Wrinkled Hakama

I open my Aikido bag the other day to wear my Hakama. It's been one week since my last class due to the long holidays coinciding with Chinese New Year. Happy belated CNY everyone!

Back to my Hakama. To my dismay, the carefully folded Hakama has been displaced somewhat in my bag, causing some of the pleats to appear wrinkled. Certainly not a life threatening moment, but one of reflection for me.

Here I was going to class, expecting to have everything that I need in good shape. Kept out of sight was my Hakama that I assume would appear as pristine as I had left it a week back. Yet, when it come out wrinkly and out of sorts, I felt surprised.

The fact that I felt surprise is a lesson. We might sometimes store things somewhere and when we come back to it, it wasn't exactly as how we left it. Paper might have discoloured, chocolates might have gone moldy and that soda has lost a bit of pop. Of course, since this is true most times in life, we tend to expect it and not get too surprised when it happens. What about knowledge though?

Its been years since I had to do an Accounts. I know for a fact that were I to go back to the books today, I will have a lot of problems getting my figures to balance, much less finding errors or elaborate tinkering. What about our Aikido skills though? Some of us may have learned martial arts and other useable skills like tying knots, or climbing rope/walls and etc. Might we have fooled ourselves with the adage, 'you never forget how to ride a bike?'.

Fine skills especially requires constant practice. Grinding the stone, polishing the mirror. That is our motto. Training has to be everyday if we want to maintain and improve. Leaving it alone, if only for a few days or worst, weeks... and you will find the skills you've worked hard to achieve have deteriorate somewhat.

Getting the Hakama out of the bag all wrinkly was not life threatening at all... trying to pull your wrinkly Aikido skills out of the bag when you need it most however, just might be.

Revisit - Atari, Awase and Musubi

Today we started out by exerting our selves using strength to force an ikkyo lock. Nage initiates and is countered by uke, back and forth until the 5th time when nage must relax and use the force of uke and return it back to him.

The sequence is:
Katatedori Aihanmi
Katatedori Gyakuhanmi
Ushiro Ryotedori
Shomenuchi

For Ushiro Ryotedori, the focus was to get center to move behind the hand, thus bringing the hand in front of us without 'thinking' about it. By bringing our center to move behind the hand, we apply consistency in all our Aikido waza. If we move the hand for ushiro, we will also move the hand for katate and etc. Uke will feel this hand movement and resist or counter. So practice doing everything from center movement.

For shomenuchi, we did Ken no Awase. The idea is to pick up the feeling we used to raise uke's arms in the Ushiro ryotedori practice. Using that 'light' feeling we project that to meet the oncoming shomenuchi by uke. Do not wait to do this upon contact; it'll be too late and you will clash. The feeling is meeting like a wave, upwards 'lightly'. Start with synchronised timing in the forward movement by both uke and nage. Later, nage can stay in position, as long as the intent is good.

The key here is to imagine a wave meeting a wave and it rises up to the same point. Two opposing forces cancelling each others force by moving and converging to one point.

Also another key point is to remember to relax and breath. We don't tense up in a ready position when meeting someone with a handshake right? A handshake comes and we meet it naturally. Similarly, a punch, a shomen, meet it naturally.

Lastly, sorewaza kyokuho. We revisit Atari and Awase.
Uke pushes nage's hands down to his knees, keeping it tightly in place.
Nage starts by using strength to lift his hands.
Then start again. Extend ki and connect with uke. Now, receive the force and bring in your hands slightly, then return the force back in a circular movement straight back 'into' uke. Uke will be lifted lightly.
That's atari using uke's impetus in. You can also provide the impetus to uke, and then receive him inwards bringing uke down.

Next, for awase. Same position. This time extend and lightly connect to uke's center. Uke's hands and your hands are now one unit connecting your center to his. All you do is move your center to move that bridge to move uke off balance. Very lightly you can lift your hands straight into uke and he won't be able to resist.
Visually this will look like you're just lifting your hands. But uke will sense and resist if you use your hands to initiate this movement. This awase is quite close to musubi. In fact if you can imagine skin to skin connection here and initiate the movement from the skin, it will help the movement a lot.

