Friday, January 19, 2007

Ok Gedan ate--(lower body push)

Me and Bryce have gone over this move in particular almost every time we practise. In the new circular way we do Nijusan by off-balancing and getting behind the arm, it makes little sense. The timing has to be perfect and sudden and it feels to us that by doing Gedan ate this way you have to force it, which isn't Aikido. Nijusan over all feels leaps and bounds over Junana in terms of smoothness, but Gedan ate always feels awkward. Upon examination of it, I asked Bryce..."why does this one have to be circular"? He told me that all the moves in Nijusan get behind the arm in that dead zone (sorry Pat, I don't remember the name for it) and are performed from there, which I replied "but why this one?". We decided the best way for it to come naturally is for Tori to pull back after Uke steps off-line and off-balances Tori. As Tori pulls back, Uke follows the movement and catches Tori on the rise and continues his movement backwards. It seems to flow smoother. Gedan ate isn't something that happens in circles, it happens when something goes wrong and a line is created. How does Karl perform Gedan ate? Then again...his timing is always perfect so that small window for him is probably enormous. Thoughts? Here is the way Gedan ate feels best for me.

2 comments:

Patrick Parker said...

crikey, my comment! I wrote a nice, epic response to your gedanate post and posted it and it even showed up on your blog - then disappeared into the ether.

anyway, the gist of it was:

1)gedanate sucks for me too. like you, i have a lot of problem with the nijusan version but i can do the junana version.

2)gedan should really be the same technique as #3 gyaku. if you can do #3 then you should be able to get into the place for #4

3)you asked why it has to be this way - it doesnt, but i think one ought to have a pretty good reason when selecting another version of a technique to go into kata. it doesn't _seem_ right to me to do 1, 2, and 3 like nijusan, then 4 like junana, then the rest of nijusan.

4)i was planning to ask Usher and henry for help with this technique at the spring starkville henry clinic.

keep up the good work and keep working on it.

Anonymous said...

Hey fellas - gedan is one of my favorite techniques.

I think you can see it executed either circularly or linearly depending on the timing.

I've been teaching it from a kihara chain that leads off of the 2nd hanasu (purse snatch) - you don't get the spine lock so uke turns on you - you execute a shomen ate which uke pushes aside and you step into gedan. This is a fantastic setup.

Gedan can be like judo's sukui nage (although I don't recommend actually throwing it this way without an experienced uke as this is NASTY), makign the final execution more circular, but I don't think we have to worry about making it circular - I think the important concept of nijusan is not that throws are circular (although this is definitely happens) but that we learn how to throw while moving - so I don't have a problem that kuzushi and tsukuri phases are circular but kake is linear (if it is down the line of uke's feet) so long as its thrown where you can step out of it or keep moving if it doesn't work.

I also see parallels between this and tai otoshi as Sensei Geis teaches it (there's a great google or youtube video showing Karl throwing tai otoshi) - you're just in a different relationship. (I'm still working on this concept - I could be wrong! ;)

Did any of that make sense?