Shionage Part II - A Weapons perspective

Post date: Feb 13, 2010 12:5:35 PM

Its a poorly kept secret that aikido has its origins in weapons and weapons techniques. For the samurai the sword was a primary weapon and if you could apply those same skills to the open hand arts well there was a whole lot less to learn and a quicker path to proficiency and staying alive. 

The very act of drawing a sword stepping past your opponent and then turning to cut them is the very foundation of shionage. So if someone grabbed you to prevent a sword draw, grabbed the hand holding the weapon or any of a number of open hand attacks the movement is the same. This gives the shionage enabled samurai a very powerful movement that can be completed with confidence it will work in a variety of situations

Saito Sensei makes the relationship very clear in his sword-stick and body arts books - which are sadly out of print but available second hand if you are lucky. Couldn't find any snippets on youtube but his videos are sure to contain it.

Nishio Sensei is internationally famous for his weapons aikido fusion with senior qualification sin a number of arts outside aikido. His shionage is a little different to that of our school but the martial focus and principles are just as clear. See here in this video at 2:25 his weapons interpretation