Balance

I've noticed that I tend to get off-balance quite a lot during my movements as nage. I find it difficult to keep a sense of balance during my movements.

Any thoughts on how I can work on this?

-- Jun

Bend your knees, relax and oh yeah, practice

Jun,

Work on the basic principles of posture. Make sure metsuke, head, shoulders, hips, knees, and feet are in alignment. Move from the hara, knees, and feet in coordination.

Go slow, keep hands in front of you, and stay connected. Keep from using upper body strength, just move to the right places and let gravity do the work.

Oh yeah, and GO SLOW more often than not.

Later,

Jun, Here's a far easier way than any of the above - find someone who knows tae kwon do, and have them teach you the first kata called "chon ji." That'll do more for you than trying to focus on 17 things at once.
Our sensei also teaches tae kwon do and Okinawan te, and to help us use more effective kicking and striking attacks, he taught us these from that background. I got interested and learned some katas, and they did an incredible amount to improve my balance in the early years. In the kata I mentioned, the movements are very simple, but if you try to finish each move in balance it will impact your aikido very, very positively.
Another tip, if you're finishing off-balance and finding yourself falling forward or on top of uke, it may mean you need to take a step in that direction. Some readers here may not like that answer, but precision is in results not necessarily in rote execution of techniques. O-sensei taught principles not techniques, the techniques were just expressions of what he was teaching. Students say they frequently changed from day to day, so I take that as a guide that matching the situation at hand is more important than matching someone's technical manual.) Good luck!

wow, it's been a while since I've heard it called Okinawa-te. I liked to use that term on a friend who took American karate (an oximoron, if you ask me), and he kinda looked at me blankly. "Okinawah te? Is that like karate?"

-Nick
The king of getting things off-topic

Actually, of course, it precedes karate since Okinawa at the time was not yet part of Japan. "Okinawa" te is a general inclusive term for localized schools such as "Naha" te, etc.
There are some very pretty (artful) uses of that te's concepts that can be used with aikido as they are circular. Additionally, I like the idea of a defense that can embody an offensive response at the same time. I understand it's not quite orthodox aikido, but perhaps in a multiple attack situation it could be considered "atemi with ki."
P.S. My sensei of 10 years is from Guam originally and has a number of uncles, and a grandfather who were taught by various Japanese and Okinawan teachers, as well as Guamanian.

Although I can't remember the steps to the first kata in tae kwon do, I do remember learning it years and years ago. I think it got buried in the couple dozen kata that I learned in karate after that, though.

For me these days, though, it's more during the movements during the technique that I find myself in a "weak" position. I might be nitpicking on my own incompetence too much, but I feel it's there...

Thanks for the advice so far, folks.

-- Jun

I'd like to learn Okinawa-te, but then, I'd probably have to move to Okinawa .

-Nick

"For me these days, though, it's more during the movements during the technique that I find myself in a "weak" position. I might be nitpicking on my own incompetence too much, but I feel it's there... "
We practice (slow) techniques to prevent this sometimes where uke "acts the maggot" and tries to pull tore off balance (he shouldn't suceed), but really the only sure thing you can do is show your problem to a good teacher and ask him to show you where you're going wrong. Even a simple body movement can be too complicated to describe adequately in writing....
And when you do try a slow technique for this, remember..... YOU'RE STILL DOING IT MUCH TOO FAST!
Oh, and T'ai Chi might help too.
andrew

Yeah... being a newbie, I find my technique to be especially bad when I go too fast. As my sensei said: You can go slow and still do the technique right. I try to do it as slowly as it takes to get it right, than I apply speed.

I'd start tai chi, but the only school in my area is ridiculous (I think $175 a month).

-Nick

Jun,
I know what you mean. A lot of times we might have all the parts right, but the overall picture is a bit unbalanced so to speak.
For example, in a shihonage sometimes the nage has successfully grasped the attacking hand/wrist and is moving forward with it, but instead of having that wrist in front of his center, he has it off to the side and loses control. Or when he pivots to do the shihonage pin/throw and circles uke's arm over his head, the grasped wrist is not overhead but a bit behind nage's head and uke can pull out.
Chuck Clark's description of taking control of "center" in the irimi thread is probably a good general preventative for such moments!

AikiTom wrote: Chuck Clark's description of taking control of "center" in the irimi thread is probably a good general preventative for such moments!

Heh. I think I've heard the "take center" bit at least a million times from my teacher and, as so it happens, from Chuck, too!

Must be that short-term memory thing. What?

-- Jun