Aikido

It isn’t the antibiotics I’m taking.  Yeah, it’s messing up my stomach and all.  But I don’t think that’s the primary reason why I feel I can’t do aikido.  Ever had those kinds of days?   You just can’t do any technique.  You find yourself pushing when you know you shouldn’t.  You can’t ground even though you tell yourself to do so. 

Not too long ago, a kohai asked me if I ever felt like I wasn’t making any progress and in fact, if I ever felt like I was going backwards.  I said yes.  If you look at your training on a graph, it’s not unusual to see dips, rises and occasional plateaus.  I told her that she’ll come out of it at some point. 

I now find myself having to eat my own advice.  I’m definitely in one of the dips - a deep one.  It could be my brain adjusting to the fact that I’ll be testing for shodan soon.  Maybe a form of subconscious panic?

I’d like to hear if anybody else has experience this and what you did to come out of it.

http://uchi-deshi.blogspot.com/2007/06/no-wonder-youre-sempai.html

Our dojo is next to a talent agency for strippers which is supposedly run by the mob.  Good neighbor so far.  Never had to whip out my bokken :)   Not that it matters since I haven’t learned to dodge bullets yet. heh.

My friend sent this link to me:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/magazine/24funny-humor-t.html

I don’t know about you but I’m not a “bookish dork”.  A “bookish nerd” maybe but not dork

http://uchi-deshi.blogspot.com/2007/06/rank.html

The etiquette at that dojo is pretty strict.  Very much like the etiquette at my taekwondo dojang, except no one is called “sir”.  Our dojo is not as fastidious although we are taught to be aware of and to respect such niceties when at other dojos.

Good post.

Ok, so I pulled into the paid lot that I always park couple days ago.   I drove my car to stall #10 - my usual spot - and what did I find?  An SUV!  I know there are no assigned parking in this lot. But dang it, I always park in stall #10!  

After muttering several expletives under my breath - nothing too raunchy since it was early in the morning and I haven’t had my coffee - I parked my car in another stall.

I tried not to dwell on it too much.  But I did.  Even after all these years of aikido, I still get pissy by little changes like this.   I know change is fundamental to life, universe, etc.  I know when it happens, I should center myself and go with it.  Roll with the punches I believe the saying goes.  Yeah, yeah.

Knowing and doing are two distinct and sometimes, diametrically opposed actions.  I’m not a dumb person.  I understand intellectually quite a bit of what goes on in my life and in this world.  But when it comes down to the wire, what do I do?  More often than not, I revert to what my instincts tells me to do.  When I say instincts, I’m referring to that insidiously sneaky part of the brain often called the lizard or if you want to be scientifically accurate, the limbic system.

Nothing illustrates the lizard in action than when I’m behind a car (detect a theme here?)   I’m driving on Aurora Ave, to my office in South Lake Union.  All of a sudden, this SUV (yes, I hate SUVs!) cuts into the lane behind me and starts tailgating.  I’m not even in the left passing lane!  WTH?  I know the best response is to mind my own driving.  If I do anything rash- like stomping on the brakes - I’d probably make the situation worse.  Guess what I do?  Yup, I stomp on the brakes.  The lizard wants to make a statement and dang it, it’s gonna do it with or without my permission.  How dare you tailgate me?  Damn bully!  Get the f*ck off my ass! 

Sigh …

Having been manipulated by the lizard for so many years, I have observed somewhat of a pattern on when it pushes my buttons.  From what I can tell, there are usually two types of events that give rise to the lizard. 

First and most obvious are the events that have a build-up period.  The period might be really short - like someone cutting in front of you at Starbucks.  Or it could be longer - like the SUV tailgating me.  Or it could be much longer - like a festering sore point you’ve been arguing on and off with your spouse.  In all cases, there is a period of time when the lizard picks at you, pushing a few buttons at a time, riling you up more and more until you can’t take it anymore and you do something you regret.

The second type of events are those that happen so quick, you don’t have time to react until afterwards.  Then the lizard mashes down on all your buttons and WHAM!  You become a ballistic missile, boring down on the object of your discontent.   That would be me when I got hit by a red light runner in San Francisco.  No time to be mad because it happened in less than five seconds.   But afterwards, I was pissed.  I still remember the smug face of the other driver as the cops took down information.  I wanted to rip his face up to look like the smashed front end of my car.

As you might guess, the quick event is much easier to deal with.  That makes sense since the event has already happened.  The moment has passed.  Yes, you’re mad but if you work at centering yourself, you’ll realize you’ve come out not much worse than before.  Much like dealing with a difficult uke.  Once the technique is over - however it’s over - it’s done.  Nothing you can do with the encounter.  With the red light runner, it could have gone a lot worse.  I could have been in traction or worse.  Sure, there was the hassle of repairing my car.  But it wasn’t end of the world.

Somtimes though, the quick event turns into the build-up event, particularly if you’ve been financially, emotionally, or physically crippled by it.  For example, what if I was crippled by the red light runner?  All that time in traction, wheelchair, whatever would have given me a lot of time to work up my rage. 

