Turning Out of Shihonage

A much seen beginner trick! I remember when I used to do this all the time

As I see it...it leaves you open to counters etc etc.

*First post, figured I would post on somthing like this....brings back the the beginner days!*

Actually we were playing with this again the other day and I think I've found another reason why beginners are the main culprit. It seems to be a result of moving nervously, trying to "fit in" and avoid being hurt. I was spinning out of peoples shiho nage when I was taking a very passive dance like approach as uke. As soon as I changed my mindset and kept my intent and focus on attacking uke (even without a physical follow up attack), no more spinning out.

Michael Fooks (Aristeia) wrote: I'm gonna have to disagree with that. I firmly believe you should NEVER tell uke to "just take the ukemi". Uke is never wrong, they have two simple jobs, attack, and recover. It all boils down to this - never tell uke "just fall like this" without explaining to them (or showing them) why that is the best and safest thing to do. If you can't figure out how to do that, then you need to be dealing with whatever movement they're giving you. Why on earth not. It had better be. Ikkyo, irimi nage, shiho nage. These are the first techniques we learn. The point being that these are the techniques many people are most likely to default to in an actual combat situation. It won't be a matter of which technique you are considering, it will be a matter of which technique you find yourself in the middle of. So they'd better be useful. I think shiho is good in this instance because a) It is so easy to make it so much nastier than it is in the dojo (e.g. breaking the arm over the shoulder), b)it's easy to flow from shiho into other techniques if uke isn't moving as you'd hoped (irimi, juji, repo....)

Sorry to cut up your post a bit: firstly, Ukemi is about protecting yourself. Frankly, if a beginner spins out in a way that gives you the choice of letting them go or injuring them, you're going to have to let them go and neither of you gains anything.

Secondly, it's the responsibility of the teacher to explain how to take the ukemi to beginners and to show it to them. Uke is quite often wrong- when they pull against you in such a way that can lead to their injury. Idealistically, the most you should instruct a beginner yourself is to follow the technique.

Thirdly, Shihonage is a potentially lethal technique if it works well. If it does not, then you may well be caught out with your back to your attacker mid turn. They're both good reasons to prefer Ikkyo. Also, if you've developed good technique you don't need to "make it so much nastier than it is in the dojo" and if that's your focus you're going to end up with technique that's deficient where it matters, i.e. in actually taking an attackers balance.

andrew

If none of these suggestions work, sankyo always seems to make uke complient and put the fear of pain into them.

Works best if you kneel and twist enough to get out the slack, the rest of it is pain induced by the uke doing their normal twist out of shihonage.

Just remember to let go when they start to dance, as most wise 'en heimers start to scream in pain and forget to slap.

It may not be kind, but it is a good lesson in Aiki.

in september i went to a seminar, and we were practicing shihonage, now when i was paired off with one student we were going fine getting the extention on and doing good shihonage, nice cuts down the spine but we were taking it slowly so as not to kill anyone. then my turn to be uke so i attack and i'm wrenched out he twists quick and cuts down my arm was no where near my spine i had to throw myself backwards to stop my arm being ripped off i could have turned out of it but to be honest before this post i've never done it, i pulled a ligament in my shoulder and had to miss some Jo shihonage's which were really kewl and then i had to go easy on my shoulder for the rest of the afternoon mostly lefty attacks.

in retrospect his shihonage wasnt all that bad (he was 5th kyu) but when he turned he let off all the extention so my arm instinctively bent this helped with the pain when he cut and although i tried to pull it in to my neck it was too late he was already forcing me down so i went like a sack of spuds.

one thing our sensei teaches is to keep the hand in front of your face as you turn thus keeping the extention on.

otamashimini!

pete

Andrew O Byrne wrote: Sorry to cut up your post a bit:

Even though you are responding to Micheal's post, I'm going to jump in here and address some of your comments since I also posted agreeing with much of Micheal's post.

firstly, Ukemi is about protecting yourself. Frankly, if a beginner spins out in a way that gives you the choice of letting them go or injuring them, you're going to have to let them go and neither of you gains anything.

Yes, everyone agrees that ukemi is protecting yourself. The problem is that beginners do not understand all subtleties of correctly doing so. Even advanced students often don't understand this. I feel that you have to teach what the person is capable of understanding. A lot of times, I let beginners, and also more advanced people, take incorrect ukemi that leaves them vulnerable even though it makes my job as nage more difficult. Why?

First, it is often better for people to learn on their own rather than to be taught. This same principle applies to nagewaza, where I will let people make mistakes without correcting them. It's a fine line to judge when to correct people and when to let them find something out on their own, and I, like many Westerners, tend to err on the side of overcorrecting. Thus, I often make an active effort to counterbalance this.

Second, if I explained correct ukemi but they didn't understand why it is correct, then I think they would be following me for the wrong reasons. They would only be doing it because someone told them to do it, and I think that it is more important to learn the principles of why correct Aikido is correct than to simply learn to mimic someone else without truly understanding.

