Intermediate Class Blog: Atemi

What is this blog about!?
My idea here is to provide an online resource to supplement my Tuesday night Intermediate Aikido class. On this forum I'll post my thoughts are inspirations for a particular theme that I'll focus on in class. I hope people will feel free to read and comment on the blog, and the class in general so I can make it a better learning experience, all in the quest to improve our collective Aikido.

In preparation for a class on the use of atemi or striking techniques in Aikido.
First here's some background information.
Definition of atemi via Wikipedia
An excellent article by George Ledyard putting atemi in context for its use in Aikido.

The first weeks class comprised of:

• Historical overview of atemi (sourced from Ledyard's article)
• Swariwaza shomenuchi ikkyo. Nage strikes first, uke blocks, nage uses blocked arm for ikkyo.
• Shomen-tski striking practice
• Shomen-uchi strike with shomen-uchi atemi
• Yokomen-uchi strike with shomen or yokomen uchi atemi, then added shihonage

My observations from the first class come down to two major points.

1. Atemi has to be seen and felt (psychologically) my uke. And it has to be like the way Goldilocks like things, not too fast, not too slow...but juuuuust right. For maximum effect target uke's eyes.
2. It's very effective to mentally "enter" into the attack, at the moment the attack' s initiated. For intermediate usage, this may be hard to understand, but easy to feel when do to you. Being inside the attack to me seems like not reacting to an attack, but moving with an attack. My response happens without thought of "she's striking here, so I'll go here...." I'm personally struggling how to teach this or even to explain it...so I'll leave it there for now.

This week's focus will be on putting atemi to use in common kihon-waza techniques.

• kata-dori ikkyo/nikkyo
• yokomen-uchi shihonage
• shomen-uchi kokyunage
• katate-dori kaiten-nage (variation)
  

And some ubiquitous Youtube videos.
Disclaimer. These are intented to see some different applications of atemi used in Aikido.
These are not what we'll be doing per say, but just something to brouden your understanding of atemi usage. I'll only be teaching basic techniques we're all comfortable with, but emphasizing atemi usages.