The build-up event is the most difficult type to handle.  You’re very involved, physically and emotionally.  Whether the period of time is short or long, it is an incredible - I would even say monumental - task to extricate yourself enough to see things objectively.  It’s like there’s a thread that links the lizard to your rational mind.  For most of us - well, me anyways - the thread is tenuously fragile.  For a few, it’s not non-existent (can you say road rage?). 

Aikido teaches us to be in the moment, not attached to uke or to any thing or thought.  When Sensei tells you to straighten your posture, it’s not just a physical act, it is also a reminder to detach yourself from what’s going on - not so much to disconnect from uke but enough that you’re not adversely affected by what’s going on during the technique (like if uke throws a puch at one of your openings).

My thinking is that such practice helps to thicken that thread.  It is my sincere hope that one day, I can yank on that thread and instead of the lizard sneering back at me, it’ll kowtow to my rational mind and keep its grubby hands (claws?) off my buttons. 

Am I over the parking lot event?  Sort of.   It happened again today and it didn’t bother me as much as it did the last two times.  But the tailgater?  Yeah, there was another one today.  Did I stomp on the brakes?  You betcha!   Gotta love the lizard.

 http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/showthread.php?p=181612 

Chris Moses, a good friend who used to train at our dojo and who now trains in Shinto Ryu Iai Battojutsu, posted as a very interesting thread on aikiweb.com about the “Spirit of Aikido”, a book written by Ueshiba Kisshomaru - the second Doshu.  It is a fairly dense thread but full of fascinating thoughts on whether the second Doshu managed to accurately convey O’Sensei’s teachings in the book.  Of particular good read are the responses from George Ledyard Sensei (Aikido Eastside in Bellvue, WA).

I think Ledyard Sensei summarized it well when he said:

… I do not believe that Kisshomaru and company were wrong about reinterpreting the principles of Aikido from O-Sensei’s conceptual paradigm to one better suited for mass consumption. If they hadn’t done so, the vast majority of us wouldn’t actually be doing Aikido. The message that was presented as O-Sensei’s, although edited heavily, obviously has spoken to people world wide and continues to do so.

Thank god for that - I never would have discovered much less hear of Aikido if that wasn’t the case. 

So, technically, harmony is descriptive of what O-Sensei meant when he talked about “aiki” (as in Take Musu Aiki” etc.) The essential problem for the post war generation of Aikido, especially the folks who didn’t speak Japanese, was that the term “harmony” is a term loaded with associations. It connotes everybody getting along, it connotes, elements in the system all tooling along happily.

So the folks reading Kisshomaru’s writings start understanding Aikido as meaning the “Way of Harmony” and Aikido starts to morph into an art which, at least generally, has no conflict i.e. ineffective attacks, complaint ukes, etc. People start to think that this is fine because they are creating “harmony”.

Sound familiar?  Aikido is a martial art.   You can’t study harmony without conflict.  Compliant ukes and ineffective attacks give you nothing to study.  It might be fun but what’s the point?

Overall, good thread.  A bit over the top of my head but very good read.   It also made me realize I need to get the “Spirit of Aikido.”  Amazon is selling it for $8.50.  Go get it.

One of our senior instructors - a yondan - said on two occasions, he saw energy surrounding an individual.  The energy manifested itself as a colored aura.  The first time, it was when he was taking ukemi for Tom Read Sensei.  Read Sensei said something about not looking at the blue ball of energy in his hands.  Of course, when someone tells you not to look, what do you do?  You look.  What the yondan saw was a blue ball of light right where Read Sensei’s hands were, in front of his hara.

The second time was when he was attending a jazz performance.  I forgot the name of the performer.  But he said he was in the front row and all through the night, the singer glowed green.  It wasn’t the stage lighting.  She was definitely green.

Apparently, our Sensei also sees colors.  That explains partly her extraordinary ability to manipulate uke’s energy, drawing spirals and lines out of them. 

Google the subject of seeing colors and you’ll see many mentions of the third eye.  It is supposedly an invisible eye that is situated between your eyebrows.  Metaphysically, it is often described as a gateway to the inner realms and is associated with psychic abilities such as clairvoyance and out-of-body experience.  Physically, it is surmised that this third eye is actually the dormant pineal gland which sits between the two hemispheres of the brain.  However or whatever it is, it is said to be opened when one exhibits any psychic abilities.

Is seeing colors a psychic ability?  Are psychic abilities real at all?  Scratch that.  I’m not going to get into that discussion.  Suffice to say that personally, I believe there are dimensions in this universe that is not readily accessible to mere mortals like us.  I say readily because I like to think that all of us have the capacity to attain the ability.

Awhile back, I was really into meditation - the sort in which I would sit for 30 to 45 minutes, hands clasped in front of my hara, breathing through my nose and out through my mouth, and struggling (and I do mean struggling) to not dwell on any one thought.  At first, it was extremely difficult.  But over time, I was able sit consistently for 45 minutes.   What’s interesting was that there were moments when I would feel like I was floating out of my body.  Even more fascinating were the dreams I was having - very lucid and colorful.  

