Plan B, part 2
Example 2
Aikido pins take a lot of practice to get right, and are not really so fool-proof or rock solid as they seem to the beginner. Sure there are people who can pin anyone. But in reality, no pin is permanent against someone who a) doesn’t feel pain, b) is abnormally flexible and strong (or simply much stronger than you can physically handle), or c) who happens to know a good reversal to the technique you are using. Moreover, the grips and positioning that pins and joint locks depend on are set up long before you actually “see” them as a spectator, long before it is applied.
Nonetheless, when a pin fails, especially if there is ego at stake, the next move is often what the pinner believes is a really badass pain-compliance technique. Or the pinner points out uke’s exposed vulnerabilities, as if knowing about them would be enough to take advantage of them without any real practice doing so.
Suppose you have uke in what is referred to as a ‘high pin.’ Uke is lying face down, you have one of his arms essentially vertical as you kneel at his shoulder and torque the shoulder and elbow while pushing toward the head and screwing his arm into the mat. For whatever reason he manages to tuck his shoulder and will momentarily roll out of the pin. Do you take the hand that is still under your control and start bending fingers? Do you roll back to get your legs around him and do a jujitsu arm-bar? Do you politely point out to him that you could break his neck from this position? Would you really do that to someone?
The completely ‘aiki’ way seems to me to be to blend with whatever uke does. If he squirms out of the pin and just sits there, the game is over. If he attacks, you do more aikido.
But if he squirms out and pushes it to so-called ‘ground work’?
Sometimes this happens with aikidoka I know well (we know what to expect from each other) and only rarely with aikidoka I don’t know so well. But it almost never happens, and certainly not to a great degree if a high-level sensei is teaching the class. We know instinctively that we have diverged from the usual training, that we are not ‘doing the technique’. Not good in front of the boss.
February 5, 2009 at 4:00 am
The basic ikyo pin is about the easiest one that I can think of to escape, even when applied by someone big/strong/talented. However, I had some sempai who absolutely insisted that the point of the pin was to put nage in a better position to pound the back of uke’s head or take a few kidney shots as needed. Neither of the se options sounds particularly Aiki but they are practical, don’t generally lead to death and would tend to make uke act cooperatively.
Other pins are similar.
e.
February 10, 2009 at 6:32 am
Well stated. They “don’t generally lead to death and would tend to make uke act cooperatively.” Do you pound on uncooperative ukes?
I understand what you’re saying. Still exploring this issue though. Since we don’t actually do striking in training, I’m exploring what place to give these plan b’s in my mind.
I should point out that it’s not that I don’t know how to strike or that I want to incorporate it into aikido directly. I got several years of striking and sparring in karate and tkd. But I do know that thinking of hitting something and doing it are completely different. And if we tell ourselves, oh I could do a kidney punch here, but never actually do one from that position into a similar target under similar circumstances, what are the chances we’ll screw it up somehow?