Tai-atari Drill

[Charlie]

As club "captain," I feel that all of us in the club need to work on our kahanshin, our lower-body strength, and make more of our attacks with the legs and hara. To that end, I've been gathering exercises to do to help us. I've already picked up "the plow" from Supernils, and I think there's no such thing as too much kiri-kaeshi. We also do men-tai atari-men. What do you think of this:

We line up in pairs at one end of the gym. The receiver receives men-taiatari, and lets himself gets pushed only as far as the attacker's tai atari naturally propels him. The attacker returns to kamae and attacks again. The attacker must keep doing men tai-atari until he has pushed his opponent all the way across the gym.

Your thoughts?

[JSchmidt]

A good exercise I was shown earlier this week (for improving leg and hip power and balance), was to make a small step with right foot only (so you get a longer stance) and from there, cut men.
This really forces you to keep your posture straight and not too much weight on the front foot. If either of the above is off, you can feel it straight away when you cut, if you can even reach the target. Very very good for focusing on legs and hips, rather than upper body, which we tend to do by default.

Jakob

[Charlie]

Sorry, Jakob, I don't get what you're describing here. You mean the attacker cuts men, but itsn't allowed to take a full step forward?

[Kendoboy]

I think he means to start from a longer stance, so that you must really stretch with the legs to reach the target.

Another good one is to go into sonkyo, and do suburi, but at the apex of the cut, sort of hop and land in sonkyo again, but with your bottom higher off the ground (never go into a standing position), then lower yourself and start again.

Also, for some variety, you can spin 90 degrees on the jump. so that at the end of the cut, you are facing first north, then east, then south....

[JSchmidt]

Yah, longer stance. The point is *not* to strech and the only way you can do that, is to focus the weight on the left leg and keeping a correct posture and keep the balance low. You should be able to do normal fumikomi from there. If your posture is off or too much weight on the front foot, you either wont reach the target or you will have to stretch a lot to get there.
You don't even need to do the cut...Just take a wide stance and try to do fumikomi from there. You should be able to feel it straight away from there.

Jakob

[KhawMengLee]

Charlie: Heh, we do this drill as well but with kihon men and kote men cuts. The attacker makes the cut and the reciever back pedals to a cutting distance, so both parties are constantly moving...works good on cardio fitness racing across the gym floor.

I find that with the tai atari drills if your back/posture is straight you kill your opponent. With a good center of gravity your force/body is propelled forward like a canonball. I remember one of the yondans hitting me in tai atari and I was winded...nearly fell over from the impact...I could feel all the power coming from his hips...scary

MENG

[Kent Enfield]

One exercise that I've started doing recently and really like is practicing ai-uchi men. When both people attack forward at the same time, they really have to keep a strong and stable base through out the attack. It also avoids what can be a problem in practicing men tai atari with a motodachi: that the men uchi and tai atari become separate, because the attacker knows when and where they'll make contact with the motodachi. If both are attacking at the same time, you're not quite sure when the tai atari is coming, so you have to be set up for it the whole time.

Ai-uchi men also works on developing control of the center.

The things you have to watch out for are people trying to "win" rather than just cut a big men down the center. They'll start moving somewhat diagonally and striking yokomen, so don't let them.

[Charlie]

Interesting. Thanks, guys. You know the funny thing about getting hit with a good tai-atari is when it's done right you can tell it's done not because the person giving it to you is a bruiser but because the other person is skillful. Mmm-mm.

[Confound]

a little off topic, but I have real problems with ai-uchi men, does anyone have any suggestions on how to tame this waza? I've tried to focus on running straight throgh my opponent, but since some of them are slightly smaller, i'm a little worried about hurting them...
c