Today I was able to get back to Pat's for some aikido. After walking kata and releases, we worked on junana. Pat talked about how in a way, our aikido works only when uke resists us. So when uke gets solid, or resists in some direction, he's weak 90 degrees to that direction. The old "you can't be strong in two directions at once" principle.
It felt like kind of a deeper look at what's going on in the techniques, and some practice moving from one technique to another when uke resists. Pat pointed out that causing a vibration by bumping or "juking" uke makes him resist and allows you to execute another technique. It reminded me of the old "strike to lock, lock to strike" idea from kung fu, jeet june do, etc.
We played a little randori, and for some reason, I kept reverting to junana 13. My tokui for the day I guess.
Finally, we looked at owaza, and how it's different from junana. We looked at both the distance uke attacks from and consequent late timing in some of the techniques, as well as the greater separation in some of owaza compared to the same techniques in junana.
Hopefully I can train aikido more frequently from now on. Even with the other martial arts I'm dabbling in, aikido is still my favorite. If I had to pick one traditional art that best fit my self defense philosophy, aikido would still be the one. Judo and karate are great when the context calls for them, but in my opinion, aikido allows for more options, and might cover a wider range of circumstances.
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