Tuesday, 31 July 2007

Chapter 20: The Process Of Learning To Take Your Uke's Balance...Suddenly The Penny Drops About Aikido

One of my favourite parts of Tomiki Aikido is Hikkitat. I like it because it is usually during Hikkitat I usually find the purpose to a technique (and as an added bonus you get a really good workout).
At a recent session, one instructor was trying to illustrate how moving off your attacker's centre and taking their balance was a fudamental concept to Aikido. So, to illustrate this we started Hikkitat.
An interesting part to Hikkitat is trying to illustrate to someone who hasn't come across Hikkitat the actual principle behind it. The thing about Hikkitat is that as you effectively 'chase' your partner around the mat, there will be that magical point where as Tori you feel your Uke's point of balance being broken and.. down they go. Success! To be honest, until you feel that 'magic' moment of the point of balance being taken, you won't really understand the true priciple behind Hikkitat.

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