Time will tell

I chanced upon some writings from senior aikidokas that basically expounds on their recently acquired insight on Aiki. These insights usually talk about energy beyond the physical and intent preceding that energy. Much of their insight is basically what Sensei has been talking about all along. Yet the same senior Aikidokas were the first to dismiss Sensei's or other similar teachings and demonstrations a year or two back, claiming 'floppy bunny' ukes and 'hero worship' by the students... What has changed?

In as much as why Sensei has gotten much following now in Indonesia compared to several years back when he was effectively ridiculed, the decriers have tried it out for themselves and have felt it for real. Yes, those senior Aikidokas are living nowhere in our region, but they've met other experienced Aikidoka's and martial artists who have similar abilities. Those experienced teachers however have a more substantiated background however making it hard for anyone to just dismiss them, typically they are older, very experienced and have made a name for themselves. Yet, even then we have very junior Aikidoka's who give them one look and still think to themselves what an old fraud. We can't blame them, when most Aikido teachers lack the whole substance behind Aikido, Aiki itself. So much so, students are seeking teachers from Karate, Traditional Chinese martial arts and etc, this knowledge of Aiki.

It is perfectly alright to be suspicious of course. What with so many charlatans around out to swindle your money. But in martial arts, there really shouldn't be a question should it? If you want to prove a charlatan, bring him on the mat. That's what happened to Sensei, most of his students were naysayers or came from dojos of naysayers and then they got curious. What if? What if this thing is true. So they took courage and tested him out. A lot of us though like to offer our views from the sidelines, most of us would not really like to get our hands dirty. Some of course give excuses like distance, time and other nonsense like "I don't have to prove anything to you, you prove yourself to me"... in the end it all boils down to what we're looking for. If we're looking to make ourselves look good by decrying others, then you can call white white all you like, and the other guy will still insist its black. But if you're there really looking for the truth, then nothing will stop you from getting to it, even to put yourself at risk.

What does this mean for the rest of us? Well absolutely nothing unless you are serious about training. Being a student of a good teacher does not make you any better than you were prior to that. Learning from Sensei does not mean attending his classes or taking notes and videos. Learning means to put yourself at risk, to challenge yourself against failure. If we stick to the comfort zone of what we can do, when are we going to learn about the things we can't?

Certainly this would work out well when working with people who are already experienced and already know the things you're trying to learn. In our case, where there are no senior students around, then it'll be a case of the blind leading the blind. Yet, we cannot lose hope and must persevere. Knowledge exists whether we like it or not, there are teachers who come to revelation without any person guiding them. Some of the greatest geniuses out there intuited their findings, gleaning it from observation, logic, dreams, imagination and rational discourse. With us, we've been given basic knowledge and ideas, we've been given key after key, now is for practice and practice and more practice. Not just normal practice, sticking to kihon all the time, but practising Aiki in every which way possible.

I read a quote recently about this scientist who basically had had it with faith dwellers, mystics and all these religious warmongering. He wished he could draw a line put all those people who couldn't be reasoned with scientifically, on the other side and ask them to use whatever magic, prayers and faith to attack his side. When all measure have been exhausted, he'd nuke em. Well, we all probably feel like that one way or another at one point in our lives. Sometimes you just wonder if all politicians came from the same mother the way they talk and the way they screw you whilst looking like an angel. You'd want to put the blame on others, like what's happening to the world economy, the environment, the wars and terrorism... yet are we really innocent? Is it not us who put those despicable people at the helm of our state? We who elected capitalism as God of the world? If all of us could travel to the future and see what would happen to the world because of our failure as its guardians surely we would understand. Yet time is what it is. We only live in the present or we dwell in the past. We do not foresee the future. For all its glory and hubris, science and its fellows have not been able to convince the world of a better future either.

