Aiki-Kuzushi

Back to the Mat?

I don't know. I've been considering a return to aikido training for some time now. As you can see, I haven't even posted to this blog since last June, and I've been jonesing to continue my progress.

There are several obstacles to overcome, of course - and they're not all that different from the obstacles one faces when first beginning. You have to find the right school, even if that "right" school is the same one you trained in before. You have to make room in the budget, even if it's not a huge amount. You have to re-find the time in your schedule, which has by now been taken up with other endeavors.

Certain doubts arise and fall away. What would my aikido look like after about 18 months of mat-less living? Can I still pull off a good kote-gaeshi? Could I ever pull off a good kote-gaeshi?

And what about other martial arts? Last month I wanted to check out a kung-fu school in the area, but could never find the time. What does that tell you about me? For a while I was interested in karate. To be fair, I'm still interested in karate. I absolutely love Shotokan kata. I've done (and will continue to do) a rather limited, informal study of judo and related principles in my buddy's garage. Judo fascinates me, and employs many of the same concepts as aikido (especially Tomiki aikido).

But it's clear to me that I'm not a practitioner of kung-fu; Neither am I a karateka or a judoka. I'm an aikidoka, specializing in the concepts put forth by Kenji Tomiki. And I have the time, money and ability to continue my training, but for some reason I haven't trained in a long time. I'll still do some more thinking about it, and surely won't just drop into the dojo this afternoon (other engagements anyway), but ight now I'm leaning toward going back to the same school I started in.

I've gone back and forth in my head on this. Sometimes I feel like it only makes sense to go back and continue my training there. I might not be able to simply pick up where I left off, but then that's not the goal anyway. But why wouldn't someone want to keep going in the same direction in their training? Other times I feel like I could never go back there, have nothing in common with the philosophy of the school, whatever. But at the end of the day, the net take is more positive than negative, and I still feel drawn to return, despite everything else.

So what do you think?

Update to Changes in 2011 - Here's the View from Halfway Through

Okay, so the changes that have come in 2011 have been real, but they’ve been completely different from the changes I was expecting.

For one thing, this year I’ve become much more involved in music. I’d been writing songs and playing guitars around the house for years, and back in the day I played with a few bands in South Carolina, Alaska and California, but none of that was anything serious, and all of it was a long, long time ago. In April I decided to buy some cheap used gear and get busy looking for a band who needed a bass player (bass is my weapon of choice, although I also play rhythm guitar and a little lead). Long story short, I hooked up with Outlaw Lynn and Who’s Drivin¿, and have been playing out with them.

Additional time in the dojo has not been forthcoming, with the exception of a few garage sessions, mostly in judo. I’ve done almost no aikido since leaving Shudokan last year. I did, however, get into the Shotokan karate class I mentioned below, and I attended a few classes with them, which I loved. But with the new emphasis on the band, time and other resources have been strained and maintaining a consistent class schedule has proved difficult.

I’ve continued my Buddhist practice, but training has gone the way of my martial arts training. Will probably resume that as time permits, but right now it’s just meditation and every now and then some reading or whatever. I’ve cut back my visits to the Shambhala Meditation Center too, but that’s because of what I perceived as a general lack of interest among those who were supposed to be leading the group. Just didn’t seem like an endeavor that was going anywhere (I could be wrong, and frequently am). I might sit with them this Thursday though, if time permits.

In all it’s been a hectic year so far, but I actually enjoyed the first half of 2011. Now it’s time to see what kind of trouble we can get into for the second half.

Changes in 2011

Some of the things I'm going to change starting in January:

I'm going to write more, both here and in my fiction.

I'm going to get back into Buddhist training. I intend to do as many Shambhala-related trainings as I can in 2011.

Back into the dojo, but not the same one. Continuing to take a break from aikido. I'm pretty seriously considering checking out the Shotokan karate classes going on in West Houston, or else Ryobu Kai at Houston Budokan. We'll see.

