Unsoku

Where to begin? The first thing to under­stand is that, to a large degree:

Unsoku is Taido.

Unsoku is the pri­mary tech­nique of Taido. We have a lot of flashy kicks that are quite inge­nious, but unsoku tops them all. Most mar­tial arts have stances and tech­niques. Taido intro­duces unsoku as a link­ing prin­ci­ple to allow the inter­jec­tion of strat­egy on a higher level.

The foot­work that makes up Taido’s unsoku is what allows the tech­niques to be effec­tive — it facil­i­tates the move­ments. However, we have to be care­ful not to cre­ate a false sep­a­ra­tion between unsoku and tech­nique. In appli­ca­tion, they are func­tion­ally linked, and this is one of the things that makes Taido unique.

Articles on Unsoku

I have bro­ken up what used to be one mas­sive arti­cle into a few smaller chunks. Each of the links below cov­ers unsoku from a dif­fer­ent angle.

• Technical Notes — Key points for per­form­ing the eight basic movements.
• Translations — The names of the unsoku steps are Japanese words — you may be inter­ested to know what they mean.
• Routines and Patterns — Standard rou­tines for unsoku practice.
• Movement Notes — Some gen­eral tips for improv­ing your unsoku.
• Unsoku and Unshin Drills — Some drills on apply­ing unsoku for jissen.

Taido Practice is Unsoku Practice

Unsoku is very impor­tant in Taido. You will hear many peo­ple say this, but few peo­ple totally under­stand how to use it (myself included). The only way to come by this under­stand­ing is through cor­rect prac­tice — every­one always needs more prac­tice on unsoku. Since only per­fect prac­tice actu­ally makes per­fect, we must prac­tice unsoku per­fectly — while think­ing about how to apply it.