Third, the challenge of dealing with an unconventional uke often rewards nage with rather unique insights into a technique. Because of these insights, nage is able to do a safe, effective Aikido technique even when uke's ukemiwaza is poor. In a real situation, this allows nage the flexibility of not hurting an attacker who does not take "correct" ukemi but leaves himself open to injury. If one only knows to injure in this case, but not safely perform the technique, then that limits one's options.

Secondly, it's the responsibility of the teacher to explain how to take the ukemi to beginners and to show it to them. Uke is quite often wrong- when they pull against you in such a way that can lead to their injury. Idealistically, the most you should instruct a beginner yourself is to follow the technique.

I addressed all of this above. I'm not going to reply to your third point because it was in response to a section of Micheal's post upon which I never commented.

I was in class the other night, and sure enough had a new guy and sure enough again he spun right out of shihonage every time. I realized that I could stop him as he was spinning, but that put his elbow in great peril and he didn't know how to protect himself yet, nor did he realize how dangerous it was. As Uke, I'm also being chided to keep my arm retracted during shiho, that is keep my wrist close to my own shoulder, and my head to my shoulder to protect myslef. When the new guy would spin out, his arm was extended out and I would just have to let him go or break the elbow. Not good for class! Clued him in once I was done gently experimenting with his elbow ;-)

OK, after reading through the above posts I see that my points have been made already, my bad. Still it was interesting to play with it with discussion here fresh in my mind.

The one point about shihonage ukemi that I feel fairly comfortable pointing out to beginners is the safety that comes from connecting the head, wrist and shoulder. I find this point is relatively easy to understand, easy for them to implement, and will tend to cut down on spinning. I also feel that it is worth pointing out because even a good and caring nage can accidentally injure an uke. Similarly, I tend to encourage beginners to bend their elbow when we practice nikyo. It's less about making the technique comfortable for me or learning not to leave themselves open. It's more about a simple thing to do that will help prevent accidental injury.

What injury is prevented by bending the elbow during nikkyo? For the most part, keeping the elbow stiff seems to actually protect the wrist, unless nage resorts to doing that up and back trick at high speed. It exposes the elbow to injury, but nage has to switch to an arm bar to exploit it. As far as openings go, bending the elbow exposes uke to being immobilized in a crouching position and wide open to a face punch or knee to the face - locking the elbow exposes one to a face kick and the possibility of nage taking one's back. To me it all seems to balance out. Unless nage's technique is weak or slow enough to admit a reversal, you're pretty much whether you extend your elbow or not.

To me, at least, keeping the elbow straight as uke during nikyo cuts down on my mobility in my body as well as opens me up for a technique like wakigatame (which Kevin pointed out).

There are ways of receiving nikyo as uke with a bent elbow that does not force uke to go into a crouching position. One is to "shoot" my legs through to nage's side so that my non-nikyo'ed hand/arm is on the ground along with the side of my body. This prevents the "crouch" that Kevin alludes to and allows uke to retain mobility and abilty to counter nikyo while not opening him/herself up to wakigatame.

As far as having uke turn out in practicing shihonage in the dojo, I think it's up to both nage to effectively gain control of uke's body (eg kuzushi, taking the slack out, extending, etc) as well as uke learning safe ukemi. With someone who doesn't have such ukemi skills (ie someone off the street, perhaps), it's up to nage to make shihonage into an effective technique; the "protecting the attacker" comes in, I believe, after having gained the ability to be effective. Although the option of using henkawaza to change the technique if shihonage fails is a valid option, I think there's a lot to be said about working to have an effective shihonage (or whatever technique) as well.

-- Jun

I'm not thinking martial strategy for a moment, I'm thinking inadvertant injury. If nage is pretty focused on applying the nikyo and the beginner is relatively inexperienced in taking ukemi, my experience says that a lot more force develops at the wrist before uke really realizes it when uke has his arm locked. I'm not sure exactly why that is: increased lever arm with the extended arm, maybe, or just extension of the arm preventing flexion of the knees. I don't know, but that's my experience.

As far as martial strategy goes, my understanding of how 'fights' work is very limited due to a (blessed) lack of any real experience. What I was told, though, is that a straight arm when your wrist is even partially controlled is an opening for nage to break your elbow.

Well for one, the elbow is pretty tempting as a target as you just mentioned. You're still held by the wrist and the elbow (stiff) is right in front. In any case, an Irimi nikkyo is still quite possible with the stiff arm.

Bending the elbow allows you to get in closer. If nage is applying torque into himself (sensei points this out) you can go into his groin with an uppercut, or blend with that motion.

So I see that ukemi as a better alternative to the one where I end up exposing my ribs because of the stiff elbow.