More blogging. Buddhist training will be covered at Tengu House, while MA training will be covered here. My other blogs will probably go away, as I really don't have a lot of use for them. Now that I think about it, though, maybe one covering life at the cabin would be cool. I could use LongColt for that, and post to it maybe once a month or so.

OK I guess that's about it. Will post more later. Maybe.

Mistugi Saotome and the Confusion of Spiritual Philosophy

I'm presently working my way through the 1986 book Aikido and the Harmony of Nature, by Mistugi Saotome. Now, I'm not an ASU (Aikido Schools of Ueshiba) student, but I've been kinda a fan for some years. In videos I've seen of him, Saotome shihan's technique is clean and effortless-looking, and his students are knowledgeable in their approach and powerful in their technique.

Mistugi Saotome was a personal student of the Founder, of the post-war generation, having started at the Hombu Dojo in 1955. He became an uchideshi in 1958 and began teaching his own classes at the Hombu in 1960. In 1975, after meditating on O Sensei's spirit for three days and nights, he moved to the United States and established the ASU in Washington, D.C.. Today, he's retired to Florida, but still teaches the occasional seminar. The ASU has over a hundred dojo in the United States, and several thousand students.

Of all the books I've read lately on the subject of aikido, Aikido and the Harmony of Nature is the most spiritually oriented, and the most new-age-ish. Saotome talks a lot about the Universal Life Force and how it is Love, and Love is God, and God is Universal, and Love is Universal, and how Universal Love is Harmony, Harmony is God, God is in Harmony with Universal Love, and so on. Whole chapters go on like this.

But there is a center, or rather a "centeredness" to his message, which is that the Kami, the Shinto gods to whom O Sensei prayed when he knelt before his shrine and clapped his hands, aren't necessarily different from the Christian, Jewish or Muslim God. And while he does mention that Shinto played a formative role in the development of aikido, he attributes this to the simple fact that the Founder was Japanese.

The basic point he's making is that the source and focus of Western spiritual philosophy and that of Eastern spiritual philosophy are the same, only called by different names. So aikido would look different if it'd been developed by an Irishman, for example, or a German or a Russian, but those differences would be largely superficial. The spiritual source - and thus the basis for the physical movement of aikido - remains the same.

I don't know how far I'd follow that premise. I tend to think of the different religions as having evolved from mostly different sources altogether - sources which have more to do with the worshipper than the worshippee, more to do with the devotee than with the god or philosophy itself. I don't know, of course, and I'm not going to know by the time I finish this book. It is an interesting idea, but one for another day. For right now, it's all I can do to put my feet in the right place, keep my balance and try to move my body in the right way, to effectively use my center to properly control my uke. Whether that center is governed by a god or a set of gods - or by God - is a question that will have to wait for an answer.

Aikido no Kokoro, Part 1

I believe that all serious students of any martial art should take time to study their art's origins, and if possible, the intent of their art's founders. Luckily, my sensei feels the same way. He's lately been interested in (and thereby got me interested in) a comparison between the seminal works of the founders of aikido and karate. In that spirit, I thought I'd take a moment to jot down my take on the matter. In future posts, I'll tie all this in to my recent research effort on the book Spirit of Aikido by Kisshomaru Ueshiba.

In karate we see a colorful history, some points of which are more clear than others. It looks to me like a handful of Okinawan masters were responsible for introducing what we today call karate to mainland Japan, and this introduction is largely responsible for the differences in style. In aikido, it's a little bit different.

The history of aikido is, for one thing, shorter than the history of karate. Another difference is that the early development of aikido occurred entirely within Japan, by Japanese people (karate is heavily influenced by the principles of Chinese martial arts, and further developed by Okinawans as a means of defense, in part against the Japanese). One result of this difference is that aikido includes spiritual concepts from the Japanese version of Buddhism and from Shinto. Of course, the Omoto religion, to which the founder of aikido adhered (and which is infused into the heart and soul of aikido), is entirely Japanese.

