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Today is a special day. 6 years ago it was a rude awakening. No longer was there someone to hold my hand, no longer was their someone to reminded me to be kind. One of my main examples and teachers died. I miss Alan Ruddock for his wit, his kindness and his firm understanding of aikido.
I count myself lucky to have had the opportunity to learn from several good teachers, special teachers, direct students of O'Sensei.
They taught me so much. About aikido, about the ideas of aikido, about learning aikido. And those weren't just words, those were concepts that could be tested on the tatami.
But what did we do? And now one of the really weird things enters the playing field. We never trained with uke resisting what was happening. To a lot of people this is a weird Idea, I know. But why is that a thing we never trained?
Now years later I think I have maybe half the answer to that.
We never trained that because it is pointless. Uke doesn't have the choice to resist, it never is ukes job to resist. From the first start of intention uke is locked in what is happening. There is no resistance as resistance is futile. What should you resist? Your own movement? From the beginning uke is locked in what is happening, and (and here we enter the twilight zone of weird aikimagic, as some more down to earth, real, aikido people claim) so is nage. The movement is. It is not deflected or changed, it is accepted. Hence nage is absolutely free in what he is doing as absolute freedom comes from not having a choice. Nage is the observer of the movement.
I know this isn't real aikido, it is just make believe until someone truly attacks and lands on his head. Trust me, I have been there. Landing on your head is not something I would advise, but it is one hell of a wake-up call about what is real and what isn't.
And now no-one is left to tell me this. I should be telling people maybe, but I don't feel the urge to swim up against the stream. Does that make me a bad aikidoka?
04-03-2018 04:12 PM 