Everyday you live you risk making mistakes. Some of those mistakes you can shrug off, some you'll bear the scars till the day you die. But the worst mistake is to do nothing at all. In trying to avoid making mistakes, you'll end up accomplishing nothing at all and that would the greatest mistake of your life. There are no second chances in life and the clock is ticking. We know we have a limited time to live. We know we are going to die. We just don't know when. So truly, the thing that we really don't have much to spare is time. Every second counts and we should use it. Train hard, but life is not about training. Its about living. Train to accomplish something, train to learn something, learning till the day you die is a worthwhile endeavour. At the same time, teach what you've learned to others, use it in your daily life. You could learn all the knowledge in the universe, much good it'll do to you if you die with it unused. Let other people share in that knowledge, let them use it to help others. All of us have a duty to make the world a good place, to protect it, our mother earth. We can't do it if we waste time, or if we have nothing in our heads, or if we choose to do nothing with what we have.

A Beginner's Class at ISTAC

Wow... first of, ISTAC in Persiaran Duta is truly a beautiful place. I'm wondering whether the university actually built the place like that or they got it off a rich arab/spaniard who had too many palaces to manage. The courtyard that we practiced in was a very pleasant place to train in. When it's not raining of course.

Anyway, I went there with not a little trepidation, mostly because I really don't know what to expect from Post-graduate students who study Islamic degrees and come from all over the globe. I didn't want to jump in with the guns blazing so to speak.

The first impression counts and so I started with the essence of Aikido as how our school sees it. Basically reminding all our students that Aikido is built upon 4 stages of development:
1. Harmonising with ourselves
2. Harmonising with others
3. Harmonising with the universe
4. Harmonising with the Source

This 4 stages must be at the forefront of how we train because if we don't have it in our practice, we can't call what we're doing Aikido, at least not as how Osensei sees it.

In learning to harmonise with ourselves, basically we are doing the mind and body unity thing. Most Aikido schools, especially those influenced by Tohei sensei will undoubtedly know this. Some teachers talk about Gi, Shin, Tai... same thing.

The tools we use to harmonise with ourselves include Aiki Taiso. Sure meditating works, but working the body and mind together gives a good building block to start of with. Just meditating the mind alone may work fine when you're alone, but it'll be difficult to hold it together when a partner starts to get involved. Because of that we did the Standing and Sitting ki test first. After seeing the new students caught on to the whole moving with the center thing and how much power and balance they achieved with it, I started on the next drill.

Center... now instead of explaining the esoteric aspects of center and ki and all that, I related center to the 'core' which is often used in modern sport sciences and body work methods like pilates. Certainly as I've seen it in old jujitsu books, hara was predominantly seen as the muscle group of the torso, not so much as the internal aspect where ki is generated or pooled. You can also see that most traditional martial artists of that era have an overly developed torso musculature area. If you look at the UFC fan favourite, Chuck Liddel, you can see what I mean. He has an unsightly protruding stomach that is probably 99% muscle. Its not the trim flat stomach that most models sport, but it bulges out beyond his chest. Now this is exactly what I'm talking about in terms of the old martial artists... therefore, it makes a lot of sense to assume that a lot of the mystical power attributed to the center comes from a well developed 'core'. Well, at least at the 'tai' stage of learning anyways.

Having explained that, I showed them the difference in doing a front ukemi with center and without. With center, the roll is smooth, rounded and easy to perform. Without center, you are likely to collapse and injure yourself. Then we practiced rocking back and forth from the agora seated position. Concentrating on moving using the core and keeping a rounded form. Having done a lot of ukemi, made me realise that beginners have a hard time doing this simple exercise for prolonged periods because they do not have the muscles for it.

Next we went to 'rei' Now... this was the stickler. I'm here at an Islamic university dealing with foreigners who may have different ideas to what is allowed in their religions practice. Bowing has been a major contention amongst some muslims and jews. Knowing that my sensei who was trained in a religious studies and has no problem with this helps with my own conviction that at the end of it all, its what in our heart that matters. Nevertheless, it doesn't augur well to antagonise the university that open its doors to you. So we approached 'rei' from a different angle. Instead of focusing on bowing to each other at the beginning, we emphasise the use of rei as a form a measuring respect and controlling the spatial relationship. In bowing physically we are also respecting the opponent with our hearts, so 'rei' is an exercise that helps develop that inner aspect of ourselves. With such a respect, an opponent who tries to engage us whilst we are bowing, we are still able to deal with their attack because we've established a connection with them which is entirely not physical but palpable.