Irimi Nage - Entering the World of Entering

 

So I'm lying in bed, supposed to be sleeping, but instead I'm running through all these techniques in my head, one at a time, and looking at what I'm doing wrong (or, less frequently, what I'm doing right). Naturally, one of the techniques that pops up most often is this one. It's called irimi nage, or entering throw, and it's the technique that put Steven Seagal on the map. I thought I was pretty good at it, until recently.

Of course, we all have our own different versions of it, so that Seagal's irimi nage isn't going to look like Tissier's irimi nage, which also isn't going to look like Kato sensei's irimi nage. Unfortunately, my irimi nage looks like none of the above.

Mine looks like a one-legged man trying to dance with a bewildered stranger.

No one does it quite like me: slow and sloppy. But I'm progressing, mostly through the hard work and patience of my sensei and fellow deshi. The trick is to find someone who's willing to let you throw them over and over and over, until you're confident that you can get it right consistently - and then over and over again.

If you read my blog with any regularity, you know that I like to look back at my Tomiki training when I dig into these techniques. Except that, there's a hitch with irimi nage: Those of us with a background in what I'm calling Texas Tomiki (the Kogure/Miyake/Geis line of Tomiki Aikido) have a terminology issue. If you know it from the Aikikai, you call it "tachi-waza shomen-uchi irimi nage, ura" - but Texas Tomiki calls it "aiki nage". To address the terminology issue, according to the Aikikai lexicon, "aiki nage" is any throw wherein nage (tori, if you prefer) and uke never touch each other. The correct term for the technique we're discussing here is "irimi nage". No one seems to know where the discrepancy came from; I once asked a well-respected fifth dan in the Tomiki system what the difference was between an irimi nage and an aiki nage, and he said, "Yes."

Really, I like the Aikikai version much better - and within the many versions of the Aikikai style, I'd have to say that I like Kato Sensei's over-the-hip version best. Tissier sensei's irimi nage is similar. Watch one of the many clips of his irimi-nage on YouTube, and you'll see him throw uke over his leg, in almost a koshi nage kind of motion. Kato sensei's irimi nage is also like this, but more pronounced.

Recently I was explaining this to a friend of mine from the Tomiki school, and I decided to try it without the hip double-rotation that Kato sensei's aikido is famous for. Needless to say, it didn't work. If uke isn't super-compliant, my irimi nage isn't super-effective.

So I threw the hip in, the way I've been taught in class. It doesn't feel right. It isn't pretty. Well, it's pretty when some people do it - you know, the people in the dojo who know what they're doing. But it ain't pretty when I do it. But it works, and provided I'm doing everything else right, it sends even a non-compliant uke to the mat.

See, in order to do it Kato sensei's way, you have to create this reverse triangle in your stance, and use that to throw your hip into the technique. You end up standing there with your feet all goofy, your posture kinda bent, and your hip stuck out like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. It's counterintuitive, at first, because people aren't generally taught to stand like that in the practice of the martial arts. In ballet, maybe...

But while you're standing there feeling all wierd, uke is recovering from a particularly awkward fall. Even in the Tomiki style, wherein the throws are done with the hips as straight to the shoulders as possible, the fall is pretty hard to get used to. As in all aikido techniques, it works best when uke has overcommitted his momentum and is attacking in a full-on cavalry charge - but it can be done from a standstill.

My point here is that everyone should try to study this particular technique from as many different teachers as possible. Your techniques won't look exactly like your teacher's techniques, and of no technique is this more true than irimi nage. You have to develop it for yourself, and in order to do that, you have to steal as much as you can from as many sources as you can. The style I learned in the Tomiki system never really worked right for me; my turn was all wrong, my back and hips were out of alignment with the line of the throw - I had lots of little problems with it. But when I stopped trying to do my sensei's irimi nage and started studying the throw itself, I started to develop it. Somewhat.

I still have a long way to go, of course, but I feel like, with this technique at least, I'm on the right road.

Understand through Practice

 

As I near the end of 2009, I come to the realization of just how much time and energy I've spent talking about my practice. It's not necessarily a bad thing, of course. Comparing notes with other aikidoists, reading articles about the art (and once in a great while, writing one), and studying websites and whatever related media I can find - this is by no means a waste of time, in my opinion.

