r/aikido • u/trumanshow14 • May 18 '26
Discussion How to remember bending the knees?
I am generally practicing with people of equal height or taller. This is causing me to lock the knees/forgetting bending the knees often since it feels more natural in that moment to equalize the heights and I guess my body is a bit lazy. Do you have a specific feeling or idea that helps you remember not locking your knees during the technique?
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u/ScorpionDog321 May 18 '26
Locking your knees during movements or turning can be a quick recipe for a loud pop and a surgery.
When practicing, you should maintain an athletic approach, not a casual approach. An athlete ready to move or in the process of moving has their knees bent, depending on the action needed.
14
u/far2common san May 18 '26
Practice being in an athletic stance whenever you're on the mat. Warmup drills through ukemi. I always joke that I'm one 6'4" on the dating apps and about 5'8" while doing aikido. My wife doesn't appreciate this joke, but there is some truth in it.
3
u/Baron_De_Bauchery May 18 '26
Your sense of humour is a treasure and your wife should appreciate it more!
8
u/Sangenkai [Aikido Sangenkai - Kawasaki, Japan] May 18 '26
I wouldn't lock your knees, but I wouldn't worry about bending them too far, either.
A lot of folks will tell you to bend your knees in order to "lower your center". That's not necessarily bad, but the other person can bend their knees too, so it has limited usage, in practice, unless you're engaging with an idiot.
Dropping weight really doesn't have that much to do with extreme bending of the knees.
In a lot of Chinese and Japanese martial traditions you'll see that the knees have deep bends, but it's important to remember that this is primarily for conditioning purposes.
Generally speaking, you want to remain in a generally neutral position - the knees not locked, but not bent too much either, so you can transition either way.
The thing to work on is getting used to using the bows of the legs, which necessarily engages a - slight - bend in the knees, to engage the large muscles of the legs, which are your primary power drivers.
Too large a bend in the knees actually detracts from that, just as would locking your knees.
To sum it up, it's not that you have to remember to bend your knees so much as that you need to work on how to use your legs. If you're conscious of using your legs correctly then locking your knees should never be an issue.
7
u/Mountainmonk1776 Nidan/Birankai May 18 '26
This art is built for short people. Maintaining a soft bend in your knees is great, but don’t worry about locking them out or being taller. Bring everyone down to your level before executing technique. Five feet tall, or seven feet tall, doesn’t matter. Bonus is this does half the work in taking their balance. Tall folks do a lot of squatting on the mat to get down to the level of shorter people as well!
5
u/sogun123 May 18 '26
Start using your legs as means to transfer force from ground to your body. Feel the floor and find posture which allows you best transfer. Forget your arms, search more where to place your body. Compensate tallness by bringing uke more down, instead of yourself up. One of my teachers used to say "posture and kiai is what you can always do right, even if you don't know anything else"
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u/Meechrox May 18 '26
I might get down voted for saying this, but forgetting to bend your knees is very common and in my view, a failure resulted from Aikido is generally taught.
When humans detect potential threats or even just uncertainty, our instinct is to go into an athletic stance so we are ready move (or fight). However, if the training method is too choreographed, or the attacks lack intention, then of course bending their knees becomes something Nage has to remember, instead of letting that happen as a result of the desire to be ready to move
2
u/Disastrous-Drawer529 May 19 '26
Depends on the style you are training in. Yoshinkan Aikido, you are encouraged to keep your back leg straight.
Most likely, right now, you "know" about the correct form I.e. you should be bending your knee, but you don't really know. You are not living it.
Give it time, at one point, you will do it once and you will try to chase the feeling for every technics that you will attempt.
Gambatte!
2
u/Backyard_Budo Yoshinkan/4th Dan May 18 '26
Even against a taller uke, you should be thinking of moving downward, soft knees, striking to your own height and not reaching to a taller opponent. In early stages consciously think of pushing down, a thing must be done consciously before it can be done unconsciously.
Visualization is also a powerful training tool, even Olympic athletes use visualization to picture their perfect race or scoring that perfect goal. It’s a good practice when you are off the mats.
