Aikido Sankyo Rear Wrist Grab Defense

Series Summary

Aikido, the modern Japanese martial art, was developed between the 1920s and 1960s and emphasizes the spiritual and philosophical development of its students. This development of spirituality and philosophical belief is directly derived from Shinto and Buddhism. The name “aikido” comes directly from three Japanese characters that stand for “matching,” “spirit,” and “way.” Aikido is meant to distract or immobilize, not kill or permanently damage the attacker. Aikido fighters are thus demonstrating an effective but merciful response. Ueshiba (the Great Teacher of Aikido) declared “To control aggression without inflicting injury is the Art of Peace.”

In this series of videos, see an expert demonstrate aikido moves, strikes, throws, locks, and drops. Practice with our expert as he shows you how to do an arm lock. Take it a step further and learn an arm lock throw. Then, challenge yourself and learn more about the wrist lock twist defense. This expert is a black belt in Aikido and will not lead you astray. You’ll learn many self defense tips for practical everyday situations.

Video Transcript

"This is going to be Sankyo, or fourth wrist control, a wrist locking technique. We're going to do this from two hands grabbed behind the back, also known as yoshuro kubitore. As with so many of our techniques from Yoshuro, we want to lower our center, and we're going to roll our hands in towards our center. This is where our power is at, I begin to steal Daniel's balance here. I'm going to come up and I'm going to start to feed myself underneath this; as I do that, with my hand here, I'm going to trap the knife edge of his hand, the pinkie side. I'm going to begin to twist this in towards him, it's going to start getting nice and tight. Now with my free hand now, I come in as if I was going to shake his hand. So my hand closest to him, the inside hand is at the top. My outside hand is in a handshaking position. I'm going to keep this fairly close to my center and down, and I'm going to turn this with my entire body up and towards him. This torquing motion is very painful and helps break his balance. Once I have the torque and the pain, I have his center as well. Now to take him down, I'm simply going to cut this like a sword to the ground. Let's do that one more time. I relax, roll my hands in, get the knife edge of that hand, slip underneath, this hand is going to handshake, keep it nice and snug, and I cut the tip down like a sword. Follow the technique. That is Sankyo wrist control against two hand grab behind the back, yoshuro kubitori."