Interview.

Continued..

Neil Hall: So do you teach chokes and strangles then?

Shane Riley: Yes, to the senior grades but not all styles of Aikido do. Also we teach a lot of Atemi. Ueshiba Sensei said that Aikido was 90% Atemi, a lot of people don't realise what strikes/atemis are used in Aikido. They are all there within the techniques, you have to rediscover them or have them pointed out to you, a lot of Aikido people only pay lip service to the atemis.

Neil Hall: Why do you train with swords, what is the relevance today?

Shane Riley: Because it is a traditional Japanese martial art, the sword is said to be the soul of the samurai.

Neil Hall: So you are not just doing this for self-defence then?

Shane Riley: No, the thing about the traditional martial arts is that I like the history and the background of it all, it is a living history.

Neil Hall: You are not likely to be attacked by someone with a sword nowadays.

Shane Riley: No, but practicing with it helps you to learn your fighting distance and also your concentration if you use a sharp sword. Obviously we don't hack away with it, it is all controlled, but when you face someone with a 3ft sharp blade, it focuses things pretty quickly. From Shodan in our association, you have to do certain things with a live blade.

Neil Hall: So there would be an element of fear?

Shane Riley: Yes, although we train with control, there is always a risk. Also we train with live knives as soon as the student feels comfortable with that. I don't pretend to teach 'knife fighting', I teach within the syllabus of Aikido, which creates body movement and awareness and trying to 'read' somebody.

Neil Hall: Do Aikido knife defences work?

Shane Riley: The traditional ones, a lot of them are in my opinion too long winded. You have to condense your body movement. It also depends how good the attacker with the knife is, and how good you are with your Aikido as an individual. It is the same with all martial arts, you might get two students who have both trained for twenty years and very technically proficient yet one is very clued up and streetwise and his mate isn't.

Neil Hall: What about a frenzied slashing attack as opposed to a more traditional thrust/slash attack?

Shane Riley: It is very difficult, again body movement comes into it, close them down, use the ma' ai, don't let the attack develop. Can the environment you are in help you in your defence, tools to pick up, obstacles etc? We teach the lower grades more traditional defences so that they get a feel and basic understanding of the knife. Later we encourage them to learn to close the attacker down. I am no knife-fighting expert but I have disarmed two attackers with knives over the years. One was with kote Gaeshi (outer wrist throw). I just cut his arm into his body and it fell into my hands, I don't mean the knife I mean the technique. At first I didn't know that he had a knife, we were very close, as I said, I jammed his arm against him, we were shoulder to shoulder and I automatically had his wrist and did kote Gaeshi and took the knife off him.

Neil Hall: So he was really having a good go at you then?

Shane Riley: Yes, it frightened me to death, I'll tell you. You don't know until you realise it is a knife how frightening it really is. Everyone at some time in their life has been cut either accidentally or not and we associate the knife with pain. We have played about in the higher grades with the pen as Dave Turton promotes and yes, unless you are very lucky, you are very likely to get cut. If somebody leaps out in front of you and produces a knife you have to first move your body out of his way and readjust to see where he is going next. When someone is going wild with a knife you have to try an put something between you and them. Also the jamming techniques work very well.

Neil Hall: Was that when you were on the doors?

Shane Riley: No, this was when I was a young lad. I was once attacked by a guy who had a knuckle-duster, luckily someone had told me about it as they had seen him in an earlier incident that night. Anyway, someone said that this guy was coming back with the duster, I had not been doing Aikido long then, once he got there it was the usual strutting chest puffed out sort of thing, I had had more than a few beers by now, and again I jammed him. He had his arm around his back, then he came to hit me and I jammed his arm and pushed it up his back in an arm lock then I grabbed the back of his head and pushed him over a chair. The doorman came then took him out and we saw he did have a big knuckle-duster.

Neil Hall: Did you fight a lot when you were younger?

Shane Riley: When I was younger I never started any I only fought to protect myself. Young lads want to fight to prove themselves but I only ever protected myself. I didn't have a reputation as such, but people knew you did martial arts, so unfortunately, yes quite a bit. I think a lot of young blokes do don't they? One time me and a mate, John, he is a competitive body-builder now, were in a pub and ran into the local hard man. There were three of us, me John and a lad called Steve, who didn't do Karate. We were getting a bit giddy wanting some aftertime drinking when this guy told us to calm down. We had just got our first Dans in Karate and thought we were a bit handy. He told us he would take us all outside. When we got outside we were all in a line, we realised it was serious, anyway next it was like something out of a cartoon, he went bang one way across our faces with the flat of his hand and backhand the other way and that was it, then he said ' are you going to calm down and come back inside', which we did. It was good really. You need that sometimes when you think you are a bit good, you need putting back in your place. He was a seasoned 'old hand', a proper street fighter, he'd been a gaffer on the tyne tunnels, he was a real bloke. He didn't do it with any malice, he was ok afterwards, it was good to be taken down a peg or two.

Neil Hall: So are you convinced then that arm locks work?

Shane Riley: Oh yeah, obviously they have to be applied within the feel of the technique, I mean, if I went up to even a small guy and tried to put an arm/wrist lock on from cold, it wouldn't work, it would have to be within the movement whether it is a grappling attack or whatever. You could also line someone up with a pre-emptive strike. A lot of people don't know what you are going to do; it gives a surprise factor. It is the same with most martial arts. Don't forget Aikido is also about strikes and body movement, not just arm locks. Locks in the right place definitely work. The Police I teach control and restraint, they have to be seen to be doing a standardised way of dealing with people, they can't just go up and slap somebody and get away with it. This is also why the doormen come to me, with the advent of CCTV. A lot of them are handy lads, you feel like you're trying to show them how to suck eggs, but it is a different thing when you have to remove or deal with someone without banging them about. Also, I try to teach them to work as a team or in pairs. So if we were a pair and I went for an arm/wrist on one side you would know what I was doing and you would take the other arm and stop him swinging at me with it.

Neil Hall: Do you think it is more difficult for non-aggressive people to come into martial arts to learn effective self-defence?

Shane Riley: I think it is a bit yes. Perhaps aggressive is not the right word as it is looked upon as un-controlled, but aggression can be channelled. I'm not saying they can't learn, of course they can, but it does come more naturally to some than others, people who may have already had certain experiences and perhaps developed either a fighting spirit or a determination already. Teaching spirit or 'bottle' is very hard, you could know all the techniques in the world but if your spirit goes you have nothing. Good spirit is everything.

Continued Next Page..

Back to Last page..