Aikido Question

[Kensai]

It does not seem that fast, its just the Tenkan movement, proved that you have maintained a good maai, enter into yout partners place. You basically follow is back to the shoulder.

[yoriki816]

Last tried that about a year ago. There was some very good material there, and if they had a better schedule (compared to mine) I would have ben there on my off-days palying... but they did not have an efective response to fast, non-committal attacks that did not involve either attacking, or baiting for a committal attack.

 

So, I'd still like to see that... it's not really possible.

 

Jerry~

 

I would have to agree with you that what Kensai proposes is not likely to be effective against a boxer who isn't trying to score anything more than a surface hit with his lead hand. I'm sure he was working with a committed strike that was meant to do damage rather than the softening punch you describe. Something very similar to what he describes works against an untrained jab pretty well, but not against a boxer or trained karateka.

 

I would like to point out that there is no reason when given proper distancing and tai sabaki is used that a trained Aikidoka would need to respond to a noncommited punch such as you describe here. That is because tori would always be just out of uke's reach, forcing him to commit to an attack allowing tori to respond correctly.

 

There are other methods that we use in my dojo to draw a boxers strikes toward specific areas, as well as higher level of timing that allows tori to respond before the punch is launched to allow him to smother uke's ability to strike and apply an appropriate takedown. The timing trick however is incredibly hard to accomplish without lots and lots of practice, but I've seen it work against many a trained striker.

 

But personally I like to use a little bit of JKD trapping with my aikido to slip the jab as I get into position for a modified kaiten nage. I know it sounds strange but it works.