Tegumi

A basic translation of tegumi refers to grappling hands. In martial arts the best way to describe tegumi is as a two person practise. 

These partner practice drills called tegumi futari- geiko (Te = hand or hands. Amongst its many interpretations gumi means to unite, cooperate, and grapple. In this context Tegumi refers to trapping and grappling with ones hands. Futari-geiko means contineous practice or flow drills.), as one of its main forms of training. 

Practice, of this nature, incorporates the reenactment of realistic attacks, i.e. chokes, grabs, bear hugs, etc., and a corresponding defense from both a standing position, called tachi-waza, and from the ground, called ne-waza with partners alternate roles between active and passive, attacker and defender. 

Through the practice of tegumi, the meanings and principles of the movements and postures (defensive composites), integrated within kata, are revealed to the learner.

When practicing tegumi the learners apply various methods of stomping and kicking with the feet, checking, trapping, hooking and deflecting with the forearms and hands, bumping with the body, grappling, joint locking and striking the vital points with the knuckles, fingertips, etc., in a "continuous flowing" motion using relatively short drills consisting of defensive composites extracted from traditional kata. 

Concentrating on a limited sequence of movements enables the learner to become accustomed to the feel of the drill quite quickly and allows techniques to become a reflexive action. 

In this respect, tegumi training is vitally important because in an actual self-defense situation it is important that the execution of techniques is intuitive and automatic, i.e. made on the basis of reflexes; this reflexive response comes from numerous repetitions of tegumi drills.