I finally go the footage from my Yondan (4th degree black belt) test up on YouTube. You can check it out here.
Also, Mary Stein, an amazing student at our dojo and an absolute inspiration recently turned 80, and blogged about that in conjunction with aikido on Aikido Journal Online. You can read it, here.
Cheers!
I have been training in Aikido for just over twelve years, and have been teaching regularly for about six. Having the kind of mind that I do, I constantly question why I am doing what I am doing in practice, and come up with as simplistic distinctions as I can for anything that I find to be useful.
Two distinctions I use are hopelessness and hatred.
Hoplessness:
Often when I am leading a class I see fellow students being very hesitant at various points in the techniques. I do that as well. What I find myself doing during some of those hesitations, and what I see fellow students doing, is hoping the technique will work. I get to a certain point of uncertainty, on the edge of what is comfortable for me and try to execute the technique, all the time hoping it will work. When that hope gets louder than my determination, I hesitate, checking to see if I am doing it right. In that moment the technique vanishes, and I am left awkwardly holding my partners arm. Sometimes I get it together to re-start the technique, sometimes I get reversed during the hesitation, sometimes it’s just awkward.
By keeping hope out of my technique, I follow through with the application until it succeeds, not up to some point where it looks like it might be working. Without hope, I am forced to keep up the technique all the way to the end with no room for hesitation.
Practicing sincere hopelessness helps me to overcome the tendency to hope a technique will work, and instead keeps me determined to make it work.
Hatred:
Sometimes when performing a technique (more than some times) I find myself meeting a resistance in my partner because I have let them get back into a position of strength and balance after taking their balance initially. There is suddenly a resistance to the technique. A feeling of being locked down, or locked out, comes with this resistance. I hate that. I use my hatred of that feeling as a spur to get me to immediately change the angle, pace, or direction of the technique, and in extreme conditions the very technique itself. I don’t hang around in that hated circumstance.
The hatred of being locked out of a technique helps me to remain sensitive to how much of my partner’s balance I have, and keeps me alert to needing to change tactics during the execution of a technique.
Hopelessness and hatred. For me these are two very important principles in Aikido.
It’s National Novel Writing Month, and I just eeked across the half way mark this morning. I’m a tad behind, but this weeks pep talk from the NaNoWriMo admins came from Neil Gaiman, and it put me back in good spirits. I was thinking about that while teaching Aikido this morning.
There’s a saying in Hollywood in the film making industry, “You have ten bad movie in you, now go make them.”
There’s a similar adage amongst writers, “You have 500,000 bad words in you, now go write them.”
I’d like to introduce the following adage to the Aikidoist world, “You have 100,000 bad techniques in you, now go do them.”
In an average hour long class I would guesstimate that I get through about 100 techniques. With taking three classes a week (in addition to the three I teach), that puts me at 300 techniques. Fifty two weeks a year comes to 15,600 techniques. So, after 6.4 years I should have gotten through my bad techniques and gotten into some good ones. Hmmmm, looking back from just over 11 years on that mat, I’d say that’s not too far off.
This is kind of the reverse of the old axiom, “Practice make perfect.” Instead it’s more akin to, “Repetition makes less not-perfect.” Being good at anything takes time and effort, and to have a goal to shoot for is incredibly useful. When writing into a void it is easy to get discouraged, thinking when will I ever get any good at this? With a target number of words, the edge is taken off the long hours of writing crap. So far, I am just about 175,000 words in. Another couple of years and I might actually be decent.
Consider the ebb and flow of the tide. When waves come to strike the shore, they crest and fall, creating a sound. Your breath should follow the same pattern, absorbing the entire universe in your belly with each inhalation. Know that we all have access to four treasures: the energy of the sun and moon, the breath of heaven, the breath of earth, and the ebb and flow of the tide.
In breath we replicate the continuous cycle of creation and awareness. The Kabbalists call this the “Will to Bestow” and the “Will to Receive”. Spirit, bestows the world, and the individual self receives it. But, that is all, like the continuity of our breath, one ongoing cycle without beginning or end. By working on our breath we see this sameness in other phenomenon and consume all similar processes into it. Into us. By attaching ourselves to this practice we become one with the cycle that contains everything.
In our distinct techniques the attack could be seen as the “Will to Bestow” and the response as the “Will to Receive.” My teacher, Kato Sensei, has said that, “Ukemi is true Aikido. All Aikido comes from your Ukemi.” ”Ukemi” is the art of receiving.
Ukemi is, in Aikido, the art of receiving a technique and falling without harm. It means to fully attack your partner, continue the attack during the technique, and when thrown to fall well. One key to this is Surrender.
In the moment you are thrown, the other person is (hopefully) dedicated to the idea of getting the technique right. That may mean they are invested with their ego, or it may mean they love the art, or it may mean they honor your participation, or it may mean they are lost in the moment, or any number of other motivations. In truth it is more than likely a mixture of motivations. But, regardless of the motivation they are invested in doing the technique correctly, and that means you fall. Resistance at this point would mean being confrontational at the very least, it would certainly not be in the spirit of Aikido, and it may very well lead to injury. Those are bad.
But, if you do not resist, and instead actively participate you will not only sharpen your partner’s skill, but your own. And, at the very apex of the technique, that means Surrender. Complete flowing with the moment as it is. If there is the thought of, “okay, here it comes, now I am going to fall, okay I’m ready” there will be hesitation, non-participation and resistance. Resistance could also come in the form of, “they’re doing it wrong!” Or, it could be, “Hey, that cute person who came to watch class because they are interested in joining is watching me! I’ll show them how cool I am by not letting myself be thrown.” [Sidebar: That is the WORST possible reason to not take a fall, just an FYI.] Resistance could also be in the form of, “Yeah, yeah, here we go again, I have done this technique soooooo many times! I hope the teacher calls for another, less boring, technique soon.” If anything other than Surrender is present at the apex of the technique then your ukemi will be less than it could be.
For me, that is one of the key points of Aikido. That moment holds so much potential and power. When I Surrender, just at that moment, my fall is like a breeze passing on a hot day – it cools, it gently caresses me, and it reminds me of not only why I do Aikido, but it also reminds me of exactly why I am alive.
Dedicated to looking at the self.