Even blogging about aikido (and whatever else I want to) has its merits. All of this is something akin to an aikido education. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. 

This evening I found myself reading and commenting on an article by Peter Goldsbury, that my sensei sent to me. The article discusses the question of whether aikido is teachable, and the author goes into a bit of detail about the Japanese education system, and how the student segment of Japanese society is structured, from a sociological viewpoint - and whether what we're doing on the mat can actually be called teaching.

So here's me, replying to my sensei's email, telling him what I think. He and I have great conversations after class sometimes, during which moments I learn a lot about the world of aikido and my place in it. He appreciates my input and respects my opinions, a priviledge I have yet to earn. But he has trained virtually every day for the past fifteen years or so, where I have trained two or three days a week for only the past four or five (and there have been long breaks in my training during that time). I don't know much about Peter Goldsbury, but I have read a lot of his articles on the Aikido Journal website. From this I can see that he quite clearly has a great deal more experience and a deeper understanding of the art than I.

So I guess here's my point. Is there such a thing as over-reading? Maybe over-commenting? Over-writing? Can an aikidoist be over-educated in aikido? I don't think so, as long as we don't allow all of that educatin' to take precedence over our mat time. But where am I supposed to draw the line? I know aikidoists who don't read anything about aikido, never participate in these discussions, and avoid blogs like anemic people avoid razors - and their aikido is far better than mine.

So at times like these, in my moments of indecision or hours of ignorance, I tend to go back to the source. And what does the source say?

In a poem, Morihei Ueshiba O-sensei said this: "Aiki cannot be exhausted by words, written or spoken. Without dabbling in idle talk, understand through practice."

From Jorge Garcia, 4dan (my sensei):

While the last statement indeed is one that the Founder said, we also have to look at what he did. Did he study, read, and comment?  Indeed he did. John Stevens reports that he constantly pored over sacred texts, countless of his students reported that he lectured about Aikido endlessly. The preface to the book, the Secrets of Aikido, rehearse one such event. Comment? Reams and reams of comments exist. I have many pictures of the Founder studying with piles of books around him. There are photos of him giving classes using visual aids no less, teaching  students who couldn't follow his teachings very well.
 
The Founder completely prohibited the use of weapons at Hombu dojo while practicing them every day at Iwama. One statement in isolation may not paint the whole picture. One thing about the Founder was his concern for efficiency. He didn't like people handling the sword and teaching others if they didn't know what they were doing. This was reported to us by Akira Tohei as the reason for that weapons policy. I suspect that the quote you cited has that feature in the light of the Founders own conduct. He didn't say that talk was idle, he said that there is such a thing as idle talk. As you know from reading my articles on our website, I am a strong believer in learning through practice and in learning by yourself. So much so, that I am probably on one extreme fringe of that view point. It's not commenting that I advocate nor talking about Aikido. In my programs, I am encouraging people to do their own study and the guides I present are helps to people who almost universally lack the background to be able to do that. I provide them a path, a way to do it but again, they must do the work and in fact, we won't force anyone to do it.
 
While practice will teach us, we must also study as the Founder did and we must read as he did as well. He was studied in the Chinese classics as well as in aspects of Buddhism and the Japanese ancient works like the Kojiki (on which he based most of his teachings).etc. Most of what he said can't even be understood apart from the resources. I believe it was idle talk, ignorant comments and study with no training that he made reference to. Think about that. I have studied his life very carefully. I think I am correct in this but if I am missing something, please share it with me.  I agree with you when you said,  "I don't think so, as long as we don't allow all of that educatin' to take precedence over our mat time." I just think that juxtapositioning it next to your first statement was sending a mixed message rather than a united one. I felt that the last statement could provide support to people with an undue bias against study and reflection by using the Founders own words in a way he may not have intended.
While I am a man with a house full of books, I train a lot more than I study. I am in the process of balancing that out somewhat. I think his comment would make more sense by paraphrasing it by saying, Without dilligent training, all talk will be idle.

