2 on 1+wife Rondori

I did a 2 on 1 rondori class tonight which worked out fairly well. I'm kicking around the idea in my head to do a 2 on 1+1 (wife, friend etc) rondori tomorrow night. In other words.. Nage is protecting Nage's wife/husband/friend against two ukes. But I'm struggling with what techniques/body positions are ideal in this situation.

Over the years I have found that in a 2 on 1 rondori the most effective movements are irimi and tenshin. Whatever move you finish with, you start by placing your body away from the second attacker. That's just my personal preference.

But throw another person into the mix and it gets a little hairy. Is it better to step in the line of fire? Also, is it better for the protectee to stand still or follow nage around? Uggh, this is making my brain hurt.

Any thoughts?

Steve Nelson, model citizen

Steve Nelson wrote: I'm kicking around the idea in my head to do a 2 on 1+1 (wife, friend etc) rondori tomorrow night. In other words.. Any thoughts? Steve Nelson, model citizen

Wow, kinky. Way to go big guy. (Sorry, couldn't help myself, you were all thinking it..)

But you had the chutzpah to post it, Chris.

You were ALL thinking this? Sheesh. Sounds like a damn good reason to figure out these techniques!

reminds me of something I did a while back. Had a student who was about to go through her shodan so I had been giving her lots of 2 on 1 jiyu stuff to do. Then it occurred to me that her husband was also in the class (white belt at the time). So we did a 5 on 2 with the emphasis being on her protecting hubby who's technique was still developing. Was much fun.

ménage à trois ... ooooo...kinky. I like it.

Boon.

Actually I have seen some video by a polish club ,doing some techniques for couples,
very good stuff.
The name of the video was something like : Obron si sam (?!)

Always good the vary the scenario.

Compliments.

Tried to think on such a scenario once, came to the conclusion it is very problematic. The attackers have a very significantly advantage in their being able to "ignore and pass you by" and then attack the protectee.

I doubt one could "win" even only against two smart attackers who truly see only the protectee as a target and do not care for own S.D. Even if they do care for self, all they need to do is protect themselves and they can force you to stay in line...

2 on 1 is difficult enough for me even without this.


Amir

I would say this training would be primarily for the protectee. Whether they are training in aikido or no, they would learn how to move with and make life easier for their protector.

Not for beginners, because they're would likely be a lot of tripping. Then again, that might make it a good reason to setup for beginners. The best way to learn to keep your feet is to lose them often enough. If anything, it would take a lot of cooperation on behalf of the protectee, and most of that cooperation would most likely not be effective without familiarity with protector's potential tactics and movement in such fluid situations.

I would love to try this.

michael.

I have found that this situation ususally calls for some sort of direct entry on at least one of the attackers. The closest I came to this was with my 90 something year old great aunt in North Phila...I propped her up in the corner between the car door and the body of the car, with her cane acsessible to me, and had to face down the 3 attackers. Luckily the leader decided I carried too much risk, or I wasn't afraid enough, or something...I don't know for sure.

I did not make direct eye contact, and kept reassuring my aunt throughout the "brace"...while always maintaining connection with the leader's center and angling my body so one side was hidden from him. If I had been forced to do something, direct entry on him was really the only option, so shomen tsuki / shomen ate would have been the likely choice. Then respond as needed to the other 2 hoods.

If you can put the loved one in a position where they have their sides protected, then you protect the access to them, that's probably the best you can do...

Of course, a weapon in that kind of situation would always be nice...if you are the one who has it, that is...

Best,
Ron

I still haven't tried this yet, so i'll post what happens tonight. But what i'm envisioning happens is the lines of attack get royally screwed up. So the idea of 'stepping off line' doesn't make much sense anymore since nage is likely already off the line. I'm already guessing that there will be a bunch of extra moves to get back on the line, just to lead uke off it. I have a feeling the final placement of uke becomes far more critical. The ability to throw one uke between another uke and the protectee may be a powerful advantage.

I've spoken with a few other instructors that have done this class. Here's what they said:

Sensei Jackson, SC
We played with that same scenario a while back. I called it "bodyguard" randori. (interesting that you came across the same scenario - but I think that demonstrates that creative minds think alike) And we came across the same issue of whether the "client" followed the defender around - trying to stay behind them. I think we ended up with the person moving - trying to stay away from the attackers. We found that if the victim stayed in one place it didn't take long for one of the ukes to get around behind nage and get to the victim. problem was we kept running out of mat...

