not the upper {upper back = senaka}. I'm kinda tall but light and thin and when I load uke on my senaka, I can't breath or walk around. I am one of the lightest guys in my dojo besides a few teenagers.

roosvelt 02-02-2006 01:52 PM

Re: When is koshinage not koshinage?
 
Quote:

Mike Braxton wrote:
It is a common misconception that {koshi = hips}. Koshi = lower back. When I tell my Japanese wife that my koshi hurts, she then massages my lower back.

.

Forget about koshi. Does your wife have a unmarried younger sister? Friends?

seank 02-03-2006 05:19 AM

Re: When is koshinage not koshinage?
 
Quote:

Mike Braxton wrote:
It is a common misconception that {koshi = hips}. Koshi = lower back.

So would it be fair to say that across the mid-upper back is something again? (other than koshinage)

Ellis Amdur 02-03-2006 09:14 AM

Re: When is koshinage not koshinage?
 
Koshi-nage in it's "classical" form is different from ogoshi. Ogoshi, (and almost all judo throws) have nage parallel to uke. Aikido koshinage has the hips (koshi) perpendicular to uke. Although colloquially, the lower back can also be called "koshi," the meaning is quite clear in martial arts - it is the juncture of the pelvis and sacrum. Otherwise, uke's weight will not go through the skeleton/legs to the floor
The criteria of proper throws are as follows:
- if you stop the technique in the middle, the person's weight will go vertically down through the legs to the ground. If you are higher on the back, the weight will go in the back.
- in both judo and aikido, you actually TRIP the person with your hips. You don't load them up. The effect of a proper ogoshi or koshi-nage should be the same as if you were walking in pitch dark and walked into a horizontally placed staff right in the middle of your thighs. If you load them up - or straighten up your legs half-way thru the throw to bring them "up and over," you have, in fact, restored their balance and if they are not merely a compliant uke, they'll step out or be able to resist the technique. To make it very simple, if your butt/hip joint (depending on which type of throw) is not at mid-thigh of the uke, you cannot throw them in a koshi technique. If they are not tipped forward on the balls of their feet/toes at the MOMENT of contact with your "koshi," you cannot really throw them.
- Aikido koshinage is much more difficult to really apply than ogoshi because the kuzushi/kake is much more difficult. In judo, by clasping the waist, or in other throws, using the keikko gi, you can fairly easily bind them close to you. Aikido, working at arms length, requires much more subtle timing.
Many aikido teachers have "smuggled" in a judo type throw - but if you look at the old pictures of Ueshiba M. or of the senior teachers, the koshinage they do is perpendicular rather than parallel, as far as alignment goes.
As far as ganseki-otoshi, that's really a kind of shoulder throw, like kata-guruma in judo. The problem here is, to really do this technique against an opponent who is trying not to be thrown, your shoulders have to be at mid-thigh height. The world's best at these kind of throws are the Russian sambo players. A lot of ganseki-otoshi I've seen is more a "circus" throw - uke only falls because he/she relaxes at the proper cue, and nage, body far too high and entering at an angle rather than from "underneath," throws a compliant person.
Best

Edwin Neal 02-03-2006 09:52 AM

Re: When is koshinage not koshinage?
 
who says we work at arms length in aikido... i find many of the waza require much the same set up as judo, and as such require that you blend 'hip to hip' or very closely with their body... i like to do koshinage with an ikkyo set up and you cant really do an ikkyo from arm's length... maybe we are just talking about different things, but i have Always considered aikido to be a close range(clinch) art not a long range(arm length)... maybe i'm wrong, but i don't feel that way...

Peter Goldsbury 02-03-2006 10:05 AM

Re: When is koshinage not koshinage?
 
Hello Ellis,

The way I have been taught koshinage here in Hiroshima is via parallel hips, which allows a much greater range of use GIVEN FLEXIBILITY WITH THE KNEES. As I grow older, I am losing this flexibility with the knees and have to compensate by using the T-formation and throwing uke higher over my back.

Best,

billybob 02-03-2006 12:08 PM

Re: When is koshinage not koshinage?
 
