The action that raises uke towards the sky in the shiho nage movement, by blocking the three joints of his arm on a vertical axis for a fraction of a second, is the application of the ten-chi principle.
It was Gilles Vigneault's incredible phrasing, in the rhythm of "Danse à Saint-Dilon", that made me dream of Quebec, but it is only now that I have the opportunity to visit the land of winter.
It is not the yonkyo immobilisation that is presented here, but the fourth law illustrated by the yonkyo immobilisation, which is why O Sensei is careful not to write immobilisation: 之ョ第四法ト稱ス
For a long time, I passed on the knowledge that had been taught to me, but today I pass on what I learned directly from O Sensei, by listening to and respecting what he said.
‘Concentrate force in the fingertips of the left hand to project the opponent’s right hand upwards towards his shoulder’ - O Sensei (Budō)
A rule seems to emerge which is this: for the irimi principle to be manifested, all Aiki techniques must be executed by moving in four square steps. This is the meaning of the ideogram 方 in 四方 (shiho), and shiho nage is simply an application that illustrates this general rule particularly well.
