My First Aikido Lesson

Wednesday, January 12th 2011


Okay, I finally did it!
I finally join Aikido lesson at a Dojo, called Aikido Reflow, not far from my home. After wanting to learn martial art for a long time, I decided that this is the time, now or never.

So, since I have ZERO knowledge about martial art, Aikido in my case, I start with the very basic movement: STEPS. I'm not sure I can remember all in a short time, so I'm writing them in this blog. Helps me memorizing them.

The main lesson was demonstrated by Sensei Dimas, with Sensei Anto also in the Dojo during the practice. And the detailed "slower version" was shown by Sempai Teguh and Sempai Yoga. I need the slow version, cannot follow the fast ones, at least not yet.... :P
Thank you to Sensei and Sempai.



THE BASICS

1. IRIMI
It's a sliding movement to an askew/slanting direction. Open your legs, on foot at the front, in line position. Hands in ready position in front of your chest.

2. TENKAN
Open your legs, one foot at the front, in line position. The front leg acts as a shaft/axis. Rotating movement, moving the back foot rotating to the back. Hands in ready position in front of your chest.

3. KAITEN
Open your legs, one foot at the front, in line position.This is a 2 steps movement to the front, at the end of movement you'll rotate your body facing what was on your back. Swing your arms while you move forward and rotate your body on the second step.
Right Kaiten: Right foot at front, as the left foot steps forward, swing your arms up highh from the left side and end at the right side as the right leg moves behind left foot.


4. IKKYO UNDO
The basic movement is openning legs, one foot at the front, in line position. Fold the front leg a bit, the back leg should steps still as pondation as you lift your hands higher that face, fingers open, hands in deffense position from frontal attack.

The next movement is 2 angle movement. Combine with rotating movement (Tengkang rotation).
Angle/corner variation movement, 4 corners, making a "PLUS" position (+).
Right leg at front, the left acts as the shaft: Starts facing North,, rotate and facing the South. Move the back foot (right foot) to the West, rotate and facing the East. Move right foot to the South, rotate and facing to the North again, back to starting position.



VOILA!
Those are my first lessons. I also learned a twisting arm movement if someone grabs my hand. Practiced that twist and lock movement with Nia, another begginer who started a few meetings earlier. She has learned another martial art, Karate.


I also have to memorize the names of my Sensei and Sempai.
Sensei Dimas and Sensei Anto.
Sempai Yoga, Sempai Teguh, Sempai Ferry.

There's a guy named Agus, then a senior girl who has joined Reflow since 2006: Anna, Selvy, my sparring partner: Nia... errr... that's all I can remember for now with my small brain huhuhu...


I will try to put some images later, hope I can find the images for those movements. Until then, this is all I got in my head. Gotta go to bed, got jobs waiting for me at the office tomorrow. Nighty night. :)

 

Movements of Aikido (Posted on July 11th, 2004 by Dan_Penrod)

Movement in aikido is often categorized by 4 words; Irimi, Tenkan, Omote, and Ura. These 4 words can be used to help describe any attack combined with any defense.

Nage means thrower and is generally the person who receives the attack and provides the throw, pin or neutralization.
Uke means receiver and is usually the person who initiates the attack, but more specifically is the one who receives the throw.

Irimi: verb. To enter. Refers to nage’s movement in relation to uke. Nage enters on a line toward uke as he receives an attack. Irimi is well represented by the symbol of the straight line.
Tenkan: verb. To turn. Refers to nage’s movement in relation to uke. Nage turns in a circular motion as he receives the attack, usually by pivoting on the front foot and describing a 90 to 180 degree semi-circle with the rear foot. Tenkan is well represented by the symbol of the circle.
Omote: adverb. In front of. Refers to the positional relationship of nage in regard to uke. Nage has moved in front of uke.
Ura: adverb. To the rear of. Refers to the positional relationship of nage in regard to uke. Nage has moved behind uke.
Ura is sometimes defined as the area outside or behind uke’s leading hand or foot while omote is viewed as the area inside or to the front of uke’s leading hand or foot. The most important thing to notice here is that as adverbs, omote and ura describe the verbs irimi and tenkan.


Kaiten: adverb. Roughly translates as rotate. It’s applied when uke rotates 180 degrees… but unlike tenkan where the rear foot sweeps in a 180 degree semi-circle… the feet don’t move in kaiten. They pivot in place and the hips rotate to look in the opposite direction. Kaiten is, of course, used in kaiten nage, the rotating throw. It is also frequently used in conjunction with irimi to allow nage to reorient himself in the same direction as uke.

It’s important to notice that irimi and tenkan are diametrical opposites. Omote and ura are also opposites. Omote and ura share the x-axis while irimi and tenkan share the y-axis. Viewed as a compass, irimi is north, tenkan is south, omote is west, and ura is east. This compass model brings into focus not only the 4 compass directions, but more importantly the 4 quadrants movements between them; irimi omote, irimi ura, tenkan omote, and tenkan ura.

Irimi omote: Nage enters in front of uke.
Irimi ura: Nage enters to the rear of uke.
Tenkan omote: Nage turns to the front of uke.
Tenkan ura: Nage turns to the rear of uke.

These quadrants can be used to accurately describe the movement in an aikido technique. Let’s look at the syntactical structure used to describe an aikido movement.
syntax: <attack> <quadrant movement> <throw> <quadrant movement>
example:<yokomen uchi> <tenkan omote> <shiho nage> <tenkan ura>


The first quadrant movement describes how nage receives the attack. The second quadrant movement describes how nage throws uke. In our example here, nage receives the attack (side of head strike) with a tenkan omote or turning to the front of uke. Then nage throws with a shihonage (4 direction throw) using tenkan ura or turning to the rear of uke.

It is not uncommon for people to abbreviate terms by saying something like, yokomen uchi shihonage tenkan. While this description is accurate, it is not precise. There is more than one way to perform yokomen uchi shihonage tenkan. Specifically, there are 4 ways. Nage could receive the attack (yokomen uchi) with tenkan omote or tenkan ura. Also, nage could throw with a tenkan omote or tenkan ura movement (of shihonage).

Since there are 4 possibilities that can be applied in receiving the attack (first quadrant movement) and there are still 4 possibilities that can be applied in executing the throw (second quadrant movement) there could be a mind-numbing 2 ^4 = 16 possible combinations for just one technique. In practice there will be many fewer do to specifics characteristics of each technique. In the case of yokomen uchi shihonage, I submit there are 4 possibilites.

For other techniques the number of combinations will be different. How many for tsuki kotegaeshi? Or shomen uchi irimi nage. I’ll leave these calculations as an exercise for the reader.
Taking the time to fully recognize this model is more than an exercise in semantics. It opens the students mind to the possibilities and provides a tool for the student to discover techniques they may have never seen before.