Aikido Techniques

In a flash of brilliance, a friend of mine decided to put together a set of Aikido training videos.  Here are some samples from the initial trial.

In the first, you'll notice her chin tucks down to avoid a possible strangling while easily twisting the attacker's hand to loosen his grip.  The twisted arm tenses and the small force transfers up the arm through the shoulder and drives the attacker off balance.  When the attacker is off balance, a quick cut of the hand would drop him to the ground quite painfully, but the sensei, instead, gently lowers her hand to avoid causing pain while remaining in control.

I was asked if this was real.  The attacker was not intentionally trying to stab the victim (for his own safety, since slower defenses are much less painful), but the rest is real.  From the moment the attacker's hand is grabbed, he has no control.  Since this was a casual and friendly environment, the sensei did not pay much attention to control once on the ground so you'll see the attacker try to take advantage and attack with his left hand.  Any hope was short lived as the sensei simply used his right arm to block his left, then pushed the sai towards his neck.

This was clearly my best idea of the night.

These three videos may not make the final cut.

Project: Workbench

A real man needs a real work bench.  So I built one.

I was getting pretty tired of (and sore from) doing all my shop work on the floor of my garage.  At least, that's my official excuse.  In reality, I want to build a tool shed to store all the tools I need to make a tool shed.  And to build the shed, I need a proper table.  And to build a proper table, I need some tools, but more on that later.

Since my wife refuses to park on the driveway, I don't have enough room for a traditional work bench so I designed one that folds up nicely beside my car.

The structure is made of 2x4s and has a pine top.  Pine is a soft wood, but the frame was already pretty heavy so I opted for something lighter that is both easier to lift and puts less stress on the hinges.  If it becomes a problem, I may replace the top later.  I was just barely strong enough to install it alone, but once hung it's not heavy at all - the wall bares most of the weight.

The legs swing down from beneath the table.  To prevent the legs from collapsing accidentally, I use a 6' piece of dowel that sits on a couple screws.  I'm considering adding a second 2x4 to each leg to make it more stable, look a little better, and give a little bit of room between the table and the wall when it's closed.  With this extra room, I can install plywood or pegboard beneath the table for extra tool storage. This would help as my tool chest is full, possibly because of all my screwdrivers!!

I did make a few mistakes when building the table.  It's designed to sit 36" above the floor and I measured it where the floor meets the wall.  My garage floor is slanted though, presumably to help water escape and flow away from the walls.  So the back of the table was 36" off the floor, the front-right was 36.75" and the front-left was 37.75" (that's a full inch drop from right to left!).  Since the legs weren't quite long enough, I had to remove the 2x4 support on the wall and screw it in 3/4" lower to accommodate.  Just when I thought I was done!

Next, the door hinges I bought caught on the wood and prevented it from moving.  If you look at any door in your house, you'll notice that the axels of the hinges hang off the door, in the air.  In my design, there is no gap between the axel and the wood so there was a lot of friction when I screwed in the hinges.  I fixed it by installing washers between the hinge and the wood.  In the picture below, you can see the washers and a set of four holes (two of which are unused after moving the 2x4).  You can also see that the hinges don't support any weight when the table is open - it's all on the feet and the wall mount.

To smooth the table, I bought a hand-held band saw.  This turned out to be useless - it made the surface more rough than when I started - so I had to fix the sand job by hand.  Next time I'll know to ignore the advice of the Home Depot employee and use a random orbital sander.  But now I have a belt saw.

And now I can build things for real!