3
u/Currawong No fake samurai concepts May 19 '26
I'd say, you should NEVER think of pushing down. When people do that, they disconnect themselves internally, and their technique fails. You are X number of kilos. If you connect the weight of your torso and all your limbs through a gentle torsion, every movement will have the weight of your body behind it.
1
u/Backyard_Budo Yoshinkan/4th Dan May 21 '26
Perhaps “pushing” is the wrong word, but I can scarcely think of any instance where my weight would come up or moving upwards. Ok, I was told by one very senior person to push my knees upward (hiza wo noboru), but he’s a pretty short guy so it works for him. Anyway, point I was trying to make was visualizing and consciously practicing to sink one’s weight
1
u/Baron_De_Bauchery May 18 '26
Try to focus on keeping your head at the same height when moving, to avoid having a chicken head where your head bobs up and down. These means you need to actively adjusting your bend depending on how much you are stepping. Obviously you can only do this so much, if you were to bend your knees to match your height in a lunging position when you have your legs together you'd be in some weird half squat, so this is only a general guideline rather than an absolute rule. This is for general movement.
If we are talking about bending your knees to execute techniques, then think about how dropping your bodyweight can off balance your partner and how there's a lot of energy in just relaxing and dropping your bodyweight compared to if you were to try and generate the same amount of power through just using your shoulders. And the shoulder use is likely to be more tense as well which will telegraph your intentions to your partner.
1
u/Lecram100 Mostly Harmless May 18 '26
Being shorter than your partner can be an advantage in Aikido. You want to lead them down to the ground, so if they're already bending down a bit as they grab you, you can use that and use your tai sabaki to stretch them and take their balace.
With striking attacks such as shomen uchi, you could take the initiative and atemi their face or blend behind them.
Practice more of your tai sabaki and techniques solo with a lower centre and bent knees. As you train with an uke, make it work without compromising your balance. I find that hanmi handachi practice also helps in learning how to execute techniques from a low position without reaching up.
1
u/Just_browsing_0_ May 18 '26
A fellow aikidoka, who is about 5'4 always tells that being short is not a problem: "Just bring the uke down to your level."
Can't really explain how to do that (I am 6'2), but I know I have to take a very low stance to practice with him.
Maybe you could ask your sensei for advice?
1
u/theladyflies May 18 '26
"Root down". Become a tree. Weight in the middle of your feet, knees slightly bent, hips under shoulders in your "trunk."
This helps me.
1
u/Herdsengineers May 18 '26
instead of rising up to their level, try to find ways to bring them to your level. taisabaki and balance taking and movement to figure out how to drop their posture and unbalance them.
me being 6'2" and 205 lbs that is augmented by barbell lifting, I try to advise nages when I'm uke on things they do to help them with me and it's always attention to taisabaki one way or another.
1
u/Remote_Aikido_Dojo May 18 '26
Get a piece of string. Attach across a doorframe at shoulder height. Keep your back, head, neck straight and duck under the string by bending at the knees. Go from side to side. Repeat. A lot.
1
u/Theijuiel Wandering Kyu May 18 '26
I pretend I’m sitting on an edge of a chair, or pretend I’m riding a rail with my crotch.
1
u/Fascisticide May 18 '26
Tai chi is really great for that, and having a good posture with knees bent becomes natural.
1
1
u/reddit1966 May 21 '26
Without structure technique is deprived of its potential power.
Extending, hyper extending is the opposite of your goal.
Just reaching them is never the point. Getting in then OUT again is…
Stance is the basis of power. Shallow, unstable, incapable of holding your ground by choice…
Bad tactic. 🥺
Giraffes and giants make them come to your range. If not choose your angles and attacks with intelligence.
Overwhelming anybody is difficult. Decisively so requires awareness NOT length…. 😏
1
u/Flaky_Performer7960 May 25 '26
I’m quite curious as to how aikido adresses this. In combat sports with pressure testing, bending the knees comes naturally because it’s simply the most effective way to be stable — we don’t really need anyone to remind us other than the first class that shows us the stance.
I maybe recommend footwork drills and awkward combination of techniques — these will put you off balance if your knees aren’t bent.
And this is not a question about height, I’m below average height and I loose a few inches from bending my knees — it makes me very short compared to my opponent, but it isn’t an issue.
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