OK... the Aiki no Genri thingey again

I know I've written about this a couple of times in my earlier postings, but here is the almost definitive guide. I'll also be putting this on into a separate tab soon, so that beginners can just click that to refer to it anytime.
1. Fudo Genri/ Immovable principles:
4 points towards Body, Mind and Spirit unity...
a. Concentrate on seika tanden/dantien or center.
b. Mind, heart and body must relax.
c. Feel the Ki in any movement and extend it
d. Mu Shin (no mind, or stop thinking too much)

2. Kihon Genri/ Basic Principles:
These are movement principles that follow the Aiki Law or Natural Universe Law.
a. Chushin: Center line. Always move from your own center line. Connect to uke and bring him into your center line. Do not move his center line separate from yours.
b.Shuchu: Focus power starting from the mind into the body.
c. Kokyu: Breath power, connecting the energy of the body and the physical aspects.
d. Enshin: Circular movement or more precisely, spiralling. You can spiral inwards or outwards.

3. Aiki Genri:
Energy principles, essential in resolving conflict.
a. Awase: Blending, to harmonise with incoming force not to avoid or fight it. Body leads the mind.
b. Musubi:  Connection, stage two of harmonising. Musubi can occur in many levels not just at the physical level. Mind leads the body.
c. Nagare: Fluid movement, there is no stop in movement or conflict. Joining with partners energy and moving synergistic-ally.
d. Takemusu Aiki: Unlimited manifestation of Aiki. This is a stage when you are living in harmony with the universe. Technique is not essential because your opponent cannot defeat you since he will be fighting himself.

5 Stages of Understanding Aiki
1. Aiki no Kokoro: Understand and belief within your heart the principles of Aiki.

2. Aiki no Genri: Know and understand the Aiki Principles.

3. Aiki no Waza: Embody the techniques of Aiki in training and life.

4. Aiki no Chikara: Resulting from training and embodiment of Aiki principles, achieve the power of Aiki.

5. Aiki no Seishin: True Aiki. Its 'switched on' without your active participation.

Last Sunday's Training

One of the students commented that some pictures would be useful. Knowing how wordy I can get, that is probably an understatement. Nevertheless, whilst I would like to include pictures in this blog so as much as the next person, I am unable to fulfil that request immediately.

Perhaps, when we have more time, we can dedicate a session to taking photos of the various basic movements. Those that we can consider essential in our daily training. Things like ukemi, tenkan, irimi and and some core techniques. There are however other resources out there that do have illustrations, such as they are. I do understand however that it would be better for beginners especially to look at figures which closely resemble what they learn in their dojo. So at us just say that such an endeavour is underway, though not for quite some time. In the mean time, there are videos of a couple of techniques that may help and is contained in the link above.

Last Sunday, we begin our training with the breathing meditation and some standard ki exercises using funakogi undo, sayo undo and the like. For funakogi undo, we have now explored using it almost (but not) like an ateru strike. The purpose here is to ensure the power generated is from the center and not from the shoulders. There is almost a whip like motion. The feeling must be captured, and used whenever we employ katedori. This way, when uke grabs we do not respond from the shoulder. Instead, just as they grab nage's wrist, the feeling of the whip occurs and uke's center is penetrated. 

We also explored positional dominance. As uke grabs square, both uke and nage are in a mutual kill position. Thus, uke who is the attacker must move to his advantage, offline towards nage outside. From there, his chushin will be employed against nage, whilst nage's chushin is now off line. Nage proceeds to employ tenkan and regains superior positioning. 

From tenkan, nage leads uke forwards and about. Nage atemis uke and shifts stance to the outside. The hand being grab is halfway to a sumiotoshi (corner drop - but not fully. Just the feeling). The inner hand cuts across uke's outer elbow of the same grabbing hand. When nage half shifts (i.e. adjusting the front to rear leg and the rear to front leg), he does so so that he still has chushin towards uke. And his alignment is such that he is able to cut the outside of ukes body vertically. (this definitely needs an illustration, but you should try to remember this in class as I explain). From there, using center to cut (not the hands), you will take uke's balance. Do a big circle movement using the natural pendulum and get into ikkyo position. 