Without dilligent training, all talk will be idle. Of course, my teacher's words are exactly right - I may have misstated my point - and I can attest to the fact that he is a man of deep study and vigorous training. It is  through dilligent training that we gain understanding - but not ONLY through dilligent (physical) training. We need to study the Founder's intent, or else we risk becoming aikido technicians only, as opposed to aikido practitioners. I think this is my teacher's pointObviously, it's not a bad thing to be a great technician, but one must also learn the philosophy behind what we're doing on the mat; the reasons why we do what we do. Why did the Founder move to the left during that technique? Why does Sensei turn away from the grasp instead of into it? Sometimes the answers aren't physical at all, and somethimes they are to be found in the books. After five years on the mat (I know that's not a long time, but it feels like a long time right now), I still don't understand many of the techniques we do. I may not have a firm enough grasp on the hpilosophy - the principle - behind them.

The four books I've got my nose in most right now are The Spiritual Foundations of Aikido by William Gleason (a longtime student of Saotome shihan in the ASU), Aikido and the Harmony of Nature by Mistugi Saotome shihan, The Essence of Aikido (this is a composition of the spritual teachings of the Founder, as compiled and translated by John Stevens), and Progressive Aikido: The Essential Elements by Moriteru Ueshiba (Doshu).

In The Essence of Aikido, we find 100 of the Founder's way songs (doka). The mere presence of do many writings by the Founder - as well as Stevens' comment in the book's preface that traditionally, doka written by a master have twelve levels of meaning - serves to prove my teacher's point, above. The Founder was indeed a man of letters, as well as of rigorous training.

Doka #7 is the aforementioned verse, "Understand through practice". John Stevens explains that his own translations are generally more in keeping with the spirit of the original than with the exact letter, but I believe this to be a much better translation, if you'll indulge me:

Aiki - [its mysteries]
can never be encompassed
by the brush or by the mouth.
Do not rely on words to grasp it,
attain enlightenment through practice!

Kokyu Nage: The Secret Foundation

  

You and I, as Westerners, use the term “breath” to mean…well…breath. To us, this means either the act of breathing in and out, or the air that one breathes with that act.

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The Japanese use the term differently, at least in an aikido context. “Breath” can mean timing, movement, power, the development of harmony in movement – the very essence of aikido – or, it can simply mean breath.

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In the Aikikai, there exists a category of vaguely-defined throws called kokyu nage (breath throws). Some of these throws rely on tori (nage) being able to coordinate his movement with his breathing, so that the throw actually happens on the exhale. Set-up movements, such as the initial off-balance or the first redirection, can be exaggerated in order to build up the breath for the final throw. This can add emphasis, power, oomph, to the technique. One such kokyu nage is the throw that we Tomiki stylists call sumi otoshi. We don’t emphasize the breath aspect of the throw much in Tomiki aikido, but try it some time, if you have a patient uke to work with. Build up your breath, inhaling and exhaling, until you’re ready to execute the throw. Throw on the exhale. Don’t make the throw hard, but exhale hard – and see what that does for your technique.

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Other throws in this category rely on timing, with tori moving through his set-up like a comedian, measuring his words and setting up the punch line. It’s all in the timing. Wait for it, wait for it – throw! Gyaku-gamae ate is a good example of this principle, as are some of the double releases.

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What is a kokyu nage?

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A number of Western sensei in recent years have taken to explaining the phenomenon of kokyu nage as “All the techniques that aren’t covered by other names”. This is okay, I guess, for defining the kokyu nage to beginners. But the breath throw is so much more than that. For one thing, the term “breath throw” can be used to refer to more than half of the waza taught in the Tomiki curriculum up through shodan. Counting the 17, the 16 double releases and the big 10, it can be said that 25 of the 43 techniques are classified as kokyu nage by the Aikikai.