Did I touch on some latent psychic ability?  I don’t know.  All I know is that something changed in me - at least during the time when I was meditating regularly.   

What does this have to do with Aikido? Aikido is often described as a form of moving meditation.  Yet, when we train - as least when I train - meditation is the last thing on my mind when uke is coming at me like a freight train.  Still, I have to think that there are those who have attained such a high level of skill that it is very much like meditation.  The most obvious person who I’m sure experienced aikido is that manner is O’Sensei.  Was his third eye opened by years and years of practice and meditation?  Did he see colors?  Did he see his ukes as balls of energy swirling around him?

I know some of you might be turned off by all this metaphysical talk.  I’m a fairly rational person myself, one who find it hard to believe something without actual proof.  As much as I like to believe my instructor, I’d have to see this ball of energy myself.  Still, part of me is very much opened to the idea, not only from my past experience with meditation but also just from daily practice on the mat.  What do I mean? 

Everyday, I’m told to open up and be bigger.  Everyday, I’m told to imagine the energy connecting uke to myself.   Everyday, I’m told to visualize the spirals that coil from the ground, through myself and uke, and onwards to heaven.  Not getting into any metaphysical mumbo-jumbo, I can tell you definitively that when I don’t do any of that, my waza fails more often than not.  Perhaps it is a simple case of the mind leading the body.  But as an ikkyu, if those work now, imagine what is possible in another twenty or thirty years, when the body is no longer part of the equation.  At some point, the mind begins merging with the spiritual.  What form will aikido take then?  Will it be like O’Sensei’s? 

Something to think about …

I don’t like weapons. Ok, I said it. Those who know me at the dojo knows how I avoid weapon classes when I can. I have never felt the thrill that everyone else feels when a weapon is in my hands. It doesn’t matter if it’s a jo, bo, shoto, or a bokken. It feels more like a piece of luggage than an extension of my body and mind.

But yesterday, I felt a slight shift in my attitude. We were doing bokken takeaways. And for a brief moment, I realize that this is yet another way to study martialness. You might go, “well yeah! duh!”

I agree. It should be a no-brainer. But weapon practice for me, up until now - whether it’s kumitachi, takeaways, bo and jo katas - has been focused on just learning the moves - memorizing and mimicking where to move the feet, body, weapon, etc. I say “focus” loosely because it’s only when I’m on the mat and I have to practice weapons that I focus on it. This means unfortunately, that each time I practice weapons, there’s always a period in the beginning when I have to re-learn past lessons. Not very efficient. What makes it worse is that, because of my initial adverse attitude to weapons, I don’t look forward to re-learning, which makes me even less likely to practice further.

All this means that my progress has been extremely slow. To me, weapon practice has been stuck in the memorizing/mimicking phase. This is very unlike my open-hand practice.

So the shift in attitude yesterday was interesting. It wasn’t a oh-my-god moment. Far from it. It was more like “oh, look at that.” That being the bokken slicing through my ribs. At that moment, I connected it to the punch that hit me in the same spot during sparring last weekend. The difference, of course, is that I can block a punch by covering my ribs with my elbow or twisting my torso ever so slightly so that I don’t take its full impact. You can’t do either with a bokken, not without a bokken of your own. I think that’s one value of weapon study that you can’t get from open-hand practice - the thought of being cut by a blade or being struck by a hard piece of wood truly sharpens your martial sense. That in turns forces you to sharpen your everything else - timing, distance, etc.

I still don’t like weapon practice but I guess this is one of those things in life that is a must. What’s the saying? What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger. Or maybe a better idiom would be You don’t have to like, you just gotta do it. heh.

It happened Tuesday night.  And it happened again last night.  I step on the mat, and ten minutes later, I’m in a deep funk that I can’t seem to snap myself out of.  I’m taking ukemi but part of me is just not interested (which is very very dangerous).  There’s also an underlying current of exhaustion. 

This has never happened to me.  The one thing I can think of that might be contributing to this is the antibiotic I’m taking.   I’ve been told that this particular drug will make me tired and restless.  You know how it is - you pick up your prescription, listen to the pharmacist tell you about the possible side effects, and then go “eh, I’m not gonna get those side effects.”   Yeah, think again. 

Someone told me to take a multi-vitamin.  I think I also need more sleep but with the sun rising earlier now that it’s summer.  I find myself waking up an hour before my usual time - which means an hour less of sleep.   I need my beauty sleep!

But I can’t stop training.  So somehow I have to figure this out. Maybe my body will adapt eventually.  It’s only week 1 of a 4 week dose.  I don’t know.

http://www.martialdevelopment.com/blog/increase-your-power-by-improving-your-balance/

I like the quotes:

“it is easy to forget that the obstacles to perfect balance remain within ourselves.”

and

“you are probably making one of two fundamental mistakes:

1. Using your opponent’s body to balance yourself; or
2. Allowing your opponent to use your body in the same way. “

So true.  How interesting to hear it spoken in a context other than aikido.  Some truths are just that fundamental.