Kotsu Kotsu

I'm at Kokikai Aikido Summer Camp this weekend. I'm very happy to see people I've known for many years and to work with instructors, including Maruyama Sensei , who are able to give me advice that really applies to my body and my practice. One great nugget of teaching came early in the weekend, when Veronica Burrows Sensei , (my teacher's teacher) talked about a way of moving my arms that makes throws both softer and more powerful. It's a bit hard to explain "on paper," but I'll try. I learned in yoga that if you hold your arms over your head with your thumbs pointing towards the back of your body, and then rotate your arms so that the elbows come toward each other, you are externally rotating the shoulders. When you do this you can feel that your shoulder blades settle over your back. Most of us sit, stand and walk with our shoulders hunched i.e. internally rotated. So, as you stand normally, if you lift your arm with your shoulders externally ro...