## Partner exercises, part 1 (5)

All partner exercises happen with soutai. It is the four meter distance between two partners when facing each other. You always start and finish a partner exercise with this distance. There are different partner exercises, some are done with or without bogu.

Uchikeashi is a basic exercise for repetitive striking of men and sune. The exercise helps you to better understand your body movement, footwork, breathing technique, correct grip, distancing and so on. It can be done with or without bogu, and with or without partner (then you have an imaginary partner). Uchikeashi is done in six steps:

1. Furiage men
2. Sokumen (from the left)
3. Sokumen (from the right)
4. Sune (from the left)
5. Sune (from the right)
6. Furiage men

You can see the full exercise in the video below from 2:20 till 2:53.

Uchikeashi (2:20-2:53) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weVQnCvkXbw

Shikake-oji is partner exercise that consists out of eight prearranged movements and techniques. In this exercise, the attacker is called shikake or uchikata, and the defender is called oji or ukekata. You can see all the eight drills in the video below. In this video, the shikake is on the right side, the oji is on the left side.

Shikake-oji https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIK5BMPC-lY

Important in this shikake-oji video is the pacing is quite fast, most probably because the practioners are very experienced. If you are a beginner (like a 6th or 5th kyu), you don't need to do this exercise as quickly as they do!