Tae No Henko Problem?

Hi,

I came up against a weird situation today. The nage i trained with today, kept moving my hand that grabbed his wrist when offered with his other hand. What I mean to say is, is that i tend to grab the nage's wrist and center it to my center, this to me makes sense in that i as a uke would want control of the wrist in a real situation. The nage used his free hand to center his wrist to his own center before commencing the technique. I did not say anything because I tend not to offer advice as I have yet to be ranked, unless they are complete beginners. Even then I find myself interfering with anothers completion of technique, so I end up not saying anything and hopefully the instructors will guide them.

Apart from some welcome comments on this situation, I would also like to know what others views are on this wonderful technique, even as much as sharing a breakdown of tae no henko, a sort of step by step guide, something along the lines of explaining it to a visually impaired person.

Thanks

feck

I'm not sure I understand what the problem is. Are you saying he's using his center to hold you when he grabs your wrist. If so thats good technique, and you should welcome such a partner. If you're saying he grabbing with the wrong hand, or doing anything else beyond the normal scope of the technique, then he's a bad uke, and needs to stick to what you're training.

I think Tai no Henko is probably the best physical Aikido practice. It teaches most of the ideas of Aikido movement, in two consice practice's.

Kihon Tai no Henko is an awesome way to learn how to develop full body power. How to move your hand with the force of all you're body weight behind it. I believe that the kihon version best teaches efficiency of movement. The practice is however inherently limited. If your ability to make force is not greater then the grip of uke, you will never be able move in the perscribed mannor. Example, if you weigh 200 lbs, and your uke is 600 lbs, and he represents a 600 lbs grip, it will never matter how efficiently you can move your body, he will always hold you in place. If you doubt this, put your arm in a vice on a work bench and see if you can tear the vice off the bench with Tai no Henko.

The limitation of this exercise is however addressed with the Ki no Nagare version of this practice. There is absolutely no physical limitation, it dose'nt matter if he weighs 1000 lbs, and you only 20 lbs. There is no physical connection before the exercise begins, thus no physical limitation. Nage uses the ability to trap ukes mind. To make uke go where nage wants him, it's a practice of true Aiki and represents higher Aikido skill.

With these two practice's I believe you can solve most of the riddles of Aikido.

-Chris Hein

If he was using his free hand to grab and move the hand you are holding he is wasting his time doing tai-no-henko imo.

Sounds like he as uke steps and grabs then pulls the hand slightly to the center, however this particular nage uses the hand that was not grabbed and pulls the hold back to HIS center before executing the technique, right?

I'm wondering why nage is letting you (uke) dictate the exercise to the extent that he "has to" actually move your hand back...

I'm not understanding the situation here...

Chris Hein wrote: I'm not sure I understand what the problem is. Are you saying he's using his center to hold you when he grabs your wrist. If so thats good technique, and you should welcome such a partner. If you're saying he grabbing with the wrong hand, or doing anything else beyond the normal scope of the technique, then he's a bad uke, and needs to stick to what you're training. I think Tai no Henko is probably the best physical Aikido practice. It teaches most of the ideas of Aikido movement, in two consice practice's. Kihon Tai no Henko is an awesome way to learn how to develop full body power. How to move your hand with the force of all you're body weight behind it. I believe that the kihon version best teaches efficiency of movement. The practice is however inherently limited. If your ability to make force is not greater then the grip of uke, you will never be able move in the perscribed mannor. Example, if you weigh 200 lbs, and your uke is 600 lbs, and he represents a 600 lbs grip, it will never matter how efficiently you can move your body, he will always hold you in place. If you doubt this, put your arm in a vice on a work bench and see if you can tear the vice off the bench with Tai no Henko. The limitation of this exercise is however addressed with the Ki no Nagare version of this practice. There is absolutely no physical limitation, it dose'nt matter if he weighs 1000 lbs, and you only 20 lbs. There is no physical connection before the exercise begins, thus no physical limitation. Nage uses the ability to trap ukes mind. To make uke go where nage wants him, it's a practice of true Aiki and represents higher Aikido skill. With these two practice's I believe you can solve most of the riddles of Aikido. -Chris Hein

Nice post....

agree very much that if you can master TNH you can master anything in aikido.

Turn, turn back..tenkan & irimi. Breath in and breathe out.

Kotai practice to discover the mechanics of the movement...jutai practice to introduce ki nagare and actually practice aikido.

Its all there.

I see some common ground with the style I practice here.

Incidentally ...many years ago...about 20 to be precise 2 of my friends attended a weekend course where Tai No Henka was used.

While these days it is used at the start of every one of our practices at the time is was a new form to them.

These guys went away and for about 2 years all they practiced was TNH...(they are northerners so easily amused).

Time rolled on and they are some of the top people I've met...and they attribute this very much to the grounding they established with this long period of work with TNH.

Chris is very right in his assessment of its value.

IMHO of course.

Cheers

D

Hi,

Thanks for all the responces so far. Sean seemed to have grasped what i had asked, maybe I did'nt make myself clear enough, sorry people.

In TNH, although used as an exercise at the start of my classes, TNH is still a valid technique in it teaches a lot about the uke/nage dynamic. I as uke tend to grab the wrist offered by nage and try to control this arm and nage by moving the grabbed arm ever-so slightly to my center, not enought I might add to destroy the possibility of nage commencing their technique.
I thought, that the purpose of uke's part in this role play was to offer a commited attack in the form of a solid wrist grab, and not just grab the wrist and wait for nage to finish.

