Wednesday, May 9, 2012
smooth is fast, soft is strong
Kuroda sensei here executes ukimi which has a few translations but herein its a forward tumble where you really get under yourself.
Inoue executing a Seoi-nage with a deep squat posture.
This is more common among Asians and though I've heard it said its because of generalized proportions of leg-length etc My feeling/suspicion is that Asians generally don't sit as much as Westerners do. Like, on chairs and such as opposed to kneeling in seiza or the third world squat where you'll see old men/women waiting at the bus stop able to squat deeply, resting their butt on heels. Old, even young Westerners cannot even manage to do this and I blame chairs! No, sitting on stability balls does not count...
Anyhow, think of it like this: Kuroda's ukimi converts into Inoue's posture -as Tori-(the guy executing the throw) and the uke (guy that Inoue is throwing) is executing ukemi The tighter arc powers the looser arc.
As you get more relaxed it will become easier to execute this throw. It does not require strength, only good range of motion, stability in maintaining posture and a sort of relaxed-elastic power; which is simple in idea but will take time to develop. The details matter. Also, good breakfall/Ukemi skills matter which is why we're spending so much time with them. Not just for the sake of falling correctly and safely but because its the best way to develop the specific, smooth/soft power we'll need.
Consider expanding from that deep squat a bit, remaining relaxed enough -just enough- that you don't lose posture and can support the momentary addition of uke's weight. Using the correct angles and directions of push/pull etc etc you can be more upright and execute very smooth, elegant throws such as the man-himself here: Katanishi-san
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2 comments:
The more I think about it, the more the ukemi-in-place drill seems an important progression to grow into.
90% of ukemi is practiced as doing some sort of rolls, traveling down the mat. Certainly valuable in a GPP sort of way.
But every time the approach the type of throw you're talking about here, they're going to revert to ROLLING instead of ROTATING. It's the ROTATING (spinning without forward motion) that yields the small arc powering the large arc. Drilling the ukemi-in-place, they'll get the body feel of rotation vs. rolling.
Which is my very wordy way of saying "Dude! It makes total sense!"
sweet! I was just watching "our new friend" and he had a dude demo a long jump: deep bend and set and jump. They marked where he landed then reset him with cues to snap his chin up and not to bend his knees. He jumped even further. Counter-intuitive because we think it's all legs but it's really hams and they dont need a bunch of knee-flexion.
There was other awesome stuff but that one really synched with me. The deep-squat does train the rotation over rolling and it's softer on the newbs. There's more but I haven't sorted it out yet: ONWARD!!
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