View Single Post
Old 12-13-2009, 03:33 PM   #1
Linda Eskin
 
Linda Eskin's Avatar
Dojo: Aikido of San Diego, San Diego, California
Location: San Diego County, California
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 335
United_States
Offline
Question Gyaku hanmi vs gyakute-dori

OK, help please... (Onegaeshinasu!) This one's got my little 6th-kyu brain shorted out.

I finally learned that ai hanmi is when we both have the same foot forward (e.g. both of us with our left foot forward), and gyaku hanmi is when we have the opposite foot forward (e.g. my right foot, your left foot), so we are standing in a mirror image of each other. Right?

(Gosh, I hope that's right, since that's what I've been telling myself for months.)

So now I'm trying to learn a bunch of new technique names. Several of them use a gyakute-dori attack. I get that dori is grab, and te is hand. But the gyaku part... It seems like it should be a mirror image, like gyaku hanmi - or my right hand grabbing your left hand). But it's not - it's a cross-hand grab (right to right, or left to left).

Aauggh! The smoldering smell just then was my brain.

Can anyone help me understand what the words really mean, so they make sense?

Domo!

Linda Eskin - Facebook | My Aikido blog: Grab My Wrist

"Heaven is right where you are standing, and that is the place to train." - Morihei Ueshiba
  Reply With Quote