When I demonstrated that bowing in a nonchalant manner or in a disrespectful way, the opponent can overpower us immediately, I see that they could accept this training exercise. And so we did the ki test for rei.

After that we did unbendable arm and I explained that in the first method we are relying more on leverage than anything else. Nothing mystical and entirely doable by anyone. The first method we hold our arms out relaxed and place it on uke's shoulder. Uke tries to bend our hands at the elbow. We keep our hands pointed to a spot far away and focus on that point whilst maintaining a relax form. This way, all the force applied by uke is basically given back to his shoulder or where we are contacting him. This is basically an easy trick to learn and all the students got it quickly. Next we did our school's variation. This time, I had uke curl my extended fingers and press my hand to my shoulder and keep it there. Using the other hand on my shoulder as leverage, and all the while pushing my hand to my shoulder. I now try to move it with my arm muscle, most probably the triceps and deltoids, and a struggle ensues. Of course since uke is bigger than me and has the power of both arms, its practically impossible to move. Next emptying the mind or rather forgetting that uke is there, and just relaxing my hands I move it simply like I'm stretching out in the morning. Moving freely this way instead of struggling to move uke makes all the difference. Our sensei teaches for unbendable arm to be correct, we must be able to achieve it from an already bent position and that we can move it freely. Its not unbendable if we are straining to keep it in place or if we're stuck in only one position.

After that we showed more about how we receive attacks from uke. The emphasis on the class was to demonstrate that learning Aikido is about learning to blend instead of fight or struggle. When uke resists we give them energy sincerely, if they force the energy on us, we receive it sincerely and wholeheartedly. Using kotegaishe to demonstrate how easy it is to move someone if we just hold him lightly instead of using our strength, we gave the new students a new way to look at things.

Because it was the first class and the time slotted was short, we weren't able to really practice any real techniques. I'm hesitant to even begin with ukemi here until I've seen how the students react to the lessons. If at all, this class would probably be classified as an Aikido primer and I probably won't be teaching a full Aikido class here until say 2-3 months of this. Nevertheless, I look at this class as something which is useful to the existing students whom I've pushed into training more and more of kihon waza that we have stop much of our aiki taiso and ki training. Having them work on the drills with beginning and un-indoctrinated students helps keep it almost real. That's something I'm going to watch out for, not telling them how to respond to events but rather working with how zany some people's response would be to our exercises, drills and techniques.

Looking But Not Seeing...

The other day, my friend was inspired to teach in darkness. Maybe in the modern Aikido setting, that kind of training is off the beaten track, but traditionally Silat was taught in the dark as well. Sensei too have conducted similar classes sans light. In fact, Osensei liked to train in the elements. It is known that in his Iwama retreat, when training was conducted outdoors sometimes at night, Osensei made no changes to how training was conducted. Sometimes it was with live weapons... much to the dismay of his students.

There are probably two lessons to be learned here. Training in the dark removes a factor that most people are reliant on, vision. It is with the eyes that most people lead their lives, or perhaps have their lives led by. When you last watch TV, didn't that advertisement about that luxury SUV catch your eye? Its lines were really sporty and the engine had real power. Even though you may have a car already, but you wish that you could get that SUV too...just because.

Or maybe you're not really hungry, but McDonalds just came out with a lunch special... triple big mac with cheesy fries. Man! I need to dig that!

Its not just about TV. Research shows that employers often prefer to hire good looking men and women and most employees with above average height earn more than their shorter peers. What relevance does face and height have on their work? Not much, not unless you're a model or a basket baller. But these discrimination goes across the board, from secretaries to management to lawyers and even gardeners.