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Ten of the seventeen techniques from the ju-nana-hon kata could be called kokyu nage:

Shomen ate*

Aigamae ate*

Gyakugamae ate

Gedan ate*

Ushiro ate

Hiki taoshi

Ude hineri

Mae otoshi

Sumi otoshi

Hiki otoshi

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Eight of the Sixteen Double Releases (Ryote-Mochi Hanasu-no-kata) are kokyu nage:

Ryote Shomen ate*

Shomen ate*

Ritsu Uki Otoshi

Gyaku Sumi Otoshi

Ushiro Ate

Mae Otoshi

Sumi Otoshi

Uki Otoshi (tatehiza)

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And seven of the Big Ten (O-Waza Ju-Pon):

Kata Otoshi

Kubi Guruma

Ude Guruma

HijiGuruma

Ushiro Ate

Ushiro Kubi Gatame

Shizumi Otoshi

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(* = could also be classified as variations of irimi nage, but that's another post)

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All of these throws, when executed in one of the Aikikai styles, would be classified as kokyu nage. Imagine this scenario: a Tomiki guy walks into an Aikikai dojo, anywhere in the world. He carries with him the above repertoire, and executes each of these 25 throws. He demonstrates the differences between an ushiro ate in the ju-nana-hon kata and an ushiro ate in the o-waza ju pon. He does only the 25 techniques listed above. At the end of his demonstration, he asks the Aikikai sensei and students which throws he has done for them. The answer is, “Kokyu nage, 25 times.”

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The development of “Breath Power”

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There are probably hundreds more techniques and variations of techniques that can fall under the same umbrella. Virtually any throw that uses primarily what the Japanese call kokyu ryoku (breath power) is eligible. As one might guess, this is the ability of the aikidoist to use the breath, in part as described above, during the execution of the technique, and is developed through a series of partner-assisted exercises called kokyu-ho (breath exercise), or kokyu-tanden-ho (breath centering exercise). These exercises, usually suwari-waza (techniques done while seated in seiza), generally involve making a good connection between uke and tori. They also involve the ability to move the attacker by use of one’s own center. This is where some schools go into “projecting your ki” and more esoteric ideas, which as it turns out aren’t as farfetched as they sound (mostly). These are simply concepts that deal with the manipulation of the energy introduced into the system by uke – that energy can be connected, built up in the center, and projected outward or toward uke’s weak direction (remember your happo-no-kuzushi).

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Strong arms (sometimes called “unbendable arm”, although that term technically refers to something else entirely) and good awareness of the relationship between the direction of your own energy and that of your attacker are a must. Use the energy in your wrists, in your hands, and in the forward part of your arms to move uke in an upward direction, locking his shoulders and upper spine in a fully-engaged (and therefore helpless) position. It’s by moving your core, your center, that you then take him to the mat, either sideways or backwards. To the untrained eye, this looks like arm strength, but has in reality nothing to do with brute force.

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In his video series, Mitsugi Saotome shihan talks about the power of the kokyu-tanden-ho as being concentrated in the middle and exploding outward in a centrifical motion. He calls this a type of universal harmony with all things. For those of us who aren’t ready for universal harmony, I suggest using a willing uke and a soft mat. I think there’s something similar to this exercise in either san kata or go kata, but I’m not sure (still kinda fuzzy on most of the koryu no kata).

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Conclusion

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It wasn’t very long ago, maybe three months or so, that I first felt what a well-executed kokyu nage can do to a man my size. In this Aikkai dojo where I’m still very new, I ran up and grabbed both the collar tapes on my training partner’s gi. He didn’t move, at least not that I could see. He didn’t make a sound. He just…how can I describe it…he settled in. He entered into a “just be here, just be part of the earth” mode, and made himself solid. So solid, in fact, that I – not having any clue what was going to happen, mind you – flew backward maybe ten feet. I was slapping the mat before I knew what was happening. This is no exaggeration at all; a dojo full of people saw it, and at least one of them will read this and keep me honest. I fell down the way people do in the movies, when they get shot at close range with a 12-guage.

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I’ve experienced kuzushi (off-balance) many times, of course, and really good musugi (blending) maybe slightly fewer. But I’d never felt anything like that first kokyu ryoku (breath power). Far from being some supernatural claim or something to be scoffed at, I’ve found it to be a very serious principle to work with in the development of my aikido. In my opinion, it’s the kokyu principle, more than anything else, that makes aikido what it is.

