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Old 02-22-2005, 06:31 AM   #5
deepsoup
Dojo: Sheffield Shodokan Dojo
Location: Sheffield, UK
Join Date: Jun 2001
Posts: 524
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Re: Question for Tomiki folks

Quote:
Vincent Paglia wrote:
The kata sections seemed fairly familiar to me, the techniques were familiar but the energy of the students (much of it seemed aggressive to me) was not.
I think the 'agressive' energy you picked up on was perhaps the essential difference between kata and enbu. Enbu is kata performed as a 'martial demonstration'. The aim isn't to look aggressive, per se, but enbu is definitely supposed have a more 'martial' flavour than the kata you'd see practiced in the dojo, or demonstrated for a grading examination. Sometimes the people performing enbu make the mistake of trying to give it that 'martial' flavour by performing aggressively - its an easy mistake to make - and I guess to some observers enbu could appear to be more aggressive than it really is. (The ukemi are noisy and, unlike ballroom dancing, smiling is not generally encouraged.)

Quote:
Could someone shed some light on tomiki competitions? My guess was that if the tanto touches you, you're out or the other person gets a point, etc. How does the unarmed person get points?
The current shiai rules are available online, if you're interested. I'm pretty sure they're on the JAA/USA website, at www.tomiki.org.

In a nutshell, the person with the tanto can score points only with a definite strike. (In slightly gory terms, not the kind of attack that would merely break the skin with a real knife, but the kind that would bury it right up to the hilt.)

The tanto isn't there to simulate an attacker with a knife as such, it was actually introduced to create a bit more distance between the competitors. Shiai was originally developed without the tanto (what we call toshu randori - we still practice it that way sometimes), but there was a tendency for the competitors to close to a 'grappling distance' and they tended to end up doing more judo that aikido.

Toshu (the unarmed person) firstly has to get out of the way of the strike, they need to show good taisabaki, and will be penalised if they dont attempt to do so. (A lot of beginners tend to stand rooted to the spot and attempt to deflect the strike in a karate block stylee - obviously that isn't conducive to aikido technique, so its discouraged.)

Having successfully avoided the tanto strike, toshu can then score points firstly by breaking tanto's balance (yuko - 1 point), translating that kuzushi into some recognisable technique (waza ari - 2 points), and taking the technique, under control, to its conclusion (ippon - 4 points).

There are opportunities for tanto to score with kaeshi waza by reversing toshu's technique, and for toshu to preempt rather than react to the tanto strike, but thats it in a nutshell.

Shiai and randori aren't the same thing. There are a great many things to learn in tanto randori, about timing, kuzushi, in fact about all aspects of aikido. Personally I think shiai is more about testing than learning - you don't so much learn aikido as learn which aspects of your aikido you need to work on.

Quote:
Peter Rehse wrote:
It is very difficult to do good tanto randori and frankly speaking some of what's available on the net is not the best example.
Speaking even more frankly, some of whats available on the net is abysmal. And if you live and train in the UK, as I do, much of what you'll see at most tournaments is really rather poor too.

There are a whole series of drills designed to promote the basic skills for randori that are built into the Shodokan system (and reflected throughout the kyu grading syllabus). They're repetitive, many consider them boring, but you just cant practice them enough. There are quite a few people practicing tanto randori and shiai who are like a concert pianist who couldn't be bothered to practice scales, but just tried to learn by diving right into a Rackmaninov score.
(Actually its worse than that, the poor devils have teachers who can't be bothered to teach them scales. Some of them are teachers, who've never heard of scales. All dojos are not equal.)

There are others (me, for example) who need a *lot* more practice, and will probably never be able to squeeze enough into their lifetime to become really skilled. But hey, at least we're aware of it, its a start.

Quote:
Peter Rehse wrote:
Shiai in some ways is much more restricted than randori itself. What you need to watch are two people who are good at shiai actually train for it. A lot more risk is taken, a lot more fun is had. The true potential is much more obvious.
Hear hear. Nail, head.

Theres a lot of good information on the Shodokan Honbu website if you're interested, follow the link that Larry posted. And there's also an interview between Stan Pranin and Tetsuro Nariyama (the current Shodokan technical director) on the Aikido Journal website thats well worth a read. (But unfortunately you need to be a subscriber to read the whole thing.)

Hope thats helpful.
Sean
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