Bushi No Te – The Subsidiary Drills – the Aikido Wazza

Back in 1980 when I first visited Tristan Sutrisno in his school, I saw him teaching his students 8 of these aikido dills. He also demonstrated an additional 5 drills and explained the whole set was 20 drills. After observing his students do them as a group exercise for 15 minutes, he then turned to me and asked me if I wanted to give them a try. He really did not know me and of course was ‘testing’ me. I then did all of them correctly. 

He personally showed the next 4 drills in a set of 20 techniques.

I was never present when they were being trained again, and was never ‘taught’ more. But as time passed I saw his students perform them at demonstrations. As time passed I was instructed in other of his aikido practices.

Many years later he was visiting me, when I was holding one of my adult classes. He then saw they were working on them, amazed that I remembered them. A while later he observed my youth students doing them. He then explained that he made a correction for what his students were actually doing, faking the technique, turning it into a version they could better execute.

 What he called them were his students Aikido Drills, Later I recognized this was not how aikido was taught, and they were something else.  A combination of aikido techniques, karate and some other ‘stuff’ being taught to develop a range of skills. And as Aikido principles were being used the name that was attached to those drills was that of Aikido drills. By then I realized they were something else, a much more advanced process.

 Taught as individual responses to a standard attack, when done as a group drill they became much more. Individually done they were teaching the concept of a complete technique series was one that finished with the attacker pinned to the ground, or thrown/projected to the ground. And done as a group drill, the defender was constantly taking the attacker down, then rising from the ground to enter another attack. There were a variety of skills involved, not just aikido skills. Together they were just the beginning of how he instructed. The skills were the thing, and developing a level of execution to build upon when dan training began.

The primary still was that of methods to enter an attacking line and then using that space to defeat the attack. Nothing very advanced, but then those skills were at the same time advanced.

The set I am showing is what the original first 6 drills were. Both in execution with a partner and then again how it worked with group practice.  That each attack followed each attack added another level of difficulty.

Aikido drills 1-6 1989

 

 

In time I changed to his changes, for much the same reason he made them Better develop skills the student could do, leaving more advanced versions for another day when they have further skills.

 

These drills also build on the earlier principles from those wazza studies.

Over the years drilling students in these drills I began to appreciate how they taught students to utilize the 'space' surrounding an attack.