Aikido = Nage + Ukemi

The common beginners trap in Aikido is to believe that it’s all about perfecting your throws and locks. New aikidoka often overlooked the importance of taking good ukemi and instead focusing all their efforts into techniques.

Ukemi is one of the fundamentals in aikido training, we practise ukemi in every aiki taiso. It’s the earliest skill set for a new aikidoka to master. But being able to voluntarily fall and roll on the mat is vastly different from falling and rolling off of a technique from a nage. A special conditioning need to be introduced in order to be able to develop this skill.

But why is ukemi that important you might ask. Being good in taking ukemi doesn’t mean that so we can make our nage looks good. In my experience ukemi serves 2 important purpose. 1) To absorb techniques  and protect ourself from potential world of hurts. 2) To quickly recover from losing balance (falling) . These are the true function of ukemi.

Being good in ukemi can help your partner be confident and in return, improve his aikido technique. Knowing your uke able to absorb a full force nikyo is a blessing i think that every nage could appreciate. It will help them to finally realise for real that whether a form is correct.

I remember the first time a 7th dan shihan put me on nikyo, I almost instantly plante my face right in front of him. In retrospect, I had once put on a half baked kotegaeshi to a non practitioner just to demonstrate the throw. As someone who never stretch his wrist in life I’ve accidentally made his wrist swollen. And that’s  60% less intensity than what i would exert in the dojo.

What I want you to take from these experience is, how important it is to be able to take ukemi. Being able to survive the shihan technique to me is one of the highlights in my aikido career. You should always put the same amount of focus when it’s your turn to take ukemi. I vaguely remember saotome sensei used to comment that he always in his mind when taking ukemi thinking about kaeshi waza even when its not kaeshi waza training in an article. Your mind should always be aware even when taking ukemi. But that’s a different topic for another time.

*nage = someone who performs waza / throws

*aiki taiso = aikido specific stretches and warm ups

losing weight / diet change

if youre fat and you want to be thinner im going to tell you how.

*tldr: stop eating carbs (rice, bread more example? google it) stop/cut down sugar (sweet drinks, even fruits (where do you think sugar came from?)) you do this, youll get result in a week or less, if your goal is just to get less thicker, just do this and dont even bother working out.*

There, i just told you everything you need to do to be unfat. Now im going to tell you how exactly im doing it, and maybe learn from my failure or improve from my experience.

Some of you might realise that this is keto diet (from the ‘tldr’), or some other names and youre right. The way this diet works (i might be off, google it urself) is to trick your body from using your reserved fat as energy instead of draining your carbs/sugar reserve first. You see, your body natural setting is to used up all your carbs/sugar reserve before they start burning your fat for energy. So keto goal is to rectify this by cutting the sugar in your body so that your body can access and start burning your fat for energy instead.

That means, you dont have to starve like all your clueless/stupid thin friend told you to. You dont need to check your milk is of the lowest fat milk you can get. You dont even need to workout at all.. in fact sometime working out could messes up your diet.

Trust me, i know this, by heart. Because im fat too. On and off. Everytime im losing weight this is the diet im going through without me realising at that time.

The first time i start to take a step towards losing weight was in my collage years. I was busy lifting weights at that time taking advantage from the free gym membership. My goal was to get swole, functioning strength, im not going for a fuckboitoi physique im all about those strongman build.

To cut story short i met an old friend. Hes a herbalife dealer, now this is where it all begin. The way he taught me to use herbalife and the way im using it is as follows: 1. take the thing in the morning and another before going to bed (thats your breakfast and dinner) 2. eat as much and whatever you want but preferably very little rice (i skip rice and always take chicken breast) 3. drink lots of water in between 4. Cut down fat and sugar as much as possible

Needless to say it works, but i get hungry under the programme. The F1 shake (herbalife) din do shite with the hunger, i keep thinking to myself i could simply just drink something else and that would save me rm150 for the same effect! But i kept going because i dont want to waste my hard earned mara loan. So in a way it did work as a placebo effect(it doesnt).

