My teacher has send me on this quest so can anyone help me with the Japanese term for the arm stretch where you place your arm straight in front of you, palm of your hand faces up and with your other hand you pull your fingers down in a circular motion.

I know they do it also in Shiatsu.

It feels great. Try it.

It sounds a bit like yonkyo to me.
andrew

Andrew yonkajo is applied on the wrist nothing to do with the fingers moving down in a circular motion. It could be sankajo or kotegashi, I could not tell from the description



Matt Banks

arm stretch
 

Andrew, I think some 'styles' call that exercise 'yonkyo undo'. Few clubs seem to do it, IMHO mark johnston

Aarjan,

From your description, the wrist stretch sounds similar Gyaku Sankyo. Of course, this term may be unique to my dojo. Different dojo will refer to wrist stretches with different terms. An example would be the term Sankajo instead of Sankyo. Both are correct, the diffence I believe is that one word is of an older dialect than the other. In our regular Sankyo wrist stretch, the hand is first held in front of your body, palm facing yourself. You then grab the hand in front of you with your free hand and rotate it in such a fashion that your palm will first face the floor and then away from you. It's a little hard to describe in writing. I hope I've helped a little.

Actually, it sounds like the stretch that Aarjan is describing is different from the sankajo/sankyo stretch. Here's the basic sankyo stretch that's done in most dojo:

http://www.aikido-world.com/highligh...cise-Front.htm

I think the stretch that Aarjan is describing can be done by first putting your left hand in front of your face, palm facing toward you. Straighten the left arm out some (not all the way so as to keep from hyperextending the elbow) so that the tips of the left hand are now pointing out, palm up. Grab the fingertips of the left hand with your right hand and gently tug downwards. If you're flexible, you can bend the fingers back towards the elbow. This should stretch the inside of the arm pretty nicely.

I can't say I have a name for the stretch, though. Sorry.

-- Jun

We do this stretch every night in my dojo, but I'm not entirely sure what it is called. I know that even if I could say it right, I cannot spell it. I think that what you are describing is what I would call "kata te" and then it sounds like you are saying "oh" and then like the word "sigh." Can anyone help me with the spelling?

The way that I would describe this stretch is that you hold your arm out, with your elbow down, hand pointing straight up, and your palm facing you. You grab your fingers and bring your hand (and forearm) down in a circular motion without moving your elbow much. It stretches out your fingers and the inside of your forearm.

I hope that this helps!

Catherine

Yes, Jun and Catherine continue for the washing machine 8^). They describe the stretch much better than I do, but thats the one I mean. I need the name because I told my Sensei I could find everything on the Internet and you guys are my last hope...
Maybe someone who speeks Japanese can come up with a fancy name?

Hi Aarjan!

Sorry, I can't provide you with the name, but we do this stretch also and sometimes refer to it as "stretch for yonkyo". Mostly your teacher shows and everyone knows what to do without a name. So I'm interested in the name, too.

Simone

Hi aarjan! Well we do it in our dojo every day, but we don't call it anything, we just do it if you know what I mean, but what catherine was trying to say and that may be the name, if any, is "katate osae", but that doesn't fit does it. Or maby it does, what does the rest of you think. I mean "katate osae" is something like "technique of one hand" isn't it.

Anyway that's my help on the matter :)

Not quite -- "osae" comes from the verb "osaeru" which basically means "to immobilize by pressing down." Some styles of aikido call ikkyo/ikkajo "ude osae" which basically means "immobilizing the arm" and yonkyo/yonkajo "tekubi osae" which basically means "immobilizing the wrist."

Maybe this is the proper name for the stretch, but I can't say "yea" or "nay" since I don't know...

-- Jun

Well If you think about it, to stretch the wrist is allmost the opposite of "immobilizing the wrist" isn't it, more like "mobilizing the wrist". aiky - you don't know the word for "mobilizing" or something like that? Then one can say "tekubi -------" for the stretching exersise. Just a thought.

Regardless of what one can call something like this, I don't think it means that it'll make sense because there's most likely a "real" name for the stretch already and there's a possibility that the made-up name refers to something else...

-- Jun

I do believe that we call it katate osae (thank you for helping me spell that!). I don't know if that is what your Sensei is looking for, but it certainly would not hurt to have it in mind.

We call it Sankyo at my dojo. We also use this stretch in a sankyo omoto variation.

[Edited by Octavio on January 11, 2001 at 06:04pm]

Arm stretch
 

Aarjan

I think the term you want is ude nabashi. This is the correct name for gokyo and literally means arm stretch.

Others have suggested yonkyo (tekubi osae) or sankyo (kote hineri): these terms do not mean arm stretch.

Best wishes

Cath

Re: Arm stretch
 

Thanx but I don't see the link to Gokyo or to any other technique, can you explain it?

Re: Re: Arm stretch
 

Aarjan

You apply gokyo with the feeling of stretching the arm. It is not the same as ikkyo, although looks similar. It is a knife defense technique (so not normally pratised from a grab)and some teachers only teach ura waza as it is considered safer. You particularly feel the stretching part of the technique when doing ura waza.

Hope this helps.

Cath