As we have explained, relax both hands and only extend. Don't push into uke or manipulate his hand. From there holding on to uke's tension towards his center, drop your center and hands together to bring him down. For now, we want everybody to try and bend uke's elbow upwards and let uke retain his grab on your other wrist. Let the power be a leading action from that grab instead of on the uke's elbow from your other hand. 

Next technique we did was to do ikkyo from aihanmi position. I've explained this a few times already in this blog so refer to those. 

Next we did shomenuchi iriminage. Shomen occurs because uke is not at the right distance to grab and strike nage. It can occur even at that distance, but for our training purpose lets start it further away. Uke can both take a step forwards to strike or slide forwards to strike. In either case shomen is done in aihanmi relative to nage's kamae. This is so that nage does not have the advantage of uke when receiving the strike. 

Nage enters into the shomen towards uke's outside. Nage's hand extends like a spear to receive the strike along its length. Never to stop it. (we do it differently for movements towards uke's inside, but its still not stopping the strike). As you have uke's back towards you, both your feet are almost parallel to his. Your spear hand is now above uke's shomen and your other hand lightly touching his jaw/face/neck. Bringing him closer like a hug, move your center into a turn and down. Bring his centerline upwards using your spear hand in a leading fashion. Control his center so that his rear leg is planted. Now continue the spear hand in the pendulum arc to cut his through his center. Focus on not trying to bring uke's body up or down by lifting or pushing the hands. Focus more on using center to move everything and to lead using the hands. Only lightly touch uke, don't grab with force. Cutting the center for now means to move through uke (spear hand and leg slides through). Don't clothesline his neck. 

The last technique we did was shihonage from yokemenuchi. For yokemenuchi, this time we started with gyakuhanmi. Uke does a cross over step and strikes at an angle. As with shomenuchi, the hand starts from just above the forehead (not behind your head at the side). The target is the temple or jawline or neck. Shoulders are relaxed and the power is generated from the center. 

Nage can receive this either by irimi into the strike, his hands extending into the strike rather than blocking it or parrying it. Or in the case of what we did, enter without movement and receive it with a slight step back as if we are greeting someone into our house. Holding lightly uke's hand, but keeping extension into his center, shift legs and then bring chushin a level down. (not forwards down or backwards down, just down). Leave the hand alone, but the angle will change. Remember the key here is to maintain the extension into uke's arm. Do not try to bring his hand down or push in to lock his shoulders. Now, move forwards at the same lower level keeping the hands the same distance from your center all the way. Uke's hand will move in a natural pendulum which will lock his body up without undue force or stress. As you slide forward, the forward leg tries to cover as much ground so that it stops well beyond uke's current position. Kaiten and nage should now be 'behind' uke's prior position. (uke is now facing you now, so you're actually in front of him). As you kaiten, your hands remain in front of you equidistant. This should result in a shihonage position. 

From this position, your hands retains its existing extension. Cut from your center, downwards. Again do not use your hands to pull uke or push him down. Nor should you bend your elbows and bring uke towards your center at this point in time. As uke is brought down, maintain zanshin and lightly touch him to ensure you are in a superior position and that he cannot attack you from the ground. 

Last, we did sorewaza kyokuho. This time we started again with nage's hands on his knees and uke pressing downwards. This exercise is described earlier in the blog so please refer to it. 

Beginner's Class Last Weekend

I was able to concentrate the entire class for our newest beginner last weekend and I think it helped a bit with the flow of the training. We started off with basic ki exercises and tests and an explanation of the importance of the 4 principles of Aikido. Namely, keeping center, relaxed posture, ki extension and feeling ki. (Although we don't practice weight underside, I mentioned that as well).

