A viewer with a judo background recently left an interesting question on my previous video about kata. As it happened, I was already preparing a video on the same subject. Kata repeats predetermined attacks and responses. Does that make it less effective than sparring or free practice when it comes to adapting to changing situations? And how should Aikido approach that issue? This video begins with that question. By limiting variables, kata allows us to repeatedly examine pri

Whenever I publish videos about Aikido, several questions come up repeatedly. Why are the attack and response decided in advance? Why does uke repeat the same attack and ukemi? And is uke simply cooperating to make the technique work? These are natural questions for anyone seeing Aikido training for the first time. This video addresses those questions by examining the learning structure of kata and the role of uke. In Aikido training, the attack and response are predetermined

In this video presented by Aikido Samsungdang, we explain four fundamental Aikido jo kata—Roku no Jo, Hachi no Jo, Ju-san no Jo, and Sanju-ichi no Jo—along with the use of the lower body in jo practice. Ju-san no Jo and Sanju-ichi no Jo are kata organized by the late Morihiro Saito Sensei based on the jo techniques of O-Sensei Morihei Ueshiba. One of their defining features is that each movement corresponds clearly to a specific count. Roku no Jo consists of movements 12 thro