Releasing The Knee - The Daito Ryu perspective

Date: 5/7/01 4:57:08 PM 

Victor This is what we spend 90% of our time with in Daito-ryu and in the related kenjutsu we do -- that is dropping your weight instead of doing other things. For example from a standing position if you want to move in any direction instead of stepping (pushing your body out) you relax one knee and slide outward on the other foot. This proves to be faster than stepping and it allows you to get your total body weight behind it. It is very powerful.

If you are next to another person and you begin to push on each other, just drop first and then begin to push. You will be lower and more centered, and usually under the other person's weight and thus more powerful.

If someone grabs you -- you don't use power against the grab. Often you initially resist a little (this makes the opponent fully commit), but then release and move from the center -- something difficult to describe.

Part of this concept was used in some karate. George Donahue often shows this in his demonstrations.  Wado Ryu's founder Hironori Ostsuka also shows this in his book "Wado-Ryu Karate" as part of the first move of some kata, as Pinan #1 when he says "Sink Your weight."

In aikido we use this but not so much in stepping as when we have controlled another person's body and drop our weight as part of a take down or projection.

As to shiho nage, most people do it so poorly all you have to do is turn with them and you will both circle into each other. This is also a misnomer. It is just not relaxing the knee. We have sets of exercises to release the whole body starting from various hand positions. For example, you stand relaxed with your arms stretched out in front of your, palms up. Starting with your arms you let your whole body go limp. Hands turn in, elbows out, the sinking of the arms moving your whole body forward, head back as you knees buckle. For a long time I wondered why we did all these exercises, but then one day the teacher said, "Put me in an elbow lock," and as I put one arm over and around his and tried to get it, he went limp just as in the exercise. It was like trying to put a lock on an eel, he just slipped away.

You also quoted this: I saw a kyoju dairi of aikijujutsu (a Japanese student of Takeda Tokimune) in his 60s do the knee-relaxing punching demonstration you described.  His uke was a former US Army Ranger and an experienced martial artist, and the guy had the most stunned look after he had been planted on his butt.  The punch was relaxed and looked effortless. 

This is also a different type of punch. As my daito ryu teachers say, "karate punches are penetrating, diato-ryu punches move your whole body." In aikido and karate we often tend to move our shoulders and hips separately creating a torque. But, at least in the daito-ryu I study they are very careful to keep the shoulders and hip in line. it's called keeping in line the body's lines of force. Thus, in any movement the hip and shoulders move together. We spend a lot of time just learning how to walk again, falling not stepping and moving both shoulder and hip ahead together (rather than how we walk, such as, left arm swings forward with the right step), and changing direction -- never turning per se, but always moving with the whole body, rather than pivoting on one foot, and twisting. 

Hope this helps.

Christopher