I go fom 120ish kilo to 100ish kilo in no time with herbalife. Then collage ended, i exhausted my loan and so too my herbalife money.. and so i stop. I been using it (herbalife) for quite sometime now i need to unlearn my good habits. I use to feel guilty for eating rice but since i stop using herbalife so fuck it. so there i was back where i started a few month later my glorious kgs.

Skip forward a few years later, during my apprenticeship years. I was introduced to my boss. He were a self made thin man himself. He were the one inspires and introduce me to the keto way of life. Quite the pioneer in the dieting scene he also tries and demonstrate omad (one meals a day)  diet. With this newfound motivation i restarted my weight loss diet but this time im trying keto.

I wasnt going full in from the get go, i was a sceptic. How can you lose weight by not being miserable? i mean i can eat anything as long as it isnt carbs and sweet. i did that before, but this time i can eat whenever i wanted. I get cravings sometimes (mostly from cold something sweet drinks) but since i can have everything else whenever i wanted to, its easier to curb. I was doing weekdays only keto but if theres something unavoidable unketo consumables in the house i would just go for it(this happens sometimes).

Lo and behold a few weeks in im losing kilos. And it didnt feel like anything much (lifestyle sense). This is when it dawns to me (and pisses me off abit) i could do without herbalife and even a better experience going about losing weights. its all just about what you actually eat.

This is how it goes for me going about my half bake keto routine:
1. my lunch: a big fat chunk of chicken breast and everything i need to finish (no carbs of course)
2. my dinner: another chicken breast or whatever i can get my hands on as long as it isnt carbs.
3. saturday and sunday cheat day, but i never pig my cheat day. My idea of cheat day is just not worry what i eat.

sometimes i dont get to keto my dinner but im still losing.

The biggest challenges when changing my diet were:
1. The first look you get when youre eating out with friends, when your plate is just chicken and maybe some greens (these will stop after awhile depending on your circle dynamics)
2. No teh o ais

So there you go, that was my weight loss experience. It worked for me and i like to think that itll work for you too. If youre 100% fat malay and 100% human, im 98% sure it will work. The hardest part about this diet is giving up sweet drinks imho. If you already figured that out id say you already got a good head start. So good luck. For a long time fatmen reading out there, you owe it to yourself once… just once to see how you looked like as a thinman.

aiki rant (atemi drill)

A brief introduction of the author of this article. i’ve been studying aikido on an off (more off than on) for the past 17 years. Although most of the time were spent ‘off the mats’, my actual ‘on the mats’ were just about 5 years. That’s 2 years in sm teknik gombak, 1 month in maa brickfields (in college), and 3 years in myaikido bangi. Although I wasn’t physically active between those years from my high school through my adulthood, I had always been a fan of aikido. When i’m not able to practise, I made it a hobby to watch and read about it on the internet. My opinion on this matter might differ from my current views as I discover more about the ‘way’. So please, do not hold me for what i’m about to rant XD. My goal is to share, discuss and improve upon of which that could be improve. Any argument is welcome.

I want to talk all about atemi practise in aikido dojo.

What has always been attracted me towards aikido was the idea of using minimal physical efforts to put my opponent in place. As I learn more about aikido waza, i found out that a big part of making the waza work was the ‘atemi’. Atemi is what made aikido waza possible as it leads you towards kuzushi, without atemi you could not get the waza to work and that would make your waza forceful and sometimes impossible. In other words, if you cant get kuzushi in a few milliseconds into the waza, then forget about it.

In shorts, atemi is an extremely important tool in aikido technique. Coming to one of the important points in this article. How do we practise atemi safely?

‘Atemi’ is essentially a painful but non fatal strikes towards the opponent body. An effective atemi should be distracting enough to break the opponent balance so that aikido technique can be performed. But how does one practise atemi without actually damaging ones uke?

