Goshu-Ryu SunCoast

As I sit on this flight from Australia to Japan with anticipation for what the GRAJJ 2^nd Japan Tour will bring, I thought I’d utilise the 9 hour flight to pen this article. I want to share this sentiment with you as we move into another year of training, and perhaps provoke a thought that might sustain your training in 2026. I hope you enjoy it!

Master Gozo Shioda was reported many times to have said that Aiki is not a sport, it is budo, meaning, that either you down your opponent or they will down you. There are no rules and there are no excuses that can be made if you are defeated in any particular way – no complaining about a rule, a slip or a technique – either you down your opponent or he/she downs you! Full stop. The aim of Aiki, according to Master Gozo Shioda, is simple: “to defeat your opponent. Exactly how he is defeated is irrelevant” (Shioda, 2002, p.19). Furthermore, Master Gozo Shioda writes in his book Aikido Shugyo about how his teacher, Master Ueshiba Morihei (O’Sensei) would exclaim that in real combat, fights are decided in an instant. This is why our techniques are often instantaneous and final, and why we must train with such a martial mindset even though our partner in the dojo is our friend – we don’t want to hurt each other, but our mindset should be one of authentic attack and spirited response with correct timing. That said, we always qualify this with training to our partner’s level. But unless we are maintaining this mindset and pushing each other as shite and uke, neither of the two training (uke or shite) will ever progress authentically to a level where their technique is useful, or as Master Gozo Shioda would say, “it remains empty and lacking spirit” (Ibid).

Our art is absolutely a martial art and practical in this sense if you train correct riai (fundamental principles) and make all of your body capable of atemi at any time, in any environment and under any circumstances. After all, this is why it was taught to and trained by the military in Japan prior to WWII and to the police (and Tokyo Riot Police) in the post war era. The question is how to embody these principles through kata geiko (pattern training). The answer is actually quite simple: repetition over a long period of time with the correct mindset until your body absorbs what it has felt thousands of time from practitioners of a higher standard than you – your senior training partners (sempai). It is the responsibility of the senior students in the dojo to develop those beneath them. But it is up to you to bring the correct mindset to your training every session – every session your best, despite not being at your best I every session!

At this point, many of our dojo’s senior students are becoming very adept at controlling and throwing individual opponents in a natural way – not always beautifully, but they are becoming natural enough to say that they would be useful in a real situation if someone was attempting to truly hurt you or someone you care about (with or without a weapon). However, as I discuss above, in any confrontation, whether it be with one person or 30 people, our practitioners need to be able to employ riai (fundamental principles) into any techniques and finish their opponents quickly. In achieving this, our instantaneous attacks should contain throws and atemi (strikes) that are indistinguishable – they are applied simultaneously. In this the best judge of whether a practitioner is able to do this can be seen in Tasu Dori Jiu Waza (freestyle defence against multiple attackers). You would see this at the end of black belt gradings as its one of the features of our art that makes it so effective and unique. But as a student body we have some work to do on this…

In Tasu Dori, the practitioner does not have time to think and can’t employ the long-winded joint locking techniques that we practice against individual opponents. In Tasu Dori we must employ the riai – concentrated power; centreline power; breath power (timing) – in an instant to down an opponent with atemi and/or instantaneous throws.

Therefore, I want to challenge the senior black belts to focus on this in 2026. Once the basic tasu dori movement principle is achieved and evasion is understood through lining up your attackers one-by-one, you must employ atemi and instantaneous throws to be authentic in a situation such as this. This means, you will need to practice endlessly only a few techniques (eg. irimi zuki; irimi otoshi; sadori; kokyu nage) with a focus on the riai. Without really applying the fundamental principles within these techniques, they won’t work, they will be empty, ineffective to uke attacks, perhaps even look fake (if uke aren’t attacking with vigour), and/or you will feel pressured, out of time and overwhelmed by the multiple attacks. In essence, it will be nothing more than a dance.

So, seniors, look to the riai in 2026 for answers to questions of efficacy in tasu dori. If you are stuck wondering how to access the riai, go back to the kihon dosa (basic movements) for centre line development and spend plenty of time practicing jiu waza for kokyu timing and focussed power development – practice these diligently before and after class as these are the gateway to acquiring this understanding. And juniors, the riai can only be understood through the diligent practice of the kihon dosa – basic movements. These are the powerhouse generators of the riai. So keep looking to understand how centre line power is developed through kamae and basic movements such as hiriki no yosei etc.; or kokyu timing is developed through coordinating your breath exhalations with your attacks at the time of uke’s most vulnerable moments – jiu waza is best practice for this!; or even focussed power where you amass all your concentration and kinetic energy into one point while delivering a blow or throw through the coordination of the other fundamental principles.

At the end of the day, the syllabus techniques are simply a vehicle to learn these principles – this is fundamentally what our martial art is: a collection of principles embodied over time through the repetitive practice of the waza (a set of forms/techniques designed as a vehicle) in order to develop the aiki body that expresses these principles in every movement one makes. This is ‘aiki’. Once you embody these principles, there are no actual techniques anymore, as all movement just becomes ‘aiki’ and can be employed to defeat your opponent at will, or they will ultimately defeat you!

Osu!

Ryan Slavin