Misogi-no-Gyo

Maybe yes, maybe no as only you really know for sure. Most often when people begin again, they do so from the point they believe at which they left off. Neat stuff is well, neat. However gather up enough of it and all you have is reason to find a bigger place to live. My recent effort has been to identify where I have done just that and then find ways to pare my tricks and goodies down to the basic level and isolate one of O-Sensei's training methodologies found within the his Misogi-no-Gyo. It is wonderful and depressing when I find something that has been staring me in the face for so long. Then I get to go back and watch the video tapes of my earliest time in Japan and hear and see that it was explained to me right from the beginning. I simply had too much in the way of seeing it.
Chris, yes that is all very true, but I am not talking about metaphors. I am talking about simultaneous points of conversion around which activity flows in circular arcs - arcs whose linear motion occur along various planes and differentiating angles of orientation.
Chris, let's go back to your original point (about which I made my original comments)
At one point in my training, I too held the same view. However I found that I had to rely on strength and speed in relation to an attacker's reaction time to what I was doing. While this can work, I found that when someone is either stronger or faster, it often does not. Of course this view I held at the time allowed me to pursue my understanding that the joint locks were just that - joint locks - they were either based upon pain compliance or damage. I understood this as Aikido, and rectified it as such because it was uke who decided if he wanted to comply or be injured. However by training with another teacher at another point in my training I came to realize several things.

1. Pain compliance does not really work on someone who is committed to harming someone.

2. Pain compliance does not really work on someone who is on drugs and can not feel what is being done to them, or is on alcohol, and reaction times being slower they get injured while they are trying to de-escalate the situation.

3. Pain is not required or needed, nor is it even the goal of aikido. Since the antithesis can be achieved as a way of neutralizing the strength and speed one-ups man-ship contests that often are passed off as aikido, it is actually the desired methodology

4. (most importantly) that joints actually work in two ways - they can be locked and unlocked. The natural state of the joint is unlocked. This is so we have the flexibility to do things. If we did not have any joints you might imagine how difficult life would be. This also means that the natural order is for an attacker to lock them (i.e. when making a fist, or avoiding nage's lock) where by the next natural action would be to once again unlock them.

Detail
If I give away my intention of attacking someone's wrist, as in what many people do when they think of nikyo, then I give a signal to my attacker to lock the wrist. We have all run into that scenario in our training. I am often asked how do I get uke to "unlock" so that I can then (re)lock uke's wrist with nikyo? As an answer, I all too often hear, "Oh that is the time for atemi... " and that is certainly one way of approaching the waza. However, there is another way. Since the natural progression of uke's joint is from unlocked to locked, rather than trying to find a way to unlock it in an attempt to apply our own lock - only to have uke initialize another effort to avoid having nage lock it - I can use the understanding that uke is trying to avoid nage trying to lock the wrist. Rather than trying to apply a lock to the wrist, I allow nage's joint to achieve its ground state - that being unlocked. There are two levels of achieving this. The first as you might imagine is to draw uke's intention in another direction. As I have indicated this can be done with atemi, but then we are in the domain of reaction and that may not always be preferable. The second is to not lead it to be locked in the first place.

If you are following me then you quickly realize that this only leads right back into the "Nage tries to lock Uke's wrist while Uke tries to avoid the lock" scenario. However, as I mentioned that is one way of approaching the waza. Another way is to use the unlocking method (i.e. maintaining the ground state of the joint) because there is no time involved in this process:

T=delta(S1 & S2) where T equals the difference in time between state one and state two. If uke is remains at the ground state, T=0. Time is relative at all points along the line except for two points:

1. When time equals zero

and

2. When time equals infinity

Since space/time is curved, we understand that both point one and point two are the same point. This is where Aiki lives and the point for which we must stand to do Aikido. That is the reason we continue to train.

Since we have the joint already unlocked by keeping it this state we can use it to connect to the center. If it is already locked, nage simply moves to the next joint in line, or any other along the path. The goal is to reach Uke's center. Nage can do so using Uke's wrist, elbow, shoulder hip, knee, ankle, finger, toe, neck. These we know as kansetsu waza (joint locks) but I prefer to call them shapes instead of locks. It is really not necessary to even grab the joint when the shape can be maintained. By extending this idea Nage can use almost any point along Uke's body to access Uke's center. This we know as kokyu nage. Once again we are describing shapes that are maintained at one level and altered at another level at the same time. By extending this idea it matters not what Uke's orientation is to the ground (the earth). He can be standing, prone, in the air, and, (going against the accepted grain these days) so can Nage. It is not necessary for Nage to be touching the ground to achieve aiki, as aiki may be achieved while both uke and nage are in mid air. Aiki is in itself a grounded state where time equals both zero and infinity. I am not talking about metaphysics, cosmologies or metaphors. I am specifically speaking within a physical realm.

Okay I went trough all of that, but once again go back to your statement:
It is certainly true when you make that statement and then use it as the principle upon which you based comments which followed that all is in order in said paradigm However, when considering the many physical concentric centers and the ability and desire to use the joints as an unlocking mechanism versus a locking mechanism it opens up another avenue for each of us to consider and which to adapt.

In my opinion, joint locking and the like is Ju-Jitsu. I like Ju-Jitsu in its many incarnations. However Ju-Jitsu is not aikido. Using Aiki, as a method to achieve some form of lock is what I would call Aiki-Jujitsu. Once again, Aiki-Jujitsu is not aikido. Aikido is simply different than those two things. You may care for one, I for another, and still someone else for the third. That is what makes for horse racing and the UFC.

It is important that each of us, regardless of our personal take, or particular preference realize that if we are going to discuss Aikido that we clarify as best as we are able at the moment if we mean O-Sensei's Aikido (whatever that may be) or something else. If we see O-Sensei's Aikido, then we can discuss things in one way. However, if we, as has become the fashion of late, want to discuss other things, that we admit out loud that we are not discussing O-Sensei's Aikido, his methodologies in the way that he saw them, used them, taught them, demonstrated them... etc. Otherwise we reduce ourselves to bowling balls talking about oranges in an apple orchard... Nespa?
Let's hope not! (Clean up in aisle four!)




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