View Single Post
Old 03-17-2002, 01:25 PM   #18
Dan Hover
Dojo: Bond Street Dojo/Aikido of Greater Milwaukee
Join Date: Aug 2000
Posts: 132
United_States
Offline
I think Mr. Vance is about the closest to the real answer on this, Aikido nomenclature indeed comes predominately from DTR (i.e ikkyo from Ikajyo) but the original naming system was Takeda's. As Takeda was somewhat illiterate, and charged by the technique, he had no way of knowing who owed him what. So if his student showed him the last thing he learned was Sankajo then Takeda, would a) know how much the student owed him and b) what the next lesson was. This is carried over today as ikkyo- gokyo are predominately taught in order 1-2-3-4-5. This also accounts for "lost techniques" being the 6th and 7th in the series. Now the suffixes "kyo" vs. "ajo" translate out as teaching and technique respectively, this is something O'sensei changed to bring them into line with his shift from a jutsu application to a do style. In so far as irimi-tenkan and Ura omote debate goes on, This is one of Nidai Doshu's biggest accomplishments, being the standardazation of nomenclature of waza. By doshu's classification, kihon waza was based on 5, 5 pins ikkyo-gokyo, and 5 throws, iriminage, shihonage, kaitennage, kotegaeshi and tenchinage, 5 footworks, tsuri ashi, ayumiashi, tenkan, tenkai, okuri-ashi, and lastly 5 handworks, uchi-gaeshi, soto gaeshi, uchi-mawashi, soto-mawashi, and O- mawashi. This somewhat simplified technique as one irimis in both ikkyo omote and ura. Albeit one must remember that omote and ura refer to physical location, whereas irimi and tenkan refer to physical movement. any questions??

Dan Hover

of course that's my opinion, I could be wrong
  Reply With Quote