No, there's no such thing as ushiro irimi nage, as far as I know... or is there?
I was training as usual on Thursday, starting with one hour of aiki-jo (time to brush up the 13 jo kata), then off to tai jutsu.
Without fail, we start with some tai no henko and morote dori kokkyu nage, and that's when I had the idea.
After years of kokkyu nage, I never cease to find inspiration from this technique. It's difficult to explain the technique in words, as most aikidokas will know, but I'll try, so here are the basic concepts (in my opinion) of the morote dori kokkyu nage basic form:
- Engage kokkyu.
- Slight step on the side, just enough to misalign the direction of attack.
- Lower the centre while keeping an upright posture, to break a potential arm lock.
- Turn and change hanmi while cutting upwards as if with aiki-ken.
- Enter uke's space while extending kokkyu up and to the rear (this breaks uke's balance).
- Rotate upper body (this starts the nage as uke starts falling backwards).
- Settle extending kokkyu down and to the rear (this completes the nage).
...and there was my revelation: steps 5, 6, and 7 are also the steps that complete all irimi nage techniques (at least in my head they are). Here's what I see happening in the irimi nage basic form, independently of the attack:
- Enter uke's space while extending kokkyu up and at the front (this breaks uke's balance).
- Rotate upper body as in the fourth jo subury (this starts the nage as uke starts falling backwards).
- Settle extending kokkyu downwards (this completes the nage).
There are technical differences, of course. For example, the nage in irimi nage is always performed to the front, and it uses aiki-jo movements instead of aiki-ken, but both techniques are about entering uke's space strongly, extending kokkyu through uke's space, rotating the upper body and completing the nage by settling the body weight and extending kokkyu downwards.
Now, every time I think of the basic form of kokkyu nage I think of "ushiro irimi nage", or "irimi nage to the rear", and that changes the whole perspective of this technique. Is it right? Is it wrong? It doesn't matter. Every so often in aikido I find something that turns all my understandings upside down, or even throw them out of the window to start again from scratch, and that's why I love it.
M.
