My Center, Your Center, Our Center

I have a Center, You have a Center. The goal is to effect their Center while performing the technique. Sound familiar? This is what most of us have been taught.

Henry has a different perspective on this and it is based around the concept of Yin and Yang .

The black and the white sides represent the Uke and Nage. Each has a center, however during the contact a new center is realized. This new center is maintained by the Nage staying consistently extended through-out the technique, neither pulling in or over extending, but constantly maintaining the 50/50 balance of Yin and Yang.

To maintain this balance and the Center, when the Uke applies more than their 50% during the attack, the Nage cannot pull in because their 50% just went to 45% or less. They need to stay extended and maintain the center by moving their feet. Whether the move in the opposite direction or include an angle or a dip of their center, staying extended, and using their feet, keeps the 50/50 balance and the center between the two practioners.

"Stay Extended, Move Your Feet"

Sounds simple enough, right? Actually it's harder than it sounds.

Most of us have been trained to stay extended, but also most of us during the execution of the technique, find our hands or arms pulled in towards our body. This gets us bound up and not able to move when the Uke presses a little more.

What Henry tries to teach us is to stay extended through-out the technique and when Uke presses or moves forward, the Nage moves their feet to account for the pressure of the Uke moving in. This is what he  enterpreted of what O-Sensei said when he asked "Why can't we do what you do?" and O-Sensei replied "Because you don't know Yin and Yang".

Whether it's Tenchinage, Katatekosadori Kokyunage or anther technique, staying extended is a must. Moving your feet to maintain the Center between you and Uke, will allow the Technique to happen or create itself. We have all been trained to move our hands to create the technique. Henry's emphasis on staying extended, moving your feet and letting the hands alone is the hard part. We always want to still try to complete the technique with our hands, maybe because we don't trust the movement of our feet to do the job. If we just "take one more step", the technique will usually happen, but sometimes it takes a little patience.

Another quote that Henry tells us from O-Sensei is "The Movement of the Universe is expressed through you feet".

Simple enough, right?