It is a fact that through genetically imprinted instinct, mankind look for good looking, tall specimens to procreate with because it is assumed that they have the best gene pool. It appears that perhaps the bias we have over ugly people is not rationalised, but instinctive. Well, instinct may be good and all that, but if human beings were to live their lives on instinct, we should have known a long time ago to stop cutting down all those trees. But no. We don't. Destroying the environment to enrich our lives goes against every survival instinct and yet we ignore it, but choosing your mate is decided by instinct? So which is it? Mankind it seems can choose to override instinct when it suits them. Go figure.

Lets go back to the eyes then. We have eyes that inevitably trigger desires or reaction in us to something it sees. Turning us off or on as it were. Yet behind that visual appeal or turn off, is what we perceive from our eyesight really representative of that object or person? Don't judge a book by its cover is an age old wisdom that has been spoke so often its often called cliché. But isn't it a gem of a wisdom?

Training in the dark is loosely based on this understanding. That to let our eyes deceive us will lead to our undoing. Osensei taught for us not to look at the opponents hands/weapons or his eyes, lest we be deceived. Its true. Look at any fight, good opponents feint to create openings. The majority of Silat is all about trickery. That's what fighting is all about, you trick your opponent. You destroy their advantage and you build yourself up. No one wants to go to an even match. Forget those noble fiction about fighting in a fair fight. If you're out there trying to survive, the last thing you want is an even match. 'Even matches' is for sports (or at least it was) not Budo.

Having said that, how does training in the dark give an advantage to us? Well, training in the dark in itself doesn't really give you much advantage unless you're specifically going to fight in the dark against someone. But its more about building up other sensory perception that you have besides your eyes. We of course have sight, hearing, touch and smell as the basic senses, but some have improved sensitivity than others whereby their tactile sense is finely hone, their hearing is very precise and etc. Some even border into the 6th sense where they have unerring predictive powers knowing your every step even before you've made them. Wow! Will training in the dark help me get all that? Well... let's just say that the jury is still out there on that one. But what we can see is that, in eliminating one of our senses, we learn to use our other senses to compensate and that's always a good thing.

Imagine a fighter jet where the control is solely in the province of a pilot. He has to eyeball everything and make snap decisions. Yes, fighters in world war 1 eyeballed and dogfight all day long, but modern jets shoot opponents 5 km out, the enemy is not even a speck of dust in our eyesight then... so how exactly is eyeballing going to work? To help him get a target and verify if its a friendly or not, to help him compensate for the relative speed and trajectories, the pilot needs a lot of information. Certainly this information couldn't be discern by him alone. So his other 'sense's' help... command, satellite imaging, radio signals, laser targeting and etc, they all mesh together and create an information package that effectively identifies targets and friendlies leaving the pilot to make a conclusive action. So, what it means is reliance on eyesight is like handicapping yourself, when really you could have all the other senses combine their input into a more comprehensive information package for you to decide over.

In more esoteric terms, you can't wait to see if a strike is heading your way in the dark, you need to 'sense' it. If you hear a movement and you can feel the incoming wind, you have an information package already. Your brain makes a snap decision, overriding the need for visual confirmation based on the 2 out of 3 positives so that you put yourself out of harms way. This is sensing it rationally. Develop this so that it becomes so intuitive and that it operates below conscious thought, and it becomes almost 6th senselike. Sometimes you know when your opponent is planning to do something. Just like when you know someone is about to say something...

The other thing that you may learn from practising in the dark is that the eyes is a frequent distraction. Not only that, it often lies as well. Learning to make judgements beyond the sole providence of the eyes, often reveal that we might have taken a different path had we listen to the other senses as well.

