Nikyo (Second Teaching)
二教
A wrist lock that folds the palm toward the forearm. The most acutely felt of the basic aikido controls: it works through pain, not elbow leverage.
Quick Facts
⚠️ Common Mistakes
Common mistakes: twisting the wrist sideways instead of folding it along its axis, letting the elbows drift from the body, and going too fast — nikyo needs time or the partner cannot tap.
💡 Key Tip
Keep the elbows at your body and press with the trunk, not the fingers. A nikyo done with hand strength fails against anyone stronger.
About
Nikyo, the second teaching, is a wrist lock also known in Japanese as kote mawashi, the inward turn of the wrist. The defender grips the attacker's hand so that his palm faces his own forearm and presses the elbow in toward the body; the wrist thereby bends along the axis in which it has the least range. Unlike ikkyo, which works through leverage on the extended elbow, nikyo acts directly on the wrist joint and is markedly more painful for the student. That is exactly why the art of tapping in time is taught from the very first lesson. The technique is used both standing, where the pain forces the attacker down onto his knees, and as a pin on the ground. It is applied in both forms, omote and ura, and as with the other basics what decides it is that the pressure comes from whole-body movement and from elbows kept close to the trunk, not from the strength of the fingers.