Yesterday's practice also had me thinking about kata. Aikido has sort of a weird relationship with kata: the founder reportedly barely used any in his teaching--every technique a dynamic expression of aiki, and never the same twice--but most of the second generation seemed to settle on and mostly standardize kata for teaching. A lot of people outside Japan don't seem to recognize what they're doing as kata at all, since they think that's only those long sequences that they do in karate or chinese styles. And, in any case, the history of aikido is too short for us to really find a successful pedagogy.

But, so, kata: I think most people's understanding of kata in aikido is something like this: Each kata is a fixed attack and a fixed throw, and then we further break the throw into omote and ura versions. So if we're doing shomen uchi ikkyo, uke will attack shomen, and then nage will do ikkyo, and... there's the kata. done. But there's a lot of confusion over what uke does while nage is doing ikkyo. There are three categories of behavior that I've seen: After nage connects to uke's arm,

1. uke just kind of goes limp and gets pulled through the rest of the throw.
   
2. uke decides they don't want to be thrown (or that a "realistic attacker" wouldn't want to) and goes rigid or starts trying to pull away.
3. uke continues to push toward nage, maintaining the connection.
   

Now, I like choice (3) best, both as uke and as nage, because it makes the practice go smoothly, and, I think, teaches nage what sort of attacking energy "fits" with the technique. (2) often gets presented as the most realistic because it's not compliant, but that's weird, too: who grabs somebody's arm with the sole objective of not getting thrown? That's a pretty passive-aggressive way to start a fight. And (1) is clearly not so good--nage gets the experience of seeing somebody go clattering to the ground, but not much else. The problem is that most techniques (other than kokyu-ho and kokyu-nage) are more complicated than just an attack and response; uke also responds to nage's technique. So when we tell people "this kata is shomen uchi ikkyo", everybody comes up with a different idea of what to do.

So, how can we use kata better?

A few other thoughts:

• The traditional style of kata makes uchidachi the teaching rule and shidachi the learning role. the uchidachi side is set up so that uchidachi's strikes are the natural response. There's also a lot of back-and-forth (I was just watching videos of Katori Shinto-ryu kenjutsu, and their katas are fifteen or twenty strikes long).
• The founder (maybe following Daito-Ryu) inverted the usual kata relationship: in aikido, the teacher takes nage and the student uke.
  

It strikes me that many of our kata in aikido can be broken into several steps. My teacher often talks about how each technique involves sabaki (body movement), kuzushi (balance-taking), and then the throw or pin. And if we think of it like this, both nage and uke have standardized actions at each step. I noticed this particularly yesterday when we were practicing a kind of yokomen uchi kokyu-nage where nage pulls uke's balance forward and then throws with a sudden push back--sort of like sumi otoshi, but not quite. I'm going to try to break this down as a multi-step kata, with nage giving actions for uke to respond to.

1. Nage presents yokomen as a target.
   Uke strikes yokomen
2. Nage steps in with atemi/block [sabaki]
   Uke continues the attack
3. Nage shifts back slightly and pulls uke's balance forward [kuzushi]
   Uke maintains the connection and extends toward nage's center
4. Nage suddenly pushes back and outward on uke's arm [nage]
   Uke falls. (Backward fall, forward roll, or breakfall, depending on the speed)
   

That's a description of the kata, for sure, but are the separate steps really separate? I think so--look at what happens if uke doesn't respond in each step.

1. There's no attack and no technique. This, too, is aikido (of a particularly easy or subtly sort).
   
2. If uke is stopped by the atemi or thinks better of his attack, there's no reason to continue. Nage is undefeated, and hopefully (depending on your preferences in atemi) uke is unhurt.
   
3. If uke doesn't maintain a strong push toward nage, he's just going to fall. The technique is the more standard sort of yokomen uchi kokyu-nage. Only a connection directly toward nage's center demands any response at all.
   
4. Of course, if uke doesn't take a good fall he's going to take a bad one. So this response is also pretty important for the completion of the kata.
   

Notice also that uke is learning something at every step:

1. How to see an opening. I notice that when my teacher is demonstrating, sometimes he has to physically grab uke and guide them into the correct attack; sometimes he just has to tell them which one to do; and sometimes his uke can figure it out from his positioning.
   Also, how to attack properly. A weak or poorly-aimed strike doesn't need a response.
2. How to reorient after the attack. If uke doesn't turn to face nage, there's no need to pull him off balance, because there's no attack any more.
3. How to feel a connection and move forward with it. If the connection is lost, maybe nage didn't do a good job with kuzushi, but in any case it doesn't matter since the engagement is over.
4. How to fall.
   

I'm far from learning actual counters or henka-waza, but even at my level this sort of breakdown seems quite useful. I'm going to try to think about other kata in the same way.