Tobikomizuki

General discussions on Wado Ryu karate and associated martial arts.
Locked
Gusei21
Posts: 403
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2011 1:43 am

Tobikomizuki

Post by Gusei21 »

I wrote this short piece on Tobikomizuki. Will repost on the technical section in our forum.
Comments welcome... (Been very busy with work. No time to wreck havoc anywhere )

Tobikomizuki – or learning to fly like a G6 instead of flopping like a dead fish.
Tobikomu – to leap, to dive

Tobikomizuki is a technique that was originally designed to be used against a swordsman. He has a sword. You have nothing. You have two choices. Either turn and run (wisest) or stand your ground and get inside on the swordsman before he can cut you.
Before we begin we need to better understand the difference between tobikomizuki and junzuki no tsukkomi. Using boxing as an analogy, tobikomizuki would be a jab as junzuki no tsukkomi would be a knockout punch.
Now if you though I was going to approach this problem systematically….lol.

Let’s just cut to the chase and assume you know how to do a decent tobikomizuki.
This article is not for beginners. This assumes you are at minimum a shodan.
Here is where most people fail.
When most people initiate the forward movement they fail because of how they are using the back leg.
Most people have the back knee slightly bent. Then when it becomes time to go forward they push off with their feet. As they push off their knee starts to unbend. The knee basically unfolds and straightens like a hinge.
They use the straightening (unbending) of the back knee to propel themselves forward. What happens then is that the momentum you think you are using to carry you forward is used instead to project you upwards. As soon as you have any kind of upwards projection you have failed. You need most of the momentum to carry you forward, not to carry you upwards.
So most people look like they are hopping onto their front leg. They push off the back leg by unhinging at the knee and then they plop onto their front foot. There are many examples of this on the internet of people blowing their tobikomizuki or nagashizuki. Why is this a failure? Simple. Your opponent has a sword. He is swinging. Any momentum going up takes away from the momentum that could have been spent going forward. You will get sliced and diced by any half decent swordsman.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could convert any residual upward momentum into forward momentum so that you can move in an instant? You need to arrive as you start. That should be the feeling. You need to get there fast – in one motion (ichibyoshi).
So how does one do this?

First you need to understand what I mean by ‘if one thing moves, everything moves’. It requires a connected body. You have to have your body conditioned so that you manage to rid yourself of any potential slack in your system. You need to be able to stand ‘fully open’ (remove all slack) . You need to be manifesting that Heaven Earth Man (Ten Chi Jin) stuff. Everything in your body must have some sense of eccentric extension like feeling. You are a giant slinky that is being pulled apart…
Once you manage that then you can start to address the back foot. The problem is that most people push off on the back foot. That takes too long. You push off the back foot because that is where you feel ground. And that is your limitation. You can’t be feeling ground on your back foot. You need to feel ground in your knee or better yet around the area where the head of your femur rests inside your hip socket. That is where you need to feel ground and that is where you initiate the action.
So how do you feel ground up there? Easier said than done but if you manage to create an eccentric pulling action from your tanden down to the ground then the ground will travel up your leg to your tanden.

Next instead of unbending your knee and rotating your foot on the ground (if left leg is back then most people will be rotating their foot counter clockwise) you should focus more on rotating the head of your femur so that you can feel the rotation affect your lower back and extend the lower back, your upper back, thru your scapula, thru your shoulder girdle, out thru your punching hand. The rotation of the femur causes this connection up your back thru your arms to activate. If you only unbend your knee like most then nothing happens to your lower back, upper back, opposite scapula, etc. There is no transmission of power from your left hip to your right punching arm. Instead you do like most and flop forward like a dead fish and that is how most people look like when they do tobikomizuki.

When you initiate from ground that is in your hip and allow it to transmit force thru your hip, thru your back, thru your shoulder then your foot will turn. But here is the key difference. The foot will rotate counterclockwise NOT because you initiated from your foot or from your knee – no. The foot rotates as a RESULT of you having rotated the head of your femur which is feeling ground. And because you move from your femur what part of your foot is the pivot point? Not the ball of your foot. Not your heel. Neither place. Think about it. If the femur turns from its head then the area near the middle of your foot will be your pivot point. So another way to check for failure is to see where they are rotating on their foot. (Oh wait, might that be the case for junzuki, gyakuzuki, mawatte gedan barai, ……like everything?)

You will hear me say the words ‘rotation and revolution’ in many context. For now in this instance I mean your back femur has to rotate while your knee engages in revolution. Revolution. Imagine a clock. An analog clock…not a digital clock. The hands move in an arc. 360 degrees. Every degree the hand moves it engages in revolution. That is what I mean by revolution. Rotation and revolution is all over the place in Wado unlike other karate arts. Rotation and revolution is a prerequisite to Wado magic. You can’t spiral unless you engage in rotation and revolution. Rotation and revolution gives you kuzushi on contact. It always induces a tangent on contact. It creates fure aiki. It presents 3 simultaneous vectors and as we all know the human body cannot resist 3 simultaneous vectors coming at it going different directions. Rotation and revolution are the necessary components to manifest internal power in Wado.
So on the surface flying like a G6 or flopping like a dead fish might look the same to an untrained eye but have a chat with the person on the receiving end of the technique. The power differential will be huge.

There is an unspoken technique in Wado. It has to do with the ability to move forward by moving both feet at the same time. Takagi Sensei does it. My guys call it the Yoda walk.
And no, I can't replicate it yet. Still a work in progress. But that thing he does...that I can't yet replicate...also ties in to tobikomizuki and that is why this thing continues to be a work in progress. I know it has something to do with sitting on the Ethiopean horse as it trots across the floating bridge of Heaven...but in the meantime..

Flopping like a dead fish – you are only punching with your arm. Flying like a G6 – you are hitting with your body.

Question: Sensei…what moves first, your tanden or the head of your femur in your hip?
Answer: Yes

I forgot to add:
When we teach tobikomizuki we say that at the end of the technique your back foot must be at a 90 degree angle.
The reason for this is simple. If you do it correctly it will be at around 90. Why? Because you rotated your femur....and that caused your foot to move to 90.
If you instead try to move your foot to 90 without thinking about the head of the femur then you won't get it to work right. You will just be mimmicking the outside form without understanding the function. I repeat myself but the resulting foot angle is a result. It ended up like that because something else was at work elsewhere that caused it to happen. It is not the root. It is the result.
Don't move your foot 90 degree to make your teacher happy. You are only cheating yourself. It's not the foot. It's the femur.
Bob Nash
Gary
Posts: 238
Joined: Sat Feb 26, 2011 1:14 pm
Location: South London, UK
Contact:

Re: Tobikomizuki

Post by Gary »

As my sensei says...

The feet go where the body needs them! :)
Gary Needham
Walton Wado Karate Club

清漣館双水執流英国稽古会
http://seirenkanuk.wordpress.com/
Locked