Afterwards, we practiced ukemi. The seated form starts from seiza. From this position we did both mae and ushiro ukemi. For mae, one leg goes to the front with the knees at about 90 degrees. The back feet shifts inwards slightly and is on the toes. Balanced is centered. The opposite hand to the front leg is placed parallel to the feet. The other hand lightly touches the ground in front of that hand but with the fingers pointed inwards.

Chin is tucked in lightly on the open side of the body. Raise the back leg and roll over the shoulder of the front hand. The hand is kept bent slightly and does not take any weight. If support is required, the back hand is used. Put the shoulder close to the ground and push off the back leg. Keep the hand position relative to the body and you should end up kneeling in the same position.

With Ushiro ukemi, you are basically reversing the roll. From the same position, this time rock forwards and then rock back. Still tucking the chin and keeping the hand in the same position. This time however, the rear feet tuck the toes flat as you push off from the front feet and both hands.

After ukemi, we practised hand grabbing gyaku hanmi. Our stance is natural. The legs are placed naturally as if we are taking a step forward, but because its hanmi, we have a slight exaggeration in terms of the body angle to the side. Even so, our centerline is focused straight forwards. Our feet matches uke's positioning. If not, one of us is open to attacks. As uke grabs, uke takes over dominance in terms of positioning. Uke control's nage's center. Nage now responds by shifting to the side to regain dominance of Chushin. Uke's chushin is now off center, whilst Nage's chushin is focused on uke. From here, execute tenkan without pulling or pushing down. Lightly, using the natural pendulum movement of uke's arm.

Next we did sayo nage from the same attack. Again the emphasis here is not to chop uke's neck, but to bring his natural pendulum upwards inline with his centerline/chushin. Now drop your center (not your hands), and compact it to uke's center. From there move your center and feet forwards (behind uke at an angle) and extend out with the hands. Uke's feeling for this is his legs are trapped and when you move forwards and out, falling will be a natural movement.

Next we did an Aihanmi wrist grab. Same kihon exercise which is mentioned in an earlier post. The emphasis for the beginner was to feel how different angles of hand movement means differing resistance from uke.

Last we finished with Sorewaza kyokuho. Here the emphasis was on the form. Expand the hand being grab, rotate uke's hands out and extend hands forwards using center movement (not hand pushing forward). Rotate in as you do that to bring uke's elbows up. Extend outwards with both hands, rotate your chushin (use imagination/men). Here we want the beginner to feel how the exercise works when using strength and leverage. Struggling with the appendages alone means just that, struggling. But coordinated whole body movement makes the exercise easier. This will form the proper form to begin practice with. Later, we will incorporate awase and musubi elements.

Lastly we had a short discussion on Zanshin. Awareness in class and outside. How good warriors are aware of what is dangerous and what only seems dangerous. How smart warriors create situations that favour them and disfavours the opponent. Recognising an opponents strength and eliminating that from the equation.

Mostly, we want someone joining our school to recognise our methodology. We start with...
i. Aiki no kokoro - Heart or spirit of aiki.
ii. Aiki no genri - Principles of aiki
iii. Aiki no waza - Techniques of aiki
iv. Aiki no chikara - Power of aiki
v. Takemusu aiki - Absolute aiki

Although usually, Aiki no kokoro is placed 4th, I believe its more honest to put it at the front. Although we will not fully understand it as a first level, we need to start our journey with the right intention or spirit. Taking up Aikido is a choice you made. Sometimes its a choice of logic (you want to use Aikido because it claims the ability to use the opponent's strength against them, and it doesn't advocate the use of overpowering strikes to disable the opponent). However, Aikido is best served when one's heart shares its deepest meaning. To be at peace. A heart desiring peace, deserves an art of peace.

Learning the principles before techniques is of course logical. One should practice the internal aspect of Aikido and utilise it within the techniques available. That means, even if you have mastered one technique, that technique will be adequate because of the pairing with the internal aspect. This pairing equates to the power of aiki. However, if you have many techniques under your belt, but no understanding of the principles, then more often than not you will be defeated by power, strength, speed and technical prowess.

