One Hundred and Fifty-two

Techniques are the words of Aikido.

My training consists, largely, of practicing techniques over and over. Techniques are structured movements, patterned responses to predetermined attacks. They have identifiable forms that, while differing in small details, are essentially the same across Aikido styles. In and of themselves, techniques are mechanical vehicles for learning and internalizing the concepts that underly Aikido. I learn connection, congruent motion, correct distance, timing, extension of Ki while moving etc.

Randori is the literature of Aikido.

During randori the motions of uke and nage are removed from the structured dance of technique practice and enter into the realm of spontaneity. My uke is free to move unfettered by the constraints that govern technique practice and, likewise, my movement is equally unrestrained.

Early in my training, randori consisted of repeated attack/throw sequences, not far removed from the practice of individual technique; the obvious difference being that the attacks and defensive moves were not predetermined. Of late the formal waza has begun to disappear from my randori; it's being replaced by something else that I can't yet define or adequately describe. My partners still fall, but it's as though the throws are hidden in the motion. The whole exercise becomes an unbroken string of movement punctuated by an occasional slap of a hand on the mat as uke falls.

The following video clip of a 'grabs only' randori illustrates the point.

One Hundred and Fifty-one

The touch of a single snowflake is but a whisper of force. Bring enough snowflakes to bear, however, and trees are felled by them; valleys are cut by them; mountains crumble beneath them. And still, the touch of a single snowflake is but a whisper of force.

The touch of my Ki upon uke during kokyu nage is like a single snowflake; until, that is, it isn't. At the moment our congruent motions reach the limit of his balance and my maximized extension, when he is at his lightest and I am at my heaviest, that single snowflake-like touch of Ki becomes an avalanche.

At moments like that I am fully aware of our connections; to each other, to the group around us, to the wider universe. The deeper reality of Aikido training becomes manifest, and while transient, leaves a little of itself behind each time. And so I continue to grow.

One Hundred and Fifty

As I practice I realize that my movement shapes the space around me. Without physically controlling uke I nevertheless control where she may move in order to continue with her attack. And while she may still have many paths to take in order to reengage with me, her likelihood of success along any one of them is remote.

It’s not really that simple, of course. For uke moves as well and about her center, just as about mine, space is shaped, distorted, defined. And I can find myself caught in currents that threaten to whisk me from my path and move me from confluence to intersection with uke on her terms thereby increasing the probability of a successful attack.

Therefore I seek to occupy the center that is common to our centers, the point at which conflict becomes cooperation; where forces coincide and neutralize one another… where Ki flows freely and I become its conduit.