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 face forward

Sounds simple enough, no?

Aikido is simple but not easy because it involves complex coordination.  In some cases, the movements in multiple body parts have to be synchronized.  In other situations, different body parts have to move in sequence in a strict order.  

🚨  To start, in this technique, students have to perform the weight shift, THEN the hip turn in sequence.  On top of that, they have to synchronize the hand movements AND have the timing matches perfectly with the lower body movement sequence.  🤯  Some students compensate by moving one part of their body at a time.  It is a creative attempt to solve their coordination problem.  Unfortunately, some things are just not meant to be taken apart.  As soon as any one part is out of sync, the whole mechanism falls apart!   🤷

🚨 People have the tendency of overusing their hands in Aikido.  Yet, at times, they do not know what to do with them.  With this technique, I noticed that people have a limpy Down Hand of which the fingers point vertically down.  Why do they do that?  My feeling is that their focus is on how to raise the Up Hand that is being held tight.  They do not have enough brain power left to manage the Down Hand.  Drooping the Down Hand avoids confronting the uke's power.  It is easy.

💡 Aikido movements are self balancing by employing the concept of dualities.  It is impossible to have a strong Up Hand while having a limpy Down Hand.  The hands are a pair.  They have to mirror each other with the same energy.  In addition, as the Up Hand will be extending with the palm facing out as if the nage is pushing forward and up, the Down Hand should be extending palm down as if nage is holding something down (imagine holding a ball down under water) .  In both cases, the accent is at the heel of the hands, NOT at the finger tips!

🚨 Of all the pieces, however, controlling the Up Hand is the most difficult one!  🏆  It is not uncommon that people direct too much force to the Up Hand because they think they have to overcome the power of the uke's grip.  Unfortunately, the moment they choose this route, the game is over.  The more they try to apply force to control their partner, the more they lose control.  🤷

The trickiest part, then, is on how to "raise and extend the Up Hand".  

🚨 Even though we explicitly told students that they need to keep the Up Hand and Arm on the same vertical plane as the edge of their torso, and that they should control their arm by dropping the elbow, the moment they start moving, their elbows flare out.  As an Aikiod basic rule of thumb, you should never let your elbows flare outward and rise.  The moment you lose that alignment, your shoulders rise and disengage from your torso.  You lose connection to the ground.  In a heartbeat, you lose everything.  🤷

I was practising with student J and coaching him through the process.  He was trying so hard to get it, but his elbows just keep flaring out, no matter what.  

"Arghhh!  I am doing it again!  Why?  Why does my elbow keep going out?"  J was really frsutrated.  

What else can I say?  "You just need to execute the movement by controlling the interior side of your elbow."  I must have said that at least a dozen times.

"I thought that was what I was doing, but . . . " J's hair was on fire.

"No.  The entire time, you are thinking about your hand and your fingers.  For as long as you think of it as moving your fingers forward, your elbow will flare out because that is the only mechanism that your body has to offer.  You have to forget about your hand.  You are only moving your elbow.  Let the rest of your arm tag along."  

I put myself in front of J.  He is tall.  He can be his own GoPro and watch the movement through my perspective.

"OMG!  I think I got it!"  After watching very attentively several times, J let it out hysterically.  "You are just moving the elbow to push your arm forward.  You move as if you have no hands!  You have no hands!!  Ahhhh!!!"  💡💡💡

J is right.  It sounds crazy, but it is a very good way of describing it.  

Indeed, the secret of moving the hands straight forward without flaring out the elbow is to move as if you have no hands.  🙅

We all know that Aikido movements can be counterintuitive.  But this, who would have thought?  🤷 🤷 🤷