Lastly, Absolute Aiki... the surrender of the body and mind, is an understanding that the knowledge of Aiki comes from a divine source. Though it has been given to men, who have seek it, we must acknowledge that it is a gift. Osensei has often said this of Aikido, yet it remains incomprehensible to most because we are to take it on faith. Part of the problem is that we see Aikido as a physical manifestation. We also can't see or describe fully the non-physical manifestation. Mankind as a whole do not take kindly to things which they can't see or describe. Yet, Aiki is generally something you cannot physically see.

Takemusu Aiki is also the ability to manifest Aiki without form. Is transcends the Jujitsu-like forms of Aikido, and the limitations of Awase, kuzushi and maai. Takemusu is not learned or taught, but achieved through enlightenment.

If this is beginning to sound like voodoo 101, then I apologise. I myself am only beginning the journey towards understanding but at this point in time, this is what I believe to be true. On the whole, we do not have to understand everything now. We just need to know about it for now and we can forget about it and just concentrate on our daily training and life.

Finally, this aspect of learning is important. We learn through our sight and our hearing. But we must also learn from feeling. That is why becoming a good uke is important. A good uke will understand correct movement first because he has good intention. The intention to attack nage. To become a good nage, he must learn to feel that intention. Because only by understanding intent, can nage move correctly.

Cut...

Its interesting to see a martial art so engrossed with the preservation of life simply so permeated with acts of violence. There is nothing passive about Aikido. Even in doing nothing, our minds and body and spirit must be united and ready. In that readiness is not the body reacting to an initiator, instead that readiness compels us to act upon an instigator. Whilst the difference appear subtle, in reality it is not. The former suggests that when confronted by a punch, we avoid or block the punch. In the latter, when confronted by a punch, we cut.

Cutting seems more at home with arts like Kendo and Kali than Aikido at first glance. Aikido after all primarily uses unarmed techniques usually ending up in throws or pins. So where comes the cut?

There are many aspects of cutting in Aikido. The varying degrees of cutting comes from the state of mind as well. The more aggressive Aikidoka uses cutting as a form of Focused Power, attacking the core of the opponent. The intent is to cut opponents centerline when they commence an attack. The cut completely arrests the opponents attack by stopping its power source. Yesterday we practice this a bit.

Most times when we encounter an attack our mind gets caught up with the attack itself. When it is a knife especially, more of our being becomes tied to that dangerous weapon. Even an innocuous grab to hand makes us tense up in the according hand, usually with the instinctive reaction to pull away. What we try to train nage to do now is to disregard the physical aspect of the attack but to react on the intent instead. Thus, we run drills on uke hiding his weapon and randomly taking it to attack nage. Nage only responds to attacks not feints. Then we take a step further where we have uke hitting nage at close range. Nage's response is not to block the hand but to attack uke's core directly before being hit himself.

On casual introspection, it seems unlikely that Nage can react faster than Uke, if Uke is the one to attack first. But seemingly not. Nage cuts uke using the principle of irimi whilst uke is just attacking nage as is. When we start practice, both uke and Nage are in seiza. Irimi here is entering not moving. So this practices the mind and intent, rather than the formal tai sabaki.

In any case, the other levels of cutting relates to the Aikidoka's state of being. As I mentioned, an aggressive Aikidoka will generally use the cutting of chushin more times than anything else. Just as they would use Ateru more often than not. But the softer you get, the more your cut permeates the mind of uke. Ashi awase is an aspect of this. You cut the opponents movement by mind and intent alone. A good example of this is Kenji Ushiro, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-ranl2YTaw&feature=related and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfffYhuoKdY&feature=related
You have to study the video a good number of times to see what I'm aiming at. His is the ability of using Aiki. But he employs Aiki to cut the opponent off his power and then proceed to attack him. So even as you step to attack him, he has cut you first before he hits you. Nor is this the reaction of someone who's trying to avoid his powerful strikes which no doubt they are. In essence, to their mind they have already been cut. That is why they stop.

