Shikko Knee Walking

Shikko Knee Walking is an exercise done in Aikido right from the early stages, so students get used to moving around on their knees and eventually being able to fight from that position too.

Virginia Mayhew Bailey, my first Aikido teacher, used to call Shikko knee walking 'The Samurai Walk'; and I didn't even know it was called Shikko until I learned a different style of Aikido more than ten years afterwards.

The idea of Shikko knee walking comes from the Samurai days of feudal Japan, where Samurai would move around indoors using their Shikko Walking fo they didn't stand up while they were indoors and in the presence of their boss. To do so would have been a breach of etiquette (bad manners, disrespect).

And yet these Samurai still had to function as warriors and bodyguards. They had to fight, if necessary, from the Seiza kneeling position... the way martial arts students sit while kneeling at the edge of the mats in the Dojo.

The kneeling techniques of Tomiki style Aikido are called the Koryu Katas, and are practised at black-belt level; not by beginning students (who are still learning their Shikko knee walking and basic Aikido moves).

Shikko knee walking takes a whole lot of swiveling from the hips and has a tendency to burn or rub skin from off your kneecaps. It's probably another good reason that the Japanese Samurai wore a thick Hakama (split trouser/shirt) on top of their white cotton pants, but I can't prove it. :-)

As you practise week after week, you learn to keep good posture, to move backwards as well as forwards, and eventually you learn how to defend against an attacker who is kneeling or standing, while you are in Seiza.

This is what Shikko knee walking - the Samurai Walk - is all about.