2 ukes is a good dynamic. the point is that the nage has to be assertive to some degree in order to keep the two ukes in tension. If nage just sits back close to the victim then both ukes close in. This demonstates a couple of the basic principles of basic randori - 1. that nage has to keep moving forward and 2. that nage should keep ukes in front of him. If one of the ukes gets around behind nage then they can "get" the victim. So, the victim becomes a metaphor for nage's weaknesses in a randori situation


Sensei Aaaark, South Pole (new Aikiweb columnist)
Penguins have to protect our eggs for 6 months. So we do this class all the time. You can do most any technique, just keep the person you're protecting between your legs and you'll be fine.

The real problem with protecting an egg is that it inherently 'eggs' the ukes on. Since you're a human you won't have to worry about that. Unless of course your protectee starts making rude comments about their mothers. If this occurs, you have to get in between them and move your egg back with your butt, while dealing with an uke who is trying to get past you, while not throwing him into your egg.

I must warn you though. If you practice this in a group, occasionally multiple eggs fall off our feet and end up in a pile. No one knows which egg is which.

Just a couple (non-dirty) thoughts.

I would only try this with someone in the victim/defendee role studied aikido. The reason for this, is you would need to be near them in order to protect them and having someone near you in randori is fairly dangerous, particularly if they're unfamiliar with where attackers are more likely to go during a session of randori. Good luck though.

I completely forgot about that, Ron. It's something I used to apply in paintball. "Playing the Wire". If you are at the effective edge of the engagement, you essentially make 180° unavailable for attack. Doorways and halls, similar bottlenecks may allow for the escape of protectee, or at least contain the threat to them. How to train for that is left to the reader, hehe.

Thanks for the reminder, Ron. Crazy stuff to think about, and glad to hear you didn't have to ruin a perfectly fine cane.

michael.

If one of students with a video camera shows up tonight, i'll see if we can post our success/failures on youtube. Of course it'll likely be very embarrassing falling all over each other. But hey that's what experiments like this are for.

WOW! If you haven't tried this style of rondori do it! It's very very very hard. We tried it last night. If you think regular rondori is hard, try doing it with a big fat dead weight hanging on your back. We each lasted no more than about 30 seconds. One wrong move and down everyone goes. Each time it ended in a pile of ukes, nage and the poor poor protectee. Oh the humanity! Of course there was a considerable amount of laughter when this happens.

Wow! So you did it and it was interesting! Great. Now, my question: Do you have any video of those randori? Since I'm only 5th kyu, I don't do randori (yet) but I love to watch advanced students perform those.

Looking foward to see your footage

This sounds fascinating...I am going to try it in my class on Tuesday.
I'll get back to you with the results.;o)
Mary

Yep, we recorded it. Hopefully we can figure out how to make it work on youtube. Once we do we'll post a link. btw, Vincent, don't let a 5kyu rank stand in your way of doing rondori. It's part of aikido. That's like saying "I don't do iriminage (aka the 20 year technique) because ive only been practicing for 15 years"

Mary, bring a video camera if you can. I'd love to compare results.
Steve

Hey, Ron,

Ron Tisdale wrote: I....with my 90 something year old great aunt in North Phila...I propped her up in the corner between the car door and the body of the car, with her cane acsessible to me, and had to face down the 3 attackers. Luckily the leader decided I carried too much risk, or I wasn't afraid enough, or something...I don't know for sure.

Yes. I think this kind of experience--being outnumbered, or being a 90 lb women fighting off a 230 lb attacker, and the like--indicate how silly are our heated debates about which MA is best for self-defense.

What's important is THAT you fight, not how.

If you can learn that through karate, aikido, MMA, or merely through inheriting the chip on the shoulder of one of your parents', you're a step ahead already.

Yeah, it does get pretty silly sometimes. I'm probably lucky I wasn't shot dead. Hey, sometimes you just get lucky...

Best,
Ron

Okay we have not done 2 on one yet...we did freestyle with one uke and nage having a "partner" on their arm... very interesting.

Each person moves in a different way. I could not assume anything. What a great way to look at habits. I am going to try 2 ukes after the holiday when classes get bigger again.
Thanks for a great idea.
Mary

Hey Steve,
When you did it, did you find the best postion for the "protected" person was to always stay at your back? 2 thoughts came to mind when I envisioned this scenerio - either play fullback and run blocker for the halfback (works better if progressing forwards), or use your "protected one" as bait and snag an attacker from the side (or rear).

Very interesting scenerio - very applicable for anyone with kids - I'll see if I can get volunteer at my place to try it out.