Donut, Yes. Pancake, No.
My former Karate teacher used to say, "If you can't move well, before the fight even starts, it is already over."
In martial arts, mobility is everything. It does not matter what style you are practicing.
To be able to move efficiently in a straight line, knowing how to use the ground is critical. Being able to push into the ground allows you to set up a catapult that can launch your body to any direction any time. It is simple, but not necessarily easy.
Read [The Heaven, The Earth And Everything In Between]
Moving swiftly in a straight line is already challenging enough. Things get even trickier when it comes to circular movements and we use it a lot in Aikido.
Aikido movements are natural movements. They are supposed to be efficient and easy on the body because they follow the rules of nature. In nature, a movement is the product of a flow.
So, where does a flow come from?
As a physicist would say, a flow comes from difference in "potential". For example, an electricity flow occurs when electrons move from a point of higher electrical potential to a point of lower potential. Water flows from a high point to a low point, but puddles on a flat surface. The key for generating good, smooth flow is to be able to create and use differentials.
Although we live in a 3-D world, many Aikido people move as if they live in 2-D. I nickname this "Pancake Aikido": When 2-D Aikido people perform techniques like iriminage, they drag their ukes around in a flat circle. They stay in the same constant size with straight knees. They extend their arms out at the same angle, at the same height as they move around. Because of a lack of flow, such movement takes a lot of effort. It is hard to sustain and tends to be uneven.
On movements and flows, Takeguchi Sensei often says, "Use vertical."
If you watch the path of Sensei's hands during iriminage, it tends to look like a wobbling ellipse. Not a horizontal circle.
One of the distinct feature of Sensei's Aikido is weight shift. By placing most of his weight on one foot, he gets into what resembles a classic rock climbing pose: the hip and shoulder on one side of the body become closer together; on the other side of the body, the hip and shoulder are further apart. As he shifts weight back and forth between his feet, the high/low positions of his pelvis and his hands alternate naturally due to ergonomics. His hands move up and down like two sine curves moving 180 degrees out of phase. This movement pattern has wide applications in many techniques, including kaitennage and kotegaishi.
The mechanics behind this is consistent with another important concept by Takeguchi Sensei -- "Action and Reaction": If you don't want to generate a reaction from your partner, don't direct any action towards them. By generating arm and hand movements indirectly through weight shifts within your own system, your partner never feels any force from you. As such, they do not respond with an opposing action to resist your movement. Because the point of contact between the nage and uke is constantly changing in space in all three dimensions, the uke cannot settle into a firm rut and is always playing catch up.
During demonstrations, it is not unusual for students to pay an excessive amount of attention to hand movements. I wish they would focus more on the movements in the lower body because footwork is usually the most critical part of any solid Aikido technique.
Take Iriminage Ura as an example: As they finish their tenkan, many nages find that their partner are suddenly standing right in their face and have stopped moving. No amount of force can bring the uke closer. Nor can they make the uke go away. In this position, because the nage and uke are not connected shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, it is impossible to do the throw! How does that happen?
When I see this in class, I often ask students: "Which alphabet is the path of the uke supposed to look like?" Even a beginner knows to say "O". It is a no-brainer.
"Yes, the uke is supposed to be doing donuts. And they should be doing donuts around you. That means, you are the donut hole. You need to stay inside the O so as not to get in their way." The problem arises when people are not doing a proper, full tenkan. Instead of stepping behind themselves to spin forward within a circle, people step outside of the donut hole, turn backwards and transform the O into a Q. The body of the nage is the extra stroke in the Q that blocks the circular flow of the O. The uke just instinctively stops moving to avoid crashing into the nage.
As the late Kenneth Cottier Sensei used to say, it is not the nage's job to move the uke. Given the uke is already moving, all that the nage has to do is to keep uke moving and not to stop him.
When you practice Aikido, you will realize that people are, actually, amazingly obedient. There is nothing called "Bad Ukes". Most ukes do exactly what the nages direct them to do. If you do not like the way your partner is moving, there is a good chance they are just responding to your problematic cues. You are the ultimate cause of your own problem.
Last but not the least, if you ask me how you can spin efficiently and swiftly inside a tiny donut hole while an uke is attached to your shoulder, the answer is simple: Come practice with me. I will show you in person.
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