Often teachers will show you what they want you to do. Sometimes they focus on a few things and try to make you see it, but different people see different things. For instance we write about the chicken crossing the road, and one guy might look at your drawing and say it looks more like a duck than a chicken, another might say that the chicken is jaywalking, whilst another might say that there's really no point for the chicken to cross the road, what's the chicken running from? Or where is it going to? and so on and so forth. From the drawing of a chicken crossing the road, you can come to so many different understanding/assumptions, yet were we to just forget what we saw and instead ask why is the teacher talking about the chicken crossing the road, and what is he not saying when he does that... that is when we start to see the whole picture. In other words, the way we should practice is not to get stuck or let our eyes lead us where it desires, but to use our mind and guide our eyes to where it really matters.

We look everywhere, and what I see is seldom what you see. My black is not your black, we just assume it is. Working the dark is not similar to blinding yourself, it is about opening your eyes and seeing in a different level.

Buang yang Keruh, Ambil yang Jernih

Such a short but meaningful sentence was captioned by the late P.Ramlee, a legendary artist of Malay heritage, in one of his songs. He sang this in the movie '3 Abdul' where he had just married the youngest and recalcitrant daughter of a natural born swindler. The old man who had married off his two other daughters to our protagonist's elder brothers, in a bid to siphon their newly inherited wealth sought to repeat his success with the third. But in the end our hero proved too resourceful for him and the tables were turned.

But in that song, which means 'throw away the dirty and take the pure' basically epitomises the traits of staying positive. In any given situation, you have a choice, if not to avoid the situation in the first place at the very least a choice on how to deal with it. As in Fight or Flee, man's characteristic is dualistic in dealing with situations like that. Both optimism and pessimism exists. However, again with the Fight or Flee scenario, leaving it to nature to decide which action one should take is akin to playing the roulette. In Budo and as a martial artist we have to train ourselves to override or control 'natural' urges.

In some arts, being negative means being prepared for the worst and enjoying good outcomes as bonuses. We assume the scenario will turn bad and are more than prepared to ensure our safety and security through any means necessary. It means that without sufficient information, we will turn the dial all the way to maximum and use extraordinary force to ensure our maximum chance for survival. In some arts there is a dial, in some the dial is perpetually at maximum. It is in this scenario that one should consider whether it is suitable for application in the civilised world we live in now.

Historically, old world countries always had their civilians ensure theirs and their family's safety through personal weapons and ability. Those who are born into martial clans or castes offer the best tools and skills to their children, while peasants and farmers are left with tools of the trade to stave off bandits and pillagers. In the modern world where overriding law and the advent of a systematised police force, more and more people are leaving their safety and that of their families in the 'capable' hands of the government or powers that be. Much to their consternation, the result leaves a lot to be desired.

Now, going back to the topic. Aikido as I see it symbolises a positive art. Inherently, to practice Aikido, one needs to be in harmony with oneself and with others. Being negative from the start contravenes that ability therefore as Aikidokas we need to cultivate a positive attitude. In our practice taking attacks from uke, we do not respond in kind nor do we address the threat as what we perceive it to be. If we were to do so, we are probably enforcing a negative attitude. Uke too will sense this response and thus the struggle ensues. In being positive however, and 'throwing away the dirt' we do not of course go out there and assume everyone's a boyscout and that mugger in front of you doesn't have a gun under his shirt. I know its dicey and thrown into that situation, the question of would I really stay positive or would I just make sure the guy doesn't breath again will only be answered at the end.

Still imagine armed confrontations and hostage negotiations. Police who decide to stay positive and try to talk their way into diffusing a situation, retain the positive attitude. If they were to question their ability or assume the worst of the other party, we do not doubt that the situation will turn nasty. Also given that they have the arsenal behind them it is easier at times to just be done with it and give the bugger what he deserves. As an infamous army commander once remarked, "shoot em all and let God sort it out", we can't tell what's in another persons heart. So some people don't give other people the benefit of the doubt. Like some countries assume the worst and initiate what they call pre-emptive strikes. As I've mentioned, with 'might' behind them, it gets easier to that everyday. It is only when such an action might illicit an unquantifiable response that one might hesitate to use force. That's why generally you 'pre-empt' someone that you ordinarily would be able to take out anyway, but you would hesitate to 'pre-empt' someone whose capability you are unsure of. This unknown factor has uncertainties that creates fear. Fear that he has more power than you in fact.