Nor does it end there. You also see him cut people who are strongly attached to him or holding on to a jo. In this instance, the static attack precludes any sort of 'mental' attack in terms of timing or pre-emptive strike. Yet, Ushiro sensei permeates the connection with a cut that unbalances uke's power before dropping them.

Again. The idea here is not to copy or try to 'get' what Ushiro sensei is demonstrating. For our purpose it is to train the mind and body and spirit to unify and so you can express yourself in any form be it through your body, your mind or your spirit and have all the power of the 3 combined behind it.

New Year, New Beginning?

Well, today was the first class I took at the dojo this year. Thanks Miles for handling the earlier classes. Apparently, others were also done with the coughing virus and also some were down from cat fleas. No matter, getting sick is part of life and God's way of telling you to take a break.

Now speaking of breaks. We were going over Ikkyo today with a beginner. Initially I wanted everyone to use blade hands to control uke's arm. Running it just over the elbow to rotate the arm and using center to bring the body down. Needless to say, this is not that easy when you first start out as the propensity to slip is there. With proper musubi, it won't happen. And using the blade hand is good practice so that you don't resort to gripping and then failing to connect with partner and instead start to use strength. Now when we start using strength or rushing it, inevitably something will go wrong. At the least of it, uke recovers center. At the worst, we have uke with a broken elbow or a sprained one at best. This happens when uke's arm is straight and nage applies pressure on the elbow. So its better for everyone when the elbow is bent. For nage, bending the arm doesn't detract from the efficiency of ikkyo. With skill and experience, ikkyo can be done with a straight arm and without hurt or injury. But for now, bending the arm would be the safest course. [Picture is from Joint Pain Experts]

Nevertheless, I had to adjust this method for our new student who is quite petite. It also just so happens that uke for the day is kind of a big guy. So instead of using a blade hand, I had the student use the inner part of the thumb and forefinger. Not to grip with the whole hand, but only the inner part. It has a better fit to uke's arm in that it starts out as rounded. Also, rotating uke's arm is crucial. After which, nage abuts uke's wrist to nage's hip and spears his elbow down using the whole body movement.

Now, this moulding of nage into uke's appendages is nothing new. We've practice this a bit some months back and it constitutes good practice to learning awase and musubi. If we maintain our body form and uke as separate entities, it'll be quite difficult to connect with him. Gaps and broken connection would be too frequent.  Wherever we touch uke, we must fit our body to his shape. When the shape fits, its easier to link with him and to become one. So sometimes, if we find it difficult to do awase, it'll be a good idea to pause and study the body contact. See if there's a way to adjust a bit so that the contact becomes naturally connected.

We also did tenkan walking today. Its good practice for connection, weight underside, relaxation and also chushin. When you tenkan and remain connected with uke, you can drive his center forward using the wrist to palm connection that you have with uke. Weight remains underside and atari is seen to be working here. If you pull, uke will certainly pull back. But if you connect, and then walk with your center, provided that your hand remains extended and relaxed, uke will walk with you. Its like a horse with tight reins I suppose. Not pulling, just firmly in the correct position.

Another basic exercise we did was sayo nage from katatedori gyakuhanmi. We did not do kihon method. Instead we focused on extending uke's hand up and then as we align his chushin, we drop our center to collapse his center. Doing this allows the beginner to concentrate on the center movement and controlling of chushin. Doing kihon would have confused a beginner because most people would rely on neck sweeping and from there a contest of strength begins.

An interesting thing happened after class. A minor accident that occurred because someone did not apply zanshin. Well accidents happens to everyone, but we must also realise that when this weakness is revealed we must not become flustered. Instead, immediately focus on regaining center and calmness. I notice our student panicked a bit. Even though he did nothing rash, but a calmer attitude would probably have saved him some money tonight. In any event, I had regretted not explaining zanshin earlier in class today for the benefit of the beginner. It seems that the older student still has yet to remember his lessons instead.