In Search of Efficiency Part Fourteen: Bone Slaving
This is a principle I truly enjoy. I do not do Aikido but from my outside perspective when they talk about blending bone slaving becomes an important part of that.
We have all seen Aikido where they use empty space to avoid the attack and begin to merge their movement with the Aggressor’s and then they reverse direction either taking the Aggressor with them or ending the Aggressor’s movement by having them run into a body part.
When the Aikidoka reverses and takes the Aggressor with them then, I believe, they are using the principle of bone slaving.
When we use the principle of bone slaving then we make their bones, their skeleton, our bones, our skeleton into ONE STRUCTURE so that when we move our skeleton theirs’ is moved too.
In my book on knife defence “Watch Out For The Pointy End” bone slaving is used many times but is highlighted in the tool call the Clamp. The Clamp closes your forearm bones onto the bones of the Aggressor making them part of your structure and, therefore, easily manipulated.
The thought of connecting your bones to theirs is important and one that is needed to make this principle as effective as it can be.
If someone grabs your wrist pressing flesh on flesh there is actually a lot of wiggle room left because you can move your bones within that grasp.
Try it out. Grab someone by their wrist as you normally might and see if they can think of moving the bones of their arm within that grab.
Now grab them, not to squeeze any tighter, but thinking of connecting the bones of your hand right to the bones of their wrist. Now see if they feel they have the same room.
The most effective bone slaving comes using this thought of connecting the bones of your arm or whatever to the limb or part of the Aggressor you want to control.
It is important to think of the connection rather than to simply think of squeezing tighter.
I find how you think can change what you do.
Try it out when applying locks such as arm bars or anytime you want to get a hold of the Aggressor to manipulate their balance and structure.