 

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Blue Update, 19 Sept 09:

As it turns out, kokyu nage is the technique, or category of techniques, that's giving me the most difficulty since moving over to the AikiKai in February - with the possible exception of nikyo and sankyo. One intriguing concept that I'd never thought of is this: It's not uncommon for an experienced aikidoist in this tradition to leave the idea of technique behind, and focus on feeling, movement, timing, etc.

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You see this a lot in jiyu waza, which is what Tomiki folks would call multiple attacker randori. As nage (tori) moves through his attackers, weaving between them so that none cvan get a firm grip on him, he begins throwing them one by one, without using any specific techniques. He doesn't have time for techniques, which require setup and execution. He only has time for movement within the Aiki principle. He may do what I call a shoulder-ate, which may look a bit like a sloppy guruma, but that's not the principle behind what he's doing. The principle is kokyu nage.

Just Do the Technique, Part 2

Part of the reason I wrote about this is that a recent incident reminded me of the one time (so far) that I've lost my cool on the mat (the person involved in the recent incident didn't lose his cool, he just reminded me of my own incident). Naturally, my remarks in the comments section of my last post have grown into their own post - I have some longwinded people in my lineage, so you could say I come by it honestly.

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As a newly-minted shodan, I was helping (not sure about that, but I thought I was) a young nikyu on his technique, in preparation for his ikkyu demo. He was all over the place, pushing and pulling, yanking and shoving his uke - there was very little adherence to principle. Now, mind you, this is a guy whose technique I very much admire. He was just having an off day, I guess. But as I did my best impression of Sensei, trying to correct the younger tore by standing there in my brand new hakama and telling him where he was going wrong, I wasn't getting through. I'd say, "Not so much force. Remember your basic principles. Wait for uke to recover," etc etc. And then he'd do it again, rushing the technique and having to force his way through it.

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His uke was about to quit.

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So finally I stepped in, told him to launch an attack, and showed him what he was doing. I showed him how much force he was using. And I threw the worst sumi-otoshi ever. Drove him into the mat. All involved were lucky I hadn't injured him. This was the only time I ever saw people run across the mat in that school - they were coming to see if my victim was okay. He was fine, but it took him a while to catch his breath. He looked at me with this expression of surprise, but he never said a word to me about it.

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I was able to explain it away - it was a teaching moment, no problem. I just wanted to show him what he was doing wrong. He needed to feel the waza with too much muscle to understand it.

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But none of that was true. The truth was that I'd become annoyed, angry, absorbed in the thought of teaching him a lesson because he wasn't listening to me. I had expected perfection, and had lashed out when it didn't magically appear. I'd become attached to this self-image of me as a good enough sempai, that all I'd have to do is speak, and the problem would be corrected.

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I'd turned a beautiful art form into an expression of my beginningless greed, anger and ignorance.

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A short time later, I was able to do a weeklong monastic intensive in California, and it was only then that I realized how aggressive I'd been in that episode - how close I'd been to becoming something I didn't want to revisit. Something more like that young guy I'd been, back in my Army days, when "decisive aggression" had saved the day. When the goal had been not to develop conflict resolution skills, but to develop "...the intestinal fortitude required to fight on to the Ranger objective...". For me, the whole incident was a massive step in the wrong direction.

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Some steps that might help, when we feel ourselves starting to cross that line:

 

1. Remember that we're not looking for perfection. We don't have to be movie-reel on top of our game every time. Sometimes we expect too much of ourselves, which leads us to unrealistic expectations of others - which in turn can lead to anger.

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2. Remember where we are. Some gyms, "fight clubs," and "academies" are places where it's appropriate to react with anger - but a dojo is not one of those places.

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3. For me, a quick look back at who I was, back when I was a more violent, aggressive man, usually does the trick. I don't want to be that guy again. I mean, I doubt that I could be that guy again, but any step in that direction is a step that I don't want to take.

