Nishio Aikido Gainesville

March 22nd. Jack was not back from Spring Break, so Patrick and I worked on Ki-no-nagare Koshi Nages. Hip throws to be executed at speed with no pause for setup. The setup is in controlling Uke's movements from the moment of contact. Interesting thought here. Nishio Sensei's saying that "Victory is determined at the moment of contact." I have always been aware of this but have not thought much about it for years. Today that was what Patrick and I were studying from punches, overhead strikes and angling strikes. I was not really trying to throw him at first. I normally teach these high fall techniques up to the load, but not the following throw. The throw is almost nothing compared to the setup and load for the throw. The reason for study is to help Chris and Jack. They love these throws and keep trying to do them in a freestyle practice. At first, I have discouraged it. But it keeps showing up. So, the solution is to adapt it to no-pause development and determine where Uke will end up depending on the physics of the throw so Nage will and Uke will be safe with Uke falling in front of another attacker trying to get at the thrower.

February 3rd We will have a test for Black Belt on Feb 5th. Christopher is testing for Black Belt. I anticipate he's going to give a great demonstration of lots of techniques for Empty Hand, weapons take-aways, Nishio Style Ken tai Ken and Ken Tai Jo as well as Iwama Style Ken Tai Jo, two examples. Then there will be a free style for 1 minute starting with one attacker for 30 seconds then 2 attackers for the last 30 seconds. He has been coming to extra classes and really practicing hard. Visitors are welcome to watch. There probably won't be enough chairs so you might end up sitting on the floor. That's the normal Japanese way anyways. Only the judges would sit in chairs.

Great practice of Jo Dori (walking staff take-aways) with Chris this afternoon. He's coming right along on focusing for Shodan (1st Black Belt) test. We're aiming for February 5th. I expect he's going to do a wonderful test. It will be a mix of Iwama Style and Nishio Style. This afternoon we worked on a Nikyo take away that I mixed concepts from both styles. Interesting stuff.

Wonderful practice this afternoon 11/30/25 with Jack and Patrick. We worked on Nishio Style Shomenuchi response with Nishio Sensei's rake-the-eyes-sweep-the-arm type starts. We started with Irimi Nage, very normal Nishio technique. Then we added Nikyo, then a lift and project around Sankyo, then Koshi Nage. We could have done Tai Otoshi, but Patrick, taking most of the ukemi said it's a hard fall for him so we passed on that. Then I tried a San/Yonkyo with the lift and project start. It took a little refining then it worked pretty good. From there I tried an Ude Osai or Roppkyo. That also took some development. What ended up working best was a draw off to the side like the Nishio Nikyo movement with an arm bar beginning while drawing Uke off sideways and down and, after getting Uke pretty far down, raising his hand up and slipping the elbow over the front of Uke's arm to set the Yonkyo. Very interesting and fun afternoon, thanks to Jack and Patrick.

It's a sad sad time for Aikido of Gainesville. We just lost my top student and friend, co-instructor, political global conversation compatriot, fellow truth seeker Keith McInnis early Friday morning around 6 am. He took the Covid shots believing in them being able to protect him and his wife from contracting the disease while she was hampered with a congenital kidney disease.
He was fine till about a year and a half ago. He contracted a cough that kept getting worse and ended up in the hospital. They determined that his lungs were being destroyed from within. It turned out that the shots had compromised and messed up his immune system. His immune system was attacking his lungs and destroying the air sacs so this was depleting the oxygen he was breathing. I think he started breathing high content (100%) oxygen about this time last year.
His computer and internet knowledge has been a great help to me over the years. He brought his sons to learn Aikido maybe it was about 2010. He had learned a branch of Ki Aikido which was headed by Tohei Sensei ( O'Sensei's top student and son-in-law) Keith claimed he had brain damage from multiple traffic accidents while he was a Sherriff's Deputy. He always called it "dain bramage". A few years later he was improved and claimed the Aikido I was teaching had saved his life.
We practiced a lot of Nishio Style techniques, especially onl Sunday afternoons. There are so many different things happening at the same time requiring you to move your arms and legs in various directions at the same time while executing techniques and analyzing them. We called it the "Aiki Lab". We learned and improved so many kenetic and physics based concepts. We both felt that this complete coordination of all parts of the body at the same time was building lots of Neural Pathways in the brain across the brain barrier between the hemispheres.
When we would run a Women's Self Defense Seminar, we made a great team. I could explain in detail how to execute techniques and he could explain the psychological reactions during attacks and statistical results of attacks and various helps available for women after being attacked. He also could covey his experiences from working female assault cases.
Loosing my friend and helper leaves a huge hole in the depth of what I can teach. God Speed Keith McInnis. I'll miss my best friend.

