"Yoshinkan Aikido Seiseikai Poland" Part I

In Poland

In Poland the most known Aikido is, without a doubt, Aikikai, which in 2007 had it 30^th birthday. Of course, the name “Aikido” is not reserved for only one society or federation. Especially during the last ten years, many new brands of Aikido were created, which have “real”, “combat” etc. in their names, but they are almost all a copy of Yoshinkan Aikido.

Aikido Yoshinkan in Poland exists only on the south of the country, in the Silesia agglomeration. Despite that it was trained for a long time, the first section officially registered in Hombu Yoshinkan was in 1994. From that time up to now, many well developing federations, sections and schools of Yoshinkan have been created. One of them is Yoshinkan Seiseikai Aikido Poland created by Sylwia and Rafał Wilk, Kamil Krzemiński and Sebastian Śliwiński, founders of schools such as Ishinkan, Bujinkan and the School of Martial Arts Seimeikan, which are a part of AYF and YSA federations.

Yoshinkan Seiseikai

Yoshinkan, created by Gozo Shioda, is commonly known as the toughest aikido system, but can a martial art used to self defence and fighting, be not “tough”? That is why in Yoshinkan we do not have spectacular and effective “flights” done by uke – the most important thing is efficiency, not cooperation with your partner. Yoshinkan techniques were created to work so they can defend us from aggressors. Soke Shioda said once: “Never forget that you are training a martial art. If you ever forget it, then further learning would be pointless”

Seiseikai groups those who train under the lead of Kiyoyuki Terada, 10^th Dan, who developed many Yoshinkan techniques, adding more possible attacks as also details from jujutsu, goshinjutsu and judo techniques. So, a system was created in which many elements, such as levers, throws, strangling, overturns, hits etc. Is done by using the attack of our opponent. Our goal is to absolutely control our opponent, without killing him. I think that such a description of Yoshinkan Seiseikai characterize this aikido system very well.

Basics

Each one of martial arts has its own guidelines and basics. Yoshinkan has its own, unique, kamae position (initial posture) and a characteristic structure kihon dosa (combination of movements), which does not exist in any other aikido system. The most important thing in Yoshinkan is simplicity based on normal physic, not on powers which are hard to explain. However, simplicity and rational explanation, not theories from the borders of religious-science fantasy, should go with every martial art...

Kamae position allows us to set the weight of our body disproportionately, so our movement becomes faster without the loss of balance nor the ability to react immediate. It is easy to understand it when you do a simple experiment: standing astride bend both your knees so the weight of your body will be set proportionally. Now, try to do a step, but still standing in the position mentioned above. After that, stand in a position in which over 60% weight of your body will be on one leg and then try to do a step. Everyone, who has made this experiment well, can see how obvious are the results: from the physical point of view, each one of us sets the entire weight of our body on the leg touching the ground, during making steps. This is the basic of Yoshinkan Seiseikai: with every move we have to move the weight of our body and thanks to it, we have great power.

Kihon dosa is the fundamental of the entire Yoshinakn – here we can find every move, which is used in techniques. Kihon Dosa consists of three elements: tai no henko, hiriki no yosei, shumatsu dosa. Each one of those elements can be done in omote and ura version, as also, in migi or hidari side. We have a set of twelve moves. Also, there is the position of arms, called tegatana, and the work of our body which has to combine in one center. The work of our hands is very important: in the basic positions there is kaisho no den, an open position of hand, stretched with proper bending. During movement, aiki-age and aiki sage, which are movements of the entire hand around the thumb or little finger, which are motionless. In the end, we have twelve elements, in which there are every basic movement that exist in every technique.

It does not mean that in every technique there will be at least one entire element of kihon dosa, because most of techniques are mostly a connection of a single move and detail existing in kihon dosa.

That is why kihon dosa is done each time on a training individually  (tandoku dosa) and in pairs (sotai dosa). Level of a student depends on how well he understands kihon dosa. An adept who recognizes particular details in techniques is ready to reach a higher level of learning. You can never say that you can do kihon dosa, because this knowledge develops on each training.

Division of techniques

Depending on the kind and level of difficulty of Yoshinkan Seiseikai techniques, we can divide them into:

• Techniques done in ichi, ni and san versions, when we start the attack, we are attacked, or we are in a clinch and our opponent has a strong position.
• Osae version, when we take down our Uke to a safe position with a control, a blockade on a joint, and a nage version in which we throw our opponent.
• Immobilizations, ikkajo, nikajo, sankajo, yonkajo, gokajo, rokkajo (ikkyo, nikyo etc. In other Aikido systems)
• Basic techniques, without the lever, which ends with a control or a throw.
• Intermediate techniques, in which there is more than one knock out, or a couple techniques bound in one.
• Techniques to train timing, such as kokyu ho or karyu happo.
• Advanced techniques, which require from us to adapt to the situation. Reaching this level is impossible without previously knowing the crux of the technique.
• Techniques to fight with more than one opponent.

Author:  Sebastian Śliwiński III dan AYF , I dan Judo and Goshin-jutsu

YSAP

School of Martial Arts SEIMEIKAN