Aikido has a number of memes that are not explicitly part of the art, but that seem to arise naturally from it being a “soft” martial art. One of them is “Plan B”. You often hear it mentioned when a technique seems to fail, or someone demonstrates how a technique could be reversed. The instructor says something along the lines of “If this happens, go to plan B,” or “Uke moves this way because he doesn’t want to experience plan B.”
Example 1
A well-known aikido sensei was demonstrating yokomen uchi shiho nage for a class at a retreat. Yokomen uchi closely approximates someone swinging a weapon at your head (starts overhead but curves just before with the head, with the arm fully outstretched at the moment of contact). The uke swung fast and hard. Sensei moved just enough (the attack missed), but somehow the attacking hand got away from him, so the desired technique wasn’t going to happen.
Sensei counterattacked.
What we saw next was not yokomen uchi shiho nage but yokomen uchi open hand to throat. Uke’s head flew back to absorb/evade and he was airborne for a moment before hitting the floor flat on his back. Clearly surprised, but having appropriately saved his own ass, he scrambled back to his feet and got into position.
Sensei smiled and shook his head, then motioned for uke to attack again.
We’ve all seen this sort of thing. Even though the ‘technique failed’, the martial artist moves fluidly into a valid response, but it’s not a ’soft’ technique. I completely respect this sensei’s martial judgment and depth of aikido (he studied under O’Sensei), and I accept that what we saw at that moment was aikido. But I find it difficult to explain to myself why.
More examples to come.