The nage in particular, in my original post, use's his free arm to move his grabbed arm back to his own center, while looking at me as if I'm doing something wrong, before he commeces with the TNH move.

Anyway my post had originally two questions, the above one which i hope i have now clarified in respect of me being uke working with a particular nage, and a second which requested a kind of idiots guide to TNH for the role of nage.

Here is my own humble, and probably wrong idea of this wonderful technique:

1. Step towards the side of nage's little toe while scooping my wrist towards my center, and lowering or compressing my hips to lower my center.

2. While retaining unbendable arm, I keep pressure on the grabbed wrist without pulling or giving any energy back to uke, while turning my hips around to the direction uke is facing.

3. Once fully turned I sweep or pull my rear leg, which is now my forward leg back, and settle my hips.

Anyway thanks again people for all the post's so far.

feck

Sounds like your partner is in full passive-aggresive mode. And what he is doing is making space to rotate artificially instead of dealing with his failure to properly create TNH.

Only thing to do in a situation like this - as he moves his free hand to cheat (because that is what he is doing, cheating) use your own free hand to grab it. Thus you have both of them. He is basically offering you his free hand by moving it towards you anyway.

After this...time to invlove the sensei.

btw...if you centre on your own hand before grabbing him you will have no need to do it after taking grip.

I don't see a lot of difference between grabbing the wrist (gyaku-hanmi katate-dori) and chudan tsuki (punch to stomach). In TNH I always grab like I'm going to go through tori's centre, just as I would in a tsuki attack

If tori doesn't blend with and re-direct the energy I'm giving him, he's going to get hit in the stomach. (Gently with beginners. Hard with yudansha )

Try attacking like that - you can easily align your hand with both your own centre and with tori's to make an effective attack - think of it as your centre attacking tori's centre.

Hope this helps,
Have fun!

Ruth

I don't tend to grab and put the hand in front of my centre (unless I'm grabbing with both hands) - I always assume that a single hand grab is just a preliminary to a strike (in fact I often teach tainohenko with a strike as well, to get the feeling of immediacy).

Aikido becomes competitive if both uke and nage are fighting for the centre line. Through movement, nage effectively takes uke's centre-line, however if nage then readjusts it becomes a never-ending circle of technique (which is a bit artificial because in a real attack the centre has to be given to provide any power).

It could nearly have been me!

The other day I was fiddling with a new Uke's grip with my freehand before Tai No Henka because his grip was brittle (thumb and fore finger) which would break under slightest stress during turning. I tried to explain that a good flexible grip that works for cooperative exercise would be thumb and little finger but might well have made an indistinct hash of it.

I say talk about anything that is confusing or different that either uke or tori is up to (involving the instructor if need be). Its important for my enjoyment of Aikido that it is a shared investigation into what works avoiding the 'who is wrong' blame assignment game and if either partner remains silent then you get potentially erroneous suspicions of uncooperativeness or missed opportunities for learning.

A useful appendix to Aikido books would be how to politely and constructively phrase criticisms and doubts you have about your partners technique! "I find it interesting how you..."

I have found that the unbendable arm scoopers can generally be pulled downward, especially if they make that big arc with their back leg at the end.

I'd say that nage's feeling should be a bit more like you are about the kick uke's legs as they grab. I tend to set my body weight's focus a bit towards the area between uke's grabbing arm and uke's body. I set that tension up, just a bit, and then I turm my hand (opened palm up) so that my pinky is going the same direction as uke's grab. I feel the energy of gathering into myself, as I start my turn, and completely relax everything on that side of my body except for the very tip of my pinky. (The muscle group under the arm pit is difficult to consciously relax for me! So that is my focus of late.) I think about moving my opposite shoulder around and letting the near shoulder almost melt into a very relaxed state.

I spend a bit of time dealing with the space between skin and bone where the uke is grabbing. as we unify a bit again in the new agreed upon direction, I send my arm out a bit more and then let is settle into my center line as I bring my other arm up, palm open towards the uke (in wu sao or protecting hand fashion).

As far as I'm concerned, the difficult part is taking such good ukemi for this that you actually contort your body as needed to maintain the best connection, as strong as possible with out being too strong or too open, and connected as possible without becoming nage's slave, etc...

Rob

You sound like you are grabbing correctly, see:

http://www.aikiweb.com/wiki/katatetori

My suggestion would be that next time they do it, you take them through the full attack including the strike and point out that if they reposition their hand rather than just move they will be punched in the face.

Techniques are just ways of showing principles not things in and of themselves, in order to understand why nage does something, one must understand why uke does something (and vice-versa). Your training partner appears to not understand what he is supposed to do as nage not because he doesn't know what nage is trying to do, but because he doesn't understand what uke is trying to do.

Okay, so you're grabbing, pulling him or her towards you, and they're rearranging you before commencing the technique... First, your nage is missing the point of TNH. It's fine that you're pulling on them a bit - I for one rather like it when a partner puts some sort of movement behind the grab because it gives me something to work with. I outright prefer it if someone bigger than me gives me a tug because throwing a large man from a static position is hard. So your situation, while awkward, seems to be a clueless nage, and that's their problem. My question for you is why are you letting them move you? Seriously, it's nage's job to deal with the attack AS IT COMES. You are under no obligation to let them rearrange you. Unless your uke clearly has no idea how to execute the attack (and some people do need to learn how to throw a punch or strike straight - I sure did!) the nage has no say in the matter. This is a martial art, not a dance.