In this sense the 'Staying Positive' and making no assumptions have the most mutually beneficial outcome. By staying positive and creating steps to build the relationship and resolve misunderstandings, we eliminate the need to destroy or the attempt of such.

If you were every involved in Finance or Economy, you might have heard of Nick Leeson. Nick here was jailed in Singapore many many years ago for fraudulent trade that ultimately led to the demise of Barings Bank (UK) with losses amounting to USD1.4bn. Imagine that just a single man effectively lost that much money and caused the departure of an entire bank and its hundreds of employees. In this scenario, the directors of the bank were 'deceived' by Nick who earlier in his career made substantial profits for the company. In the end, Nick fooled them and himself in trying to recoup bad trades with even riskier trades. This is not 'Staying Positive', this is what we will call unrealistic expectation. It is similar to what gamblers are afflicted with when they bet against the house. Statistically, you know the house wins 60 times to your 1. Yet, millions flock to casinos to gamble their lives for the chance to turn rich overnight.

'Buang yang Keruh, Ambil yang Jernih' applies to a multitude of scenario, not just the martial or the economy, when in fact it was derived from a song about a relationship between man and wife, daughter and father. At the end of the story our hero actually resolved the entire situation by bringing harmony back to the family and reconciling his siblings with their wives and father in law, minus of course the lynch pin lawyer who was behind the whole tirade. P.Ramlee who is famous for his wit, charm and multi facet talent in singing, composing and playing instruments was fond of putting such little ideas and wisdom into his movies. Remember the lynch pin that destroys the 'family or relationship', oft times they have more to gain than both parties have to lose.

The caption also exists in a time where water filters do not exist. If you were to be handed murky water, you would have to separate it painstakingly by hand. This symbolises the difficulty of embarking into this venture. To stay positive in the face of calamity is arduous indeed. Stand fast and advance onward!

Do we practice for practice's sake?

If you have ever had a chance to practice in Hombu, you would notice that partners stick with each other for the whole session. Typically in most dojos though, changing ones partners after each technique is the norm. Some would say, it represents the reality when you encounter different types of uke be it in their physical dimensions, strength or ability, or just plain attitude.

There are pros and cons for both I would think. Sensei's humorous story prevails about the one crazy yudansha in hombu who was out to wreck his ukes. Since he was a normal occurrence, locals tend to avoid him completely. Thus he preys mostly on foreigners now. It may have been humorous in sensei's recounting, but if it were me as that guy's uke I doubt things would have turned out so funny.

Practising with partners that have no intention on really training can be very frustrating indeed. But in the end, that is practice in itself isn't it? Practice isn't about doing the favourite things on your list over and over again, with favourite or popular partners. Practice is about polishing your knowledge, getting it right, getting rid of the dirt and the grime. Its about doing it when you're not ready, when you're not in the mood, when your partner is a jerk. That's practice.

Too many of us assume that practice should be wholesome and refreshing. Well, if we want a relaxing time we ought to go to a spa. If we wanted to laugh, we should go hang out with friends, watch a movie or something. Practice in the dojo may come out great and nice and enliven your spirit, certainly practice in Sensei's classes has always uplifted me. But to assume that that is the norm and that is the standard, is to place Aikido on a pedestal. Since no one is an exact copy of another, we have to expect that not all classes will be enjoyable.

However, to go through such boredom again and again, that is the spirit of practice. Be warn that I'm not advocating going into a hellish dojo for the sake of it. Far from it, you should aim to train in a dojo which you find appealing to you. What appeals to one may not appeal to another. But favour a dojo because of its teacher, and I think you could do far worst. Favour a dojo because of its price, or rewards or distance... well then, really ask yourself what's that got to do with Aikido at the end of it all?

Aikido is terribly hard... and in fact very easy to learn. Its easy to learn because all the lessons are there out in the open for you to take it. Its hard because most times its against your very human nature to put those lessons into practice. Not fighting is very much against most people's nature. No competition? Even worst, most of us are brought up competing for something or other, be it mother's milk or attention, or better grades or a better paycheck...

