2022-03-12

2022-03-12, Saturday

Subbing for ISKF Tempe at the Tempe Family YMCA.

The beginner class had the usual suspects, but now included the father of three children already in the class - that’s fun. About five minutes into kihon drills, I called him out a bit. “You’ve trained before, haven’t you?” It showed. It turns out that, yes, he’d done some Kyokushin before. I sometimes joke that the most challenging beginners are those who’ve done another martial art because they’ve got so many habits to break. In any case, it’s great to have a parent training alongside his children.

For the second class, we spent the first half working on basics and basic combinations, with different drills for different skill levels. Then we moved on to more kata applications. This time we worked on an elbow hyperextension application from the middle of Tekki Nidan (the part where you raise the knee), working that over and over to refine the stance and distancing. In the kata this is done in place, but in application it’ll probably be necessary to rotate away from the attacker to keep clear of his free hand.

From there, we went on to a few “What if that doesn’t work?” options. Option 1 was to apply flexion to the captured wrist (i.e. press their palm towards their elbow). This is easy since the mechanics of the technique already result in wrist flexion - you just need to apply sufficient pressure to make it work. Option 2 was to apply a pronating flexion lock to the captured wrist. It turns out this results in an almost “textbook” application of Aikido’s tachiwaza gyakuhanmi nikkyo (ura version). The initial motion of the “elbow strike” sends the attacker forward and towards the floor. Their natural reaction will be to stand back up, which nicely serves to double the pressure on the wrist lock.