I cant remember when, but in the course of my training I picked up ‘flinching’ in practise along the way. I remember when my nage just let loose his atemi and caught my face. I’ve been treating atemis directed to my face as a full on strikes ever since. In my opinion, tanking/deflecting atemis in a normal practise isnt necessary. You should cover yourself from atemis, but give the kuzushi. And for the nage, you should make contact with your atemi but it isnt necessary to hit your uke with full force. Just enough to tell your uke ‘hey I can pluck your eyes from here if im being really strong and fast, please give kuzushi’.

Whats the point of tanking/deflecting your nage atemi unless you trying to tell him to hit you somewhere else where it hurts? were not practising painful punches and kicks. Thoughts?

*waza = technique, kuzushi = breaking of balance, atemi = strike(s)

of comics and malaysian religious lecture

if youre an avid religious lectures and by any chance are also fans of stand up comics, you might catch some glimpse of what im about to rant.

you see im the type of hobo that likes to make logical connection to just about everything. after all whats a hobo to do besides hoboing his day away. being a liberal muslim in every sense of the word i enjoy the best in both world.

if you ever wondered why, despite every tv show games in malaysia featuring comedians, why do we have so short lived comedians. our comedians could not sustain their career living off their acts alone. thus you see them all over malaysia performing slapstick on private events and some lucky few would host some shitty tv show.

beside the fact that the nature of slapstick comedy gets old really quick. i want to share the blame with the rest of malaysian population and of course the malaysian government for a very apparent reason.

malaysian audience aught to be blame for having such a low taste in comedy. you know youre in a retard hospital when every audience in the room can only laughs at fart jokes. not saying that its low to laugh at 1 or 2 fart jokes. but if youre still laughing after 10, then m8… theres something wrong with you. earth hour brb.

the beginning

hi, and welcome to my first ever official host of a new brand of cancer on this forsaken corner of the internet.

if youve somehow stumble upon  this page youre probably erratically making your way to hit that back button asap just about now.

but if youre still reading, what the fuck are you doing here?

very well then i guess youre bored as much as i am at this very moment. listen me rant then.

this has got to be one of the most popular grief being a malaysian ever.. why is our local made drama and movies is all about the same shit since time immemorial?

malaysian tv shows can be dissected into 1 part. but being generous i give you 3. god it doesnt feel right ranting this in ingrish:

1: the date

2: dato’,datin, uber successful real estate and other vague business

3: Sharnaaz Ahmad bald head

thats it people, almost 50 years in the business and this all we got to show to our kids. i think half of our craft dies when p.ramlee drew his last breath.

instead of making this post an utter cesspool of diss that never helped anyone with anything.. i guess ill make a checklist of what not to do in a flick that our local numbnuts keep getting it not right.

unrelatable character

who are these husk of a character who talks and shit unlike any real human being on planet earth. why does evil character has to be comically evil for no real reason, heck even jeoffrey in game of thrones is justifiable to a degree. unless the plot doesnt include lazor sword and actually trying to immitate real life

dialogue that doesnt oozes out off Haslam’s high fantasy universe

ok, this has been a lot better for some good yrs now. but still shitty tho. no one ever talks like any of those tv3 5pm drama. its like whoever wrote that shit never talk to a real person ever.

dumass plot

if u havent notice, im pretty sure we have world class plot that could make any telegu director cringe out of their ass. at least when them indians did it they all knew it wasnt serious.

hollywood culture tryhards

this has got to be my all time favourite cringe in any malay made flicks. most of the scene you see in malay flicks feels sooo out of touch, its most probably because the directors usually were heavily inspired by b class hollywood movie. its bad enough that the plot naturally sux by itself, now combine that with a director that heavily inspired by american pie and the likes. and thats when you get a piece of cow diarrhea like ali setan remake and all haslam’s family flicks.

theres more.. alot more im just tired writing about em atm. brb.