Someone comes at you and you're suppose to accept him without fighting? I mean come on, how real is that? Well... unfortunately its very real, if you're interested in Aiki that is. Sometimes I feel like giving up. Sometimes I feel why do this when there's really so little to be gained? After all, what are we going to use Aikido for in the first place? If I needed self defence, I think I've pretty much sorted much of that already. Of course there will be better fighters out there, but seriously, how many muggers are actually well trained fighters, or MMA trained, or ex-navy seals? Put yourself in the upper curve of the self defence curve and you're likely to get away unhurt in most altercations.

Still, there's so much more to Aikido than these physical knowledge. What would it really be like to live life harmoniously with yourself and others? Can I really do that? Do I really want to?

We practice Aikido throwing people around, but stop for awhile and think to yourself... what part of that technique teaches you about harmonising?

Thanks to my friend who gives me the encouragement when I'm feeling down. You know who you are. We don't do this just for ourselves. Responsibility is indeed a heavy burden, something which I often feel I have not the strength for, but God gives what He believes we can handle and who am I to question that?

Transcending Theory into the Practical

I think it would be fair to say that for the majority of people training today, they are seeking some practical ability to use from their knowledge. It is probably in the slim minority that someone is training Aikido to cultivate his spirit alone and perhaps achieve that takemusu-aiki level sought by Osensei.

There are probably thousands of practitioners out there with a lot more decades under their belt and presumably with the incumbent knowledge and experience. Perhaps in their lofty perch they may scoff at what I'm thinking out loud. I don't blame them, because it may very well be that after the same decades under my belt I'd probably laugh at me too.

Still, here we are for those of us who have between a decade or two of practice... Those of us who are in the younger thirties and still have not discarded the occasional temper and flaring of ego and undoubtedly participate to some extent in road rage, be it slamming into the horn at jerks or yelling in the car at some road hog, or even the occasional swerving and slalom across the highway to beat traffic.

I am not proud to say that I've allowed this to happen to me. Just the other day as I was rushing to an event (it always starts with this by the way; rushing), I was trying to get into my toll lane when this lorry cut me off and started to block my entry. The wise and smart thing to do was to brake and let him past on his way before going in, but sadly my wise and smart brain was on the mend that day, and instead the hot tempered 20 year old brain I left disused a long time ago took control and so I sped and swerved in front of him. The affront of it! By God I couldn't let him get away with that could I? Anyway, he horned me after that and I promptly stopped and gave him... err some communicative signals. Well the short of it was we both got out, and I was carrying my age old baggage of all the insolent lorry drivers with me when I went out to confront him. Lo and behold, an educated man in the 50s was angry at me for my hand signals. Although I thought to give him a piece of my mind, a tit for tat you would say, I felt all wrong inside.

Here's the facts. Sure he cut me off. But it could have been unintentional. I swerved in front of him, to show my displeasure. He became annoyed and horned. I stopped because I took affront and gave him a rude gesture. He came out and I came out fully aware that it could lead to an altercation. I realised he felt he was wronged, and I understood his anger was at the rudeness more than it was because of the incident which could have been explained away. So... there, faced with that new-found knowledge, I felt very bad about what I did.

In the end, I apologised to him profusely for being rude. Even though I thought it was a fair thing to do to swerve at him initially, ultimately it was really a stupid and childish thing to do. To be a man is to control your ego and temper, lest it makes you useless. After all, we are learning budo, or are we really? To practice budo is to protect someone, not to look for a fight. Yearning to use your art against some 'evil' jerk is really the act of cowardice. You seek knowledge to fight as an advantage over others and you then seek a fight to prove your worth... is that where I'm going?

