White Crane Spreads Wings
Our Taichi teacher, Glen, calls Aikido "the Japanese Taichi". Not only do both arts possess a mindful and meditative quality, they actually share many very similar movements and forms. "White Crane Spreads Wings" in Yang style Taichi 24, for example, resembles the beginning part of tenchinage . This evening, Mike taught a class on ryotetori tenchinage that started with a "White Crane Spreads Wings"-like entrance. It is a very stripped down tenchinage entrance with absolutely no frills. The irony is that the more simple something is, the more people get tripped up. To make it easier to tell the story, let's call the nage 's hands the Up Hand (same side as the back foot) and the Down Hand (on the side of the front foot). The "White Crane" entrance has only 4 elements: 1/ Extend Down Hand downwards 2/ Extend Up Hand up by dropping the elbow and rotating the forearm at the elbow 3/ Shift weight to back foot, and 4/ Turn hip to f...
