Kajo #4 | Takemusu Aikido Intercontinental Page 1 of 3

Takemusu Aikido Intercontinental

Transmitting an authentic knowledge of Traditional Aikido as founded by Morihei UESHIBA

Kajo #4
We have, in the article # 3, put our two feet with a 60 angle following O Sensei's
recommendations.

But we now do state a fundamental observation: O Sensei never positioned his feet at 60,
while waiting for the attack.

All photos at our disposal show that in these moments he indeed adopts a triangular position, but
his front foot is much less open, as illustrated by the photos below and that we can schematize so
in our figure.

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That positioning of the feet puts the body in a position, specific of Aikido, called nowadays hanmi.
The shoulder corresponding to the back foot is slightly behind the shoulder corresponding to the
back foot. Thus, only a half of the body is exposed to the attack. But at the same time, tori's seika
tanden (black arrow) remains directed towards the opponent (red arrow). In other words, tori faces
the attack but without facing front and thereby offering little opening.

Frontally opposing the red arrow is excluded as it would mean a conflict, all the more unnecessary
that uke uses his supporting stance on the ground and therefore his strength in that direction. The
means Aikido uses to resolve a conflict consists instead in uniting the two opposing forces in a
third direction in which that they are no longer in opposition and in which uke is off balance. To
achieve this result, tori must necessarily change his position and this is when the 60 opening
comes into play .

When the movement has begun, tori's feet do not remain in the initial position, they rotate in a split
second to find each this 60 angle and deflect uke's strenght, as shown above.

O Sensei used to call this opening hito e mi. The word opening is the right one here. Any
"position" is indeed, by definition, "grounded" and therefore static. However, hito e mi is only
dynamic, understanding this is essential. Gozo Shioda was fully aware of that reality (as his
dynamic practice shows). If he forced his students to adopt hito e mi while being still, it is like a
snapshot of a movie, in order to allow everyone to better see and understand.

The very first technique illustrating the principle of the movement is ikkyo omote. And we can
verify with O'Sensei's following pictures it is scrupulously respected:

1 2 3 4

One can clearly see that O sensei's right foot, which faces uke's direction in picture 1, has slided
and opened to the right in picture 2, continues to open to be able to bring uke down to the right on
the picture 3, and is completely opened in the picture 4, which allows the left side of the body to
step in and bring the ground.

With the rotation of the body and the opening of the feet, the seika tanden is oriented as shown in
a close to 23 angle, i.e precisely in the angle of earth's inclination, and the technique is then
performed by rotating around this axis. When O Sensei declared that in order to practice Aikido
one must know and use the earth's rotation, he did not use a parable as it is often assumed: he

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described very accurately the reality of the Aikido movement and offered a practical guideline to
anyone who is willing to listen.

So we can now confidently position the technique ikkyo on our figure (bearing in mind that the
studied directional angle is the angle of the front foot which is always a few degrees greater than
the seika tanden's angle).

This will be our starting point.

Philippe Voarino, march 2012.

Philippe Voarino next seminar: Sunday, 21 April, 2013, Aikido Gasshuku 2013, Antibes, France

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