Thus, today is not about a technique I practised the other day, its more about trying to remind myself that its all fine to practice Aikido techniques and be theoretical about harmonising with someone, with yourself or the universe in the dojo, but out there... where we are living everyday, when we are sick, or bored to death, or having a migraine or when we are angry at something... those are the times when we need to keep our practice in our heads and heart. Its not just about this road rage which is easily identifiable. Sometimes it could even be abusing your relationship with others by taking advantage of them. Sensei once said, to be a good Aikidoka and more so as a teacher, is to be practice zanshin. Zanshin is not all about when we are on the mat practising with an attacking uke. Zanshin is to be aware of feelings, of having a 'feel' of the surroundings... It all sounds too much doesn't it. But read Gladwell's book 'Blink' and you can see that this awareness is real and can be achieved.

Anyway, just think... everytime we practice shomenuchi or some other attacks, I talk about not clashing and instead harmonising with the oncoming force. At the end, what I just did was to clash and it was only luck that brought me back to my senses. This is the shame I will have this blog remind me of each time I think I know better.

Ukemi and Whiplash... amongst other things.

Firstly... its been a long holiday! So what with the feasting going on, my mind has been a lot on ukemi lately. In particular, whether I could weather the oncoming onslaught this October when I visit sensei again for some intensive training.

As I was thinking about this, my 1 year old son slipped and fell on his back. Hitting his head hard. A mere metre away from me, yet I was unable to catch hold of him as he fell. It was very fast, in fact I can safely say it must have been a third of second or less. Those movies you see with the hero just hanging on before falling down... it doesn't happen like that in real life. In real life you fall, and you fall real quick. But remember those ukemis we take? Sometimes I feel like we have forever to take them. Sometimes though, its all we could do to take a breakfall. Even so, its been a long time since I've had a fear of falling. Practice does to a certain extent inculcate this useful skill into our nervous system, lodging the education into our medula oblongata so as to short cut the thought process by a few nano seconds.

Having regretted that I did not pre-empted my son's safety, I thought about how decades ago I read in an issue of Spiderman. In that issue, his arch nemesis the Green Goblin had kidnapped Gwen Stacy (Spidey's first love).  Finally Spidey showed up to rescue her, and the goblin threw her off a bridge. Spidey acted fast to save her but was thinking how to do it safely. At the rate she was falling, if he just webbed her the whiplash itself would have killed her. That's why he had to gain momentum himself and that's why he left it to last moment before catching hold of her. Even so... she died. She was probably dead even as the goblin threw her. But think about it... besides it being a momentous event in my favourite comic book where a main character actually got killed off, it was also all the more real in the fact that physics was looked at in more than just a cursory fashion.

Have you ever seen someone being thrown so hard that he practically bounce back from the mat? Assuming we have such a person falling and we try to pull him out of it, calculate it wrong, and the whiplash will have his head hitting the floor at an even faster speed than it would have initially. Whiplash, the basis of the slingshot manoeuvre used by Hans Solo to get away from the empire, effectively doubles the speed of your throw.

We are not looking at this as in how can I best use this knowledge to throw someone harder than usual, but really looking at why rolls are more advantageous than breakfalls. Obviously with breakfalls, one hits the floor with all the force of the throw and gravity along with it. But rolling out of a throw, one guides the force away from the floor, laterally. This way disperses the energy/force along the route and makes for a healthier you. It also negates whiplash because you run the energy into a different path instead of the opposite path which compounds the speed.

Even so, we should understand that not all throws could be rolled out from. But look at some of those judo videos, you will see that not all throws are a lost cause and uke needs to fall down splat. Some you could handstand away, somersault over, and some just ride it out. These methods may be unorthodox, but at the end of it all makes for a more realistic training and increase your longevity.

Break the habit of taking breakfalls for the sake of nage... instead find a safer way to take ukemi. That is afterall what being uke is all about, receiving techniques safely. Breakfalls on mats may appear to be perfectly reasonable to you now...but in a few decades and maybe a splat on the tarmac or two, may change your mind.

That is why one of the more robust methods of taking ukemi comes from Parkour and Systema and I believe Aikidoka's can benefit a lot to learn their training methodology.