Kevin Leavitt

Thanks George. I agree.

This is a tough one to describe....

I do an exercise where the gun is pointed at the uke, with nage holding it in one hand with one foot forward. Uke puts his hands up with upper arm parallel to the ground palms out as to say, 'my hands are up...don't shoot". Uke then can close distance slowly, or back away depending on the attitude of the nage. (you have to deal with the emotional aspect and get his propriception doing other things. IF, (big if) you can get close enough, then you can irimi to outside, slap (tap) the gun hand at the same time as the iriimi...you effectively take center. THEN as he turns back toward you...you can THEN grab, tenkan, iriminage or whatever else.

Anyway...the important thing is not all the WHAT IF, above....but that you have to take center and position yourself correctly BEFORE the grab or fight for the weapon/extemity starts. Once you grab the weapon, or strike at it (as you know), there already exsist a certain amount of KI etc in that area. I have found without positioning yourself correctly prior to that, if you grab, strike, or whatnot...you trigger a propriceptive reaction that then leads to the next step, then the next step.....hence a uncontrolled fight or struggle in which someone typically is shot or hurt.

I think that aikido does a particularly good job at teaching us how to properly use ma'ai to take center and to close distance with weapons involved.

Thanks for the information. It reinforces what I have learned and what I believe to be true!