Striking into the Neck – An Aikido Perspective

 

 

One of my favorite aikido strikes is a finger tip flow strike into the throat.  I learned this from Tristan Sutrisno.  Of course this is dangerous, especially if done with a nukite strike to the throat. The Aiki version is quite different.

 

The attacker moves forward, with a punch or whatever. When they begin to move, you in turn move into their strike. From the inside you execute a flow strike into their throat. This is where your hand flows out, but instead of you striking into them, you allow their neck to strike into your fingers. This causes them to throw themselves away from your hand, dramatically. The pain, or more so the threat of pain, makes their body try to get away, they may fly as far as 20 feet backwards doing so.

 

A flow strike because I’m not using karate striking but flowing the fingertips forward and their incoming throat impales itself on my fingers. You get the most interesting results such as when they fly back 20 feet

 

 

 

One night I had three new students who had joined the program. After class one of them was impressing his friends, threatening them in a fashion, as he had rather extensive training prior to joining my program. He had legitimate brown belts in 3 styles (but as life kept him moving on, he had not been able to go further in those systems). And he was very gymnastic in his abilities.

 

So there he was, moving on his friends and they were backing away.

 

I suggested to him that this was not appropriate for our group. And then that there was a simple solution. Then I asked him to attack me.

 

As I am far from gymnastic I think he felt I was joking.  He backed up then began his jumping spinning crescent kick attacks.

 

I just stepped into his attack and performed a flow strike with my fingertips to his throat with no power. He in turn was jumping and spinning forward. My fingers caressed his throat and he flew 20 feet backward slamming into the wall.

 

I proved my point, gained three students who believed what I said. And he was not hurt in the process, a bit dented perhaps, but that he did to himself.

 

He later became a very good black belt with my program.

Make No Mistake – if I had used a karate Nukite strike the result would have been very different. As the goal of such a strike would be to crush the larynx or other damage.

 

Proper training makes all the difference.