The ganseki otoshi you mention looks like a more deadly version of kata guruma, shoulder wheel.
I have been able to do the perpendicular hip koshi for about a year now - and a good thing it is too - I haven't been able to bear weight on my right leg for many years. In that I'm healing now, and I can do the parallel hips type koshi nage again too!

I think they are both tools in the aiki toolbox, and I think perhaps we see the great masters doing perpendicular method because they are older, and the 'harder timing' perpendicular method is a damn sight safer and less effort for them.

Dave

PS - Throwing uke up over your head and finishing holding their arm as though it were as a sword is really really fun. As a teenager we trained in a second floor ymca - we threw such that uke landed between, not across the joists - a really good throw saw uke bouncing, sometimes even back to his feet with a little help from tori. gooood times. :)

seank 02-04-2006 12:35 AM

Re: When is koshinage not koshinage?
 
Does the idea of loading up on the backup connote a requirement of strength?

I find the idea of throwing uke across the hips/lower back to be more of a directional movement using ukes momentum rather than a "loading up"; I guess this may be the crux of the matter...

Ellis Amdur 02-04-2006 08:29 AM

Re: When is koshinage not koshinage?
 
Peter (et al) - The "T- formation" style of koshinage is rather unique to aikido, I believe. Most wrestling systems worldwide use the "parallel hips." (I cannot speak to Daito-ryu - I don't know how they do it). Given that the oldest photos and films of Ueshiba M. show him doing the T-style, I believe that subsequently, shihan with judo experience imported the parallel style that is, as you say, more adaptable. The T-style is almost purely a timing throw, and gives far less room for error. Speaking as an individual of 2 meters in height, I'm well-aware that if I'm not low enough (which I haven't been for years), I cannot bring off the either throw unless my uke is compliant. Were koshinage required, either in practice or as a teacher, I might find myself doing one of several errors: too high on the back, straightening the knees to lift uke up, too much power in the arms thereby trying to lift them with brute force or, legs too widespread - all of which make the technique easily neutralized with a non-compliant uke.
One of the most beautiful examples of koshinage as a timing throw is a film from the 50's or 60's of Tohei K., in a multiple attack sequence.
Ganseki-otoshi is, I believe, a "show-waza," derived from Daito-ryu. Grabbing the back collar and stepping through with a leg-sweep, or a simple body slam is the actual technique. Ganseki-otoshi is, biomechanically, not so strong. That's why, I believe, you do not see it in any competition grappling system (sumo, Mongolian wrestling, European, etc.). In my opinion, it's more like a Pro-wrestling waza which would be devastating, but requires that uke allows the other person to hoist or lock up.
Finally, Koroiwa Yoshio had an utterly unique koshinage, which has to be seen to be believed - derived from a western wrestling single leg entry, sort of like a kata-guruma, except uke goes from shoulder to opposite hip. He is famous in the Asakusa-bashi neighborhood when he dispatched a amateur sumo 4th dan, yakuza with several successive throws of this kind when the latter was busting up a friend of Kuroiwa's dojo.

Best

Peter Goldsbury 02-04-2006 04:42 PM

Re: When is koshinage not koshinage?
 
Ellis,

I was taught the T-style by K Chiba, but learned the parallel hips style here in Japan. One reason for the latter is that students here liked to do it with one hand on uke's back, around waist height. I think that doing it directly, stepping in between uke's legs, from something like yokomen-uchi, would also lead to the parallel-hips way.

Best wishes,

PAG

billybob 02-04-2006 06:56 PM

Re: When is koshinage not koshinage?
 
Sean K. said: "Does the idea of loading up on the backup connote a requirement of strength?"

My koshi days ended (for many years) after a painful groin injury locked up my right leg and my sacro iliac came and stayed out of joint. -- Load somone in a seoi nage, (hook under arm shoulder throw) and your right leg collapses, more injuries, unhappy uke.

It takes something more than zero strength to do a throw - IF you make make a mistake. Guidance becomes bearing uke's full weight across your back if your timing is off. So, one has to be ready to absorb a lot of force if the throw is not perfect. So, I'm suggesting that senior people are playing it safe - and using their superior off balancing skills to make the more stable T type work for them. I don't like the darn thing, but I'm probably just being curmudgeonly.

"Any (koshi) landing you can walk away from...."

:)

dave


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