Sunday April 21, 2025 a student from down in Sarasota came up to learn some Nishio Style techniques. I was trying to find some Nishio video of him teaching everything for either a full Nikyo or Sankyo application, meaning Ken vs Ken, Ken vs Jo, technique holding a wooden sword, technique holding a walking staff and empty hand applications. This is hard for me. I don't have the videos classified in short snippets of whole technique applications. Normally Nishio Sensei would do the empty hand first with weapons stuff at the end of class. Unfortunately my video camera would finish the 60 minute tape and turn off just as he was starting to show the weapons stuff. It just wasn't feasible to watch the camera and change to a new tape about the middle of class. But during the time, he referred to Sensei's book "Yurusu Aikido". I got out my copy and showed him there was a Japanese & English version. I told him I had read the text portion, but not paid a lot of attention to the techniques in the back. Probably this was because the techniques were still fresh in my mind. After 28 years since I left Japan, my memories have faded. After he left, I was perusing the techniques and realized Nishio Sensei has written a tech manual. This is great! It doesn't show very much tebiki (executing technique holding the weapon), but that's something I can easily put together. I have already been teaching more tebiki because it gives the students greater understanding of how to execute the empty hand and why it is done the way I show it. I hope Aikido Journal can still provide printings of this book because I plan to wear this book out just like my old Saito Sensei hardbacked "Traditional Aikido" books. This is equivalent to finding a gold mine for me.

We gave an Iaido Demonstration for the Asian Arts Festival at Bo Diddley Plaza Downtown today. The weather was the most gorgeous you could ask for. I was expecting not too many people because of the Orange and Blue football game (the gators scrimmaging against each other) and the halftime recognitions for the Gator Basketball team winning the National Championship. Nope the place had a lots of attendance. I nearly ran out of flyers and had to hold onto the final flyers so people could take photos of them. Great turnout and a good bit of interest. Our demonstration was just late at lunchtime. Tim was showing straight ahead and I was showing in profile with the addition of targets to give people a better idea of what our movements were symbolizing. Lots of people came by the table with compliments.

Last night in Iaido/Batto class we were practicing a kata that I'm calling Zen Go Giri that is similar to the Zen Go Giri in the Aiki Toho Iaido. This is a kata that Tasaburo Tokutomi Sensei would say was "proven". The kanji for Zen Go equals back and forth.
The scenario is a senior samurai, who has been captured, is being escorted by two soldiers/guards, front and back, to a leader who can accept/take the samurai's sword.
At an appropriate moment the samurai bumps the front soldier in the back causing him to stumble forward. In one deft movement the samurai draws his sword upward while stepping off the line and spinning to slash down at the soldier to the rear and then turning back to the front while raising his sword again to step and strike down at the soldier in front, who has turned around and is positioning his weapon. Both men down, the samurai is able to escape.
The probable end of the scenario without the samurai's action is that the samurai would be executed by beheading. The normal end for leaders of the losing side in ancient Japan battles. So, the best chance for the samurai is to attempt escape.
The explanation sounds simple enough, but it's not really simple. It requires precise sequence and coordination of movements to be successful. And using targets, spaced enough apart to symbolize where the guards would be, really shows the spacing the footsteps needed to be in order to catch the targets at the right distances to be effective cuts with the samurai's sword.
Normally, I lead by doing the kata with my students and they are copying my movements. I did this a number of times then started watching the students as they did it. Wow! So many mistakes show up. So, I spent the rest of the time critiquing and correcting. Very interesting evening. We all learned a lot about distancing, positioning and making the draw, coordinating of the cuts and balance. Such stuff makes me really think through what I automatically do by wrote. It really improves what I can teach.

I teach Iaido on Monday and Wednesday evenings and Saturday afternoons. First I teach Aiki Toho Iaido. As students progress, I begin to teach them other stuff as well. There are some of the older Nishio Style Iaido katas, That he said to forget. Well, I really liked those old katas and I have continued to teach a few of the older Nishio Style Iaido from before the Aiki Toho was implemented. After that, when the students have developed sufficiently, I start teaching them Batto Katas. Over the years I have developed a thin manual of Batto Katas based on the Toyama-Ryu Hon Iaido Batto that Tasaburo Tokutomi taught in his personal dojo in the village of Toyama just south of the city of Zushi on the Miura peninsula south of Yokohama. Recently we have begun expanding the number of katas and developing variations as well. This video started out as variations of the 10th kata, which I think is the most difficult to do. As it expanded it got so large It became the spirit of a different kata, so we have renumbered this and given it a scenario and a name to go with the senario.

Aikido of Gainesville Batto video This is the 19th kata we have developed as we practice more advanced concepts. Mainly we look at flow, but as the number of targets increases we need to consider that the later targets as people would

7/16/24 Monday evening, Tim and I were experimenting and developing extra kata versions for our 13th Batto kata, called SaYu Giri (left right cut). This was one I practiced in Japan with old Sensei Tasaburo Tokutomi. A true "OLD Master". I developed and we practiced 5 versions over the hour. It's not that hard, but there is a lot of different coordinations involved. It's challenging and fun if you think of the targets you are whacking as brigands (bad guys). What is even more interesting is the realization that the katas are not limiting. There is a potential to modify our 16 katas to expand to more than 50 or even more. It's going to expand our minds and reflexes in challenging new ways. Nothing boring here.