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Don't, more music, don't stop the dance
Bryan Ferry
Some teachers teach aikido like dance - in a way that's not at all martial. I have seen synchronized demonstrations where everyone is doing the same technique in the same way at the same time like synchronized swimming. Hapkido is a Korean martial art derived from Daito Ryu aikijujutsu. It is written 合気道 the same as aikido. In hapkido they use music as a background for training.
His guitar teacher told him to play the chord like it wants to be played. That's the way to do aikido too.
There are some clear parallels between budo and music and dancing that go beyond body movement. Timing and rhythm and flow, for example. And ma ai - the critical distance (the ma ai in music is in rests and breaks). And balance. And connection.
If we look more closely at what O Sensei was doing at the end of his life perhaps it's not a parallel at all. Maybe that's what O Sensei was really doing. Maybe he was dancing. I don't mean in that diluted way of some budo training. I mean real dancing. Dancing from his soul. Dancing for the gods.
picture of Matisse's Dance (La Danse) from Wikipedia used under creative commons licence
11-05-2010 12:04 PM 
