Aikido technique TENCHINAGE against different attacks, by Stefan Stenudd

This is the aikido technique TENCHI NAGE (“heaven-earth-throw“), applied against some basic grab and strike attacks. It has its name from how your arms move when you make the throw: one goes up and the other down. I show both slow and fast – mainly gotai (from a static starting point), but also some jutai (moving as the attack approaches) when going faster. In most cases, there is little difference between gotai and jutai versions of tenchinage, except the timing. Tenchinage (天地投げ) is a popular technique among aikido practitioners. There is a swiftness to it, and it can be done quite fast. It’s not uncommon to do the throw so that it leads to a high forward fall (mae ukemi), but mostly I prefer to make it a backward fall (ushiro ukemi). That increases your control of the attacker, and it can be adapted to the attacker’s falling skills. I’ve written about the tenchinage technique on my website: