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In General
Finding (or Creating?) Harmony
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#27
 09-12-2003 11:47 PM |
You Know it's a Friday When...
- In unison, all the nages stand there with their hands grasped by their ukes, and pause for quite some time trying to figure out what to do.
- Just about everyone is taped up in some way from injury.
- After a just a few breakfalls, everyone is pretty much peeling themselves off the mat. 
Happy Friday!
Hooray for me, this is the first week I've been able to attend ALL five classes! Hopefully there won't be anything to drag me away for awhile, and maybe I can actually make it a habit...*knock on wood*
Tonight we did Kaeshi Waza (reversals) from Morotaetori Nikkyo for the most part. I generally find Kaeshi Waza fun, particularly when I feel the blending and flowing of movements into each other, back and forth in harmony with your partner.
Incidentally (or perhaps not), Sensei discussed wanting us to spend the class concentrating less on physical technique and more on our training partners; to think less of competition and more of the principle of love in what we do. It's interesting that he should mention this, as I've noticed that it seems at times that (though well-meaning, supportive and kind as they can be) some people tend to get into a subconscious mindset in which their training partner has become little more than a body to throw around to get reps in so that they can advance in rank.
Now, in trying to understand the perspectives of these people, I wondered whether or not this was more a tendency to detach oneself from their partner so that they can try to perform a technique quickly and properly without having to worry so much about their uke, rather than a selfish objectifying of another person; the latter seems to be an overly simplistic explanation. Actually, this reminds me of how, at one point tonight, I was partnered up with Sempai Garry and had to do a breakfall over him as he was in Seiza: I noticed that whenever I didn't think about it, I would breakfall over him just fine, but that whenever I worried about whether or not I was going to inadvertently hit him while going over, I would screw up the breakfall in some way.
I know that there must be some balance to this. There came an extremely poignant moment for me when I was uke for Sensei while he was demonstrating a part of the Kaeshi Waza we were doing where uke is thrown downwards with a "hugging" motion. The thing is, I didn't feel like I was being thrown at all. Physically, I knew and felt that I was quickly being brought downwards with some force. Yet this was not what I felt most. More than anything else, I felt like I was being protected. It was as though I was being gently cradled by something strong that did not want me to get hurt. It took me by surprise --- I had never seen or felt Sensei be gentle before; controlled, yes, but not particularly gentle.
I wonder whether this was intentional on Sensei's part; is it that his Aikido is maturing, or instead is it an aspect inherent in his Aikido --- that, as he would say, who you are comes out in your Aikido --- brought about by wanting to be in harmony with your partner? Or was it simply my own imagination, a mirage brought about by fatigue? Whatever it was, I think it will always remain for me symbolic of the principles of love and harmony that are at the very foundation of Aikido.
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