 

I might write more on this later, but up next (probably tomorrow) is part 5 of Bridging the Aikido Rift. I also have an article on the balance dynamics of the Hanasu-no-Kata (the 8 releases) in the works, and another on the principles behind kokyu-ho and kokyu-tanden-ho (breathing and centering exercises seen frequently in Aikikai-affiliated styles).

Just Do the Technique, Part 1

[Much more on the Aikido Rift is in the pipeline, but I have a few other topics to write about in the interim.]

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How many of us are perfect? I was told a few weeks ago that Barack Obama is perfect, incapable of making a mistake; messiah-like. So I know there are people who believe that a politician can be a perfect human being. Such a belief may be an imperfection in itself, but it does exist.

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I was raised Christian, and I understand that Christians view Christ as perfect. There exists the belief that Christ was the only human being who ever lived with no imperfections, none of the human flaws that plague the rest of us. These days I’m a practicing Buddhist, but I don’t believe the Buddha was perfect. I believe that he made mistakes, just like the rest of us – mainly because of the poor state of the store of human knowledge during the time in which he lived, but his imperfections were his own, nonetheless.

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I see a lot of imperfections in the dojo (mostly in the mirror). My first sensei told me once that the mat is where all your flaws come out, where your true person is shown. You can’t train with someone for any length of time and not know what kind of a person he or she is.

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I have a lot of imperfections. I’m overweight, slow, talkative, and often lazy. Sometimes I’m quick to anger, and other times I’m slow to react. I don’t look like an aikidoist, and sometimes I wonder if I really am an aikidoist. My ukemi is labored at times, and at other times my footwork isn’t as good as it should be.

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Sometimes I just don’t pay attention. I yawn at inappropriate moments; probably because I seldom sleep more than four hours a night.

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But enough about me. You have imperfections too, right? How about on the mat? Are you perfect there? And what happens if you’re not?

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Let’s say, for example, that you missed a technique. Maybe we’re working on ushiro-ate, and I’m your uke. I attack with the standard shomen-ate. You step off the line of attack, locate and redirect my outside arm, and step in behind me. You know what to do: with both hands on my shoulders, you’re supposed to reach in toward the front of my shoulders and execute a drop, rearward, assimilating your movement with the body rise at the end of my forward step. After my attempted attack, my lunge forward and subsequent subtle off-balance, I need to recover my posture, and it should be this recovery that effectively throws me.

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But what if I, being imperfect, give you a poor uke performance? What if I don’t lunge forward, but rather walk at a leisurely pace, making it difficult for you to gauge the necessary timing? Or, what if you, also being imperfect, simply miss the throw? What if you step off on the wrong foot, fail to locate and redirect, or miss my shoulders?

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Here’s my point, for those of you who are wondering: I've noticed a trend in some aikidoists, an annoying tendency to react to a blown technique by increasing speed, muscle strength, and resistance. This is sometimes part of an even-more-annoying "get-uke-to-the-mat-any-way-you-can" mentailty. When you miss the technique, you’ve missed the technique. You don’t need to correct yourself by transitioning into something else, unless specifically instructed to do so. And even then, you should transition into a technique.

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If you miss the technique, slow down, reset and try again. Stick with the technique that’s being taught. Examine where you went wrong and correct it. If necessary, ask questions.

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Here’s what you don’t want to do: If you’ve missed the technique, don’t grab uke’s hair and pull him or her to the mat. Don’t throw a punch to the kidney, or a kick to the shin. Don’t transition to MMA and try to hurt your training partner. This is an aikido class, not a UFC match. Some aikidoists seem to think that, whether they’ve done the technique properly or not, they’ve failed if their uke doesn’t always end up prostrate and groaning before them. But you don’t have to get the technique right every time to be a good aikidoist.

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You don’t have to be perfect. It's not perfection you're working toward, anyway; it's proficiency. It's improvement. It's a-gatsu. It's not something you can achieve by pulling your uke down by the collar, just because you've missed the technique you were working on.