Andrew O Byrne (andrew) wrote: 1)--if a beginner spins out in a way that gives you the choice of letting them go or injuring them, you're going to have to let them go and neither of you gains anything. 2)--Shihonage is a potentially lethal technique if it works well. If it does not, then you may well be caught out with your back to your attacker mid turn. They're both good reasons to prefer Ikkyo. 3)--Also, if you've developed good technique you don't need to "make it so much nastier than it is in the dojo"

_____________________

1--Excellent point and I agree with a caveat: As often noted here and elsewhere, training can become fetishistic, i.e., divorced from real actions/reactions through convention ("A real attacker would do such and such" as opposed to the person in front of you...) Beginners, through ignorance, dispense with these distractions (e.g., "good" UKEMI) and give you a chance to practice against something more natural, if unsophisticated. Obviously, care must be taken not to hurt them while using their untutored reactions, as Mr. Rice says, "Clued him in once I was done gently experimenting with his elbow ;-)"

2--For most of my aikido training, I've avoided SHIHO NAGE as it struck me as being so dangerous (I'm taller than most of my UKE). I was always changing into HIJI NAGE or IRIMI NAGE. I'm now working through the difficulties of the technique, but I still find that I need lots of ATEMI to get UKE properly aligned for it.

(In my scheme of things, aikido obtains on a continuum with lots of pounding on one end, and "no touch" technique on the other. Thus, I remain unsatisfied with need to batter UKE into position rather than use motion, KUZUSHI, and angles to do it.)

3--Have you personal experience/anecdotes in this regard?

Thanks.

Andrew O Byrne (andrew) wrote: Sorry to cut up your post a bit: firstly, Ukemi is about protecting yourself. Frankly, if a beginner spins out in a way that gives you the choice of letting them go or injuring them, you're going to have to let them go and neither of you gains anything.

Sure, but my point is that rather than telling them "just fall" you should at least be explaining to them *why* they should fall. Or if you can't getting a senior to do it. Remember uke is a beginner, likely a very new one. So far we've shown them a technique that has failed miserably on them, and followed it up by winking at them and saying "come on mate, just fall down would you". Doesn't inspire confidence in the art if you know what I mean, which is important at that stage. So instead you say "if you keep moving like that this is likely to happen to you, so here's how you avoid it..."

Secondly, it's the responsibility of the teacher to explain how to take the ukemi to beginners and to show it to them. Uke is quite often wrong- when they pull against you in such a way that can lead to their injury. Idealistically, the most you should instruct a beginner yourself is to follow the technique.

Again, gonna have disagree. You cannot leave all instruction up to the teacher, not unless it's a very small class. If I'd only ever learnt stuff from whoever was sensei at any given session I'd still be 6th kyu. Beginners should be encouraged to train with seniors and seniors should be encouraged to instruct where necessary. It's part of their learning process as well. Granted it's tricky to learn how much instruction should be given, but an explanation of why you're insisting uke move the way you want them to is a good start.

Uke is not so much wrong as in danger. There's a subtle difference. They should be told how to take themselves out of danger, otherwise they are not learning, and worse, nage's not learning. Having uke move unconventionally and then puzzling out whether that's because your technique is lacking or they're leaving themselves open for something is a big part of training. If you've been dealing with it by saying "just fall" you may find yourself struggling against an actual agressor who's moving unusually and ignoring your request.

Thirdly, Shihonage is a potentially lethal technique if it works well. If it does not, then you may well be caught out with your back to your attacker mid turn. They're both good reasons to prefer Ikkyo. Also, if you've developed good technique you don't need to "make it so much nastier than it is in the dojo" and if that's your focus you're going to end up with technique that's deficient where it matters, i.e. in actually taking an attackers balance. andrew

Lethal? Sure there's opportunity for broken elbows, dislocated shoulders etc but not sure about lethal, unless uke hits their head the right way in the fall.

Regardless, the point stands that because of the way we train from day 1, it is highly likely that, especially a less experienced person, will find themselves all ready doing shiho.

Ikkyo is likely from a shomen style attack, shiho from a yokomen style. Which do you think people are more likely to face on The Street (tm).

And yes, for the less experienced aikidoka, the nastier versions are a good option on the street. Their chances of pulling off pefect waza against a committed aggressive opponenet are slim. You don't have to focus on it in the dojo to the detriment of waza, just mention "when you're jamming like that, here's how you fix it" And usually there's two fixes

1)here's a henka waza, or a nasty variation that will get you out of trouble from the position you're in. File it for future use.

2)Here's what you did wrong to get in that position in the first place.

It doesn't take much for people to realise that if you don't do a full turn and then cut the arm over the shoulder, you'll take the elbow out. Alot of people figure it out by themselves. And once they realise it they can call on it very quickly, it doesn't take alot of training. But it could make all the difference. It's the same for alot of our techniques. The point remaains, in an actual confrontation, a student is going to try shiho nage, so they'd better be able to make it work one way or the other.