Suwariwaza kokyu ho.
In my view the most important excercise in all Aikido training. Also the most misunderstood part of Aikido training. What's this excercise all about?
In Aikikai Aikido training the most training sessions are ended with this strange excercise. Tori and uke are seated towards each other and it looks like tori is forcing his movement upon uke and throws his partner to the side. In reality, good practice of this simple excercise reveals a lot of Aikido principles. Following I will try to explain the tips and tricks for this wonderful training tool.
What's going on?
A few "rules" have to be established when doing this excercise.
1. Never use strength.
2. Never compromise your posture.
3. Don't be aggressive.
4. Use hips, not hands.
5. Use listening energy, called ting jin in Tai Chi Chuan.
6. Tori in seiza, uke in kiza.
7. Be seated as close to each other as possible.
8. Use round arms, same as zhan zhuang chikung.
9. First connection, than move together.
10. Don't throw but unbalance your partner.
11. Always relax shoulders.
12. Use spiral movements, 3 directions at once.
13. Don't fight his structure but use space around him.
14. Use arm swing
15. "Kokyu breath power" is to be studied.
16. Identify open and closing of centerline, breath and joints.
Above are a few pointers which will give direction to the right way of training these movements.
First of all uke has to give a light pressing power in the direction of the center region of tori. This wil give tori an opportunity for experiencing center to center contact. One's this is established tori will have to direct the movement of his wrists, the contact points in this case, with his hips. When uke is solid or one unity it will be easy to unbalance him. Later on variables can be added to this training like different points of contact, more or less resistance of uke and so on... So I see this as a possible push hands like excercise without using feet and therefore only hara usage.
It really is a practice which doesn't receive the credits it should get. I could fill multiple lessons by this excercise and all it's variations.
Two clips to get a few ideas..
Enjoy practice, maybe more suwari waza kokyu ho.
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