Jo Suburi Practice

Feb. 5, 1991

Mark J. Norton


Jo kata and kumi-jo practice forms can be broken down into units called Suburi. The suburi are simplified movements, attacks and defense with the jo. There are many jo suburi, twenty of which can have been formalized and named by Morohiro Saito. Saito sensei received personal instructuion from O-Sensei in weapons practice and is acknowledged as the leading expert of his approach and philosophy of weapon studies.

These twenty suburi (Saito's Jo Suburi) deal with thrusts (tsuki), strikes (shomenuchi), sweeps (gedan gaeshi), and defensive postures (Hasso). Together, they form a basic palette of Jo movements which can be used to develop kata or kumi forms. A large percent of the moves found in the 21 and 31 step kata are drawn from this set of moves.

Suburi represent the fundamentals of Jo practice. As such, they should be taught to beginners and practiced regularly. Once students have a basic grasp of the suburi movements, practice of all twenty does not take a significant amount of time, between 10 and 15 minutes (5 reps each). This regular practice is import because bad habits are more easily detected here than during more complicated exercises. Care should be taken to perform each form correctly, variations exist, but they should not be introduced until the student has a firm grasp of the basic move. To do otherwise can lead to bad habits.

Regular pratice cannot be over-empahized. This is in part due to the deep nature of most aikido and weapon techniques. Once the student has a good grasp of footwork and how to manipulate the jo in his hands, there is much more to learn. Speed, timing, and grace become more important in more advanced levels of training, when the students start working with others in kumi-jo exercises. Beyond this is breathing, extension, centering, leading, etc. It does not stop, there is always more to learn, more to understand.

Order of practice and naming conventions is a minor matter, but one worth mentioning. Each of Saito's Jo Suburi has a name and number. Numbers are more easily memorized by western students, but some effort should be made to teach the names of forms. One common approach is to state name and number of each technique during practice. Eventually, through repetition, these labels will become associated with the movements. When explaining a move in a kata, exercise, the suburi names should be used if possible. This tends to reinforce naming of techniques in the students mind.

In general, practicing technique in a set order is not good, unless the order is part of the technique as in kata practice. When practicing the suburi, however, running through the suburi in numerical order seems to help in the identification of techniques, without falling into the trap of habit. This can be varied by occasionally skipping a few if time is short.

There is no substitute for suburi practice guided by a competent teacher. Additional study aids can help the student to practice on his own. A sheet listing the suburi being practiced in numerical order with names provides a simple aid to jog the memory. Diagrams of the techniques are more difficult to produce, but provided a graphical description of each suburi form which beginers find quite useful. Several books are still in print which describe Jo suburi, the best being Saito's books on Aikido. Lastly, there are a number of videotapes which illustrate the jo suburi performed in motion. Videotapes can be very valuable in reinforcing technique learned in class. The slow motion facility of some players allows motion to be broken down and analyzed, which is difficult to show in class. Videotapes are not a substitute for a teacher, however and should not be used in isolation. There are good reasons for this statement. A videotape cannot guide the student when trouble arises, especially if understanding is not complete. Further, a video only captures one instance of the technique. No one moves exactly the same on every occation. It is important to see many instances of a technique to understand the acceptable range of motion, to learn where spacing may be adjusted, to see in the impact of speed, etc.

A fortress stands or falls on the strength of its foundation. A carpenter makes his reputation by the quality of his skills. So too does the martial artist build capability with the Jo (or any weapon) by master its fundamentals. These fundamentals are suburi and should be practiced diligently. They should be a standard part of the regular practice regime.