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Old 12-31-2001, 08:30 AM   #6
Tim Griffiths
Dojo: Nes Ziona Aikikai
Location: Suzhou, China
Join Date: Aug 2001
Posts: 188
China
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(Warning, long, rambling, semi-coherent post).

All other factors (previous knee condition etc) being
equal:

No, if you do it properly.
Yes, if you do it badly, same as most else in aikido.

When I started off, I couldn't do more than one lap of the
mat. Even after a few years, when I was keeping my
knees together, I could only do three or four.

Together with my sensei at the time, I played with the
mechanics of it, and came to the conclusion that it
should be like walking (duh). When most people I've
seen do shikko, they transfer all their weight onto one
knee, then swing around (grinding the knee into the
mat) and plant the other knee. However, when we're
walking, we don't do that but instead keep ourselves
'falling but putting our feet in the way' as someone
here (George Simcox?) once said. If you try this
in shikko there's much less pressure on the knees,
you keep yourself much lower and it looks and feels
much more natural, and a lot faster. On their tapes,
both Ikeda sensei and Saotome sensei move more
like this.

Now, a couple of years ago I saw Tamura sensei
(the one from France) practice shikko in a different
way - keeping the hips forward and moving from
seiza to seiza - not keeping the ankles together. I
asked one his instructors, Nebi Vural, who also
teaches this, about it. He said that Tamura sensei
told him that *this* was the correct way to do
shikko, but non-Japanese had trouble with it
at the beginning, and so were taught the
children's method of 'keeping ankles together'.
I don't know how true that is, but it is like the
shikko in the iaido I've done, and incidently its
the only shikko I've seen outside an aikido dojo
(in a resturant near Osaka - the waitress moved
around like this).

Maybe someone who's spent more time in
Japan than me can say - how do people do
"shikko in daily life" (the title of my next book)?

Tim

P.S. Do many people practice the Western
equivalent of shikko - attacks while sitting in
a chair?

P.P.S. Happy new year, y'all.

Last edited by Tim Griffiths : 01-01-2002 at 04:31 AM.

If one makes a distinction between the dojo and the battlefield, or being in your bedroom or in public, then when the time comes there will be no opportunity to make amends. (Hagakure)
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