“A look through the veil” by Louis Gonzalez-Coca

Dear Tori,

Today I will start by attacking you with a Yokomenuchi aimed to your right side, I will also use a Shomenuchi but I’ll let you know about it in advance, see you later at the dojo.

Best regards… Uke

Based on my limited experience I’ve always felt that strikes as attacks in Aikido were not studied as thoroughly as in striking based arts (with the exception of some schools i.e. Yoseikan and Tenshin just to name a few). As a result I started to explore and try out other ways of practice focusing on strikes as “unannounced attacks” and subsequently my study group at the time and I adapted “sparring” as part of training. However, we did not start with a “full out” spar, we only and specifically practiced our reaction to Shomen, Yokomen and mid-section thrusts and we only did this for what we called the “engagement” of an attack, meaning the parry and deflection of an attack and continuing as far as unbalancing uke, unless the technique was suitable for finishing up with a degree of safety (for instance Irimi nage as opposed to something like Shiho nage). Obviously we didn’t communicate in advance what attack was going to launch although we did agree on using either a straight right or left punch, circular strikes (Yokomen type) and straight to the mid section to start. This practice implicated the use of sparring gear. Some people might think that this will hinder the flow of the technique, but like I indicated before it was just an addition to our regular practice.

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