Tachi Dori - Irimi Nage
By Ivan Zdravkovic, of the Shinbukan Dojo

Most of us instructors will probably react the same after reading this article: "So, what's new in here?" And really, this article brings nothing new at all. (Is there anything new under the sky? :-)) But, we must remind ourselves that KIAI Online Magazine is not only designed for kenshi and budo yudansha - many young beginners are visiting this web address and it is our duty to talk about seemingly trivial and basic things from time to time. After all, the more we advance in our budo practice, more we realize how important it is to return to the very fundamental techniques and principles.

Tachi Dori (or "muto waza") is frequent part of most training programs: in aikido, aikijujutsu, kenjutsu, jujutsu and many other arts and styles. It is literally "disarming the attacker who is attacking with a sword" - but it also means "empty handed swordsmanship" - an ideal of legendary medieval masters.

While learning tachi dori, we demonstrate the way some of the empty-handed techniques were designed. I will describe one of the most frequent tachi dori techniques, without any intention of making speculations whether the irimi nage of aikido/aikijujutsu came out of tachi dori, or was applied in tachi dori. It is only important to realize that empty-handed techniques and weapon techniques most frequently have analogues and are practically the same. That was the teaching method of Seno Kuniaki shihan, founder of Gendai Goshin Bujutsu concept, a man who taught Iai/kenjutsu waza to his students first, and then made them use the same principles in empty handed attacks and defenses.

This tachi dori waza is pulled out from Budokai Kenjutsu, gendai school of Japanese swordsmaship created more than 10 years ago within Serbian Budo Council. It consist of several simple techniques. I will reduce the explanation as much as possible, and leave you with the animated GIF image that I made just for this issue of the KIAI Online Magazine. This GIF is extracted from a video made in my Shinbukan Dojo a month ago. I thank my young student Igor Kesic for his assistance.

Attack is shomen uchi. Uchitachi (Uke) approaches a bit while performing his strike. But, Shitachi (or Tori, depending on the art) - makes even faster irimi, in order to get n such a position which will enable him to block/stop the arms of the attacker. This principle of approaching against the sword attacks is a bit opposite to what we generally see in jujutsu (retrieve, leave a passive block, then counterattack). Defender performs high blocking (any variation of juji uke, morote (mawashi ) uke or age uke is fine). After this, using the inertia of attacker's move, defender presses the head/neck of the attacker from behind, same as when hugging someone. At the same time attacker's hands are lowered with right ude osae, and the attacker is thus forced to bend down. After small tenkan ("driving the attacker around"), right hand of the defender is used to intercept the attacker in the famous irimi nage (this one can be seen even in Hulk Hogan's shows :-)) Finally, after the attacker is taken down, his sword must be removed from his hands.

Whole this action can be used against empty handed attacks, and that is very frequently seen in aikido clubs. This is one of the best ways to explain the mechanism of the irimi nage. So, if you are instructor of an empty handed art or a style, the next time toy explain your students how to perform irimi nage, help them a bit: give a boken to their attackers.