Aiki Taiso

In your training whether in or outside of the dojo how much emphasis do you put on Aiki taiso and other warm up exercises?

If these are meant to help us develop our hara and ki (critical to effective aikido) do you continue this development outside of formal dojo training?

Almost all schools do some of the identified Aiki Tai so, but may not refer to it as such. While the main set was from Koichi Tohei and maybe influenced by shinshin toitsu do, H. kobayashi and Tada sensei also had their own system. I am not sure what they look like; I have gone looking for YouTube clips. Shioda had some similar exercises, but practiced with a partner who was allowed to grab. IMO, at least for myself, the grab informs the practice a little moreso. With no partner, a thousand little mistakes can creep in but with the partner there is a long period of refinements possible that are informed by feedback.

I am not certain Koichi Tohei's set was complete, but I learned it from a break away student of his. For example, the set has Ikkyo Undo to lift the hands up, but for every day life I do often need to bring hands down in more of a shomenuchi sword strike that was not in the set.

I did not have things explicitly called Aiki Taiso when I started, but the training did get under my skin. After a few years of training, I did indeed start doing kotegaeshi and nikyo warm ups when I had to spend a day typing or doing some repetitive hand motion. If I slip, there is only a handful of spontaneous ways that I usually fall now. Movements like koho tekubi undo and joho tekubi undo teach us to bring our hands to our center and in front of us, but so does carrying groceries or a baby for any length of time, or helping a patient to the bathroom.

This exercise would be mandatory for the Ki development part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFe81oGLSSs, some more similar techniques by sensei Tamura: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z497GBE5H9A . And here is a more in depth video on stretching and warm ups by sensei Suganuma, you will notice the first exercise (torifune) being done again in the beginning of the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNAeXDcZlNg. I do a lot of these exercises outside of the dojo. Sometimes all of them, if i remember them all.

A good exercise would be for somebody to push you backwards and you practice falling and getting up again like in the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaaeBOuChBU .

This would be good to do on grass, then latter own when you are more comfortable on concrete. It's a good way to learn falling on hard surfaces and not hitting the back of your head or any part of your body and getting hurt. One thing i wish to point out is that you always wan't to fall with the side of your back and not straight on your back, directly on your spine. Basically as you are standing in Hanmi, that's how you should fall and get back up. Off course don't do this on concrete or even grass until you have spent a considerable amount of time doing it on the mat.

Thanks for the comments. I try to do them on a daily basis whether I am in the dojo or not. I know a lot is said about doing them not just for the purpose of warming up to prevent injury, but also for the development of center, ki, and ju

And thanks for the video references