Break my hip – Kim Taylor June 19, 2017 – Re-post 19 Jun 2023

Please.

I’m speaking of jodo, specifically kuri tsuke (locking down the hands) but also the thrusts downward into suigetsu (solar plexus) or waki bara (the side of the abdomen, just above the hip. They all work to break your partner’s balance by breaking his hip.

By breaking my hip I mean breaking my stance and putting me back on my heels. I don’t mind if you push on my chest or on my legs to try to stop me, I’ll keep moving forward, but break my hip and get me to stick my butt out behind me, get me on my heels and I’m going to stop. Stop or fall over.

Now, kuri tsuke is a bit of a strange duck, I mean the way we practice it. We stop, tachi stops, then we make a sort of circle and maybe do other things to get tachi moving again and then we sort of glide into the hips. “On the street” I suspect I’d be slamming into tachi’s hands if I could, not stopping anywhere as I ram the josaki into his face and slam his sword into the ground to disarm him. In fact, we were taught that we are trying to slam the sword into the ground but tachi pulls his hands back and we both end up in the hips. Fair enough, but let’s end up in the hips and not mid-thigh OK? Where a lot of beginners end up, I don’t mind scrapes on my hands, your jo isn’t a fresh 24 grit belt moving at several hundred feet per minute. Now that’s a scrape, it’s to the bone before you can blink.

If you can’t slam the sword into the ground, if you have to go somewhere else, break my hip. Don’t waste movements, everything you do needs to be an attack on my balance. Give me space and I’ll be in before you blink. I’m looking for that space as much as I’m looking to get back on my toes if you knock me back.

The thrusts downward to suigetsu (think Rai Uchi) or waki bara (think the second thrust of Rai Uchi) also work by pinning me to the floor through my heels. Don’t think of these things as striking some sort of pain point, it doesn’t hurt until you get me on my heels. I don’t go on my heels because it hurts. There’s a difference there, appreciate it.

Break my hip, please.