Ukemi

The practice of Ukemi is, in my limited understanding, the most important part of Aikido practice. This is where you attack your partner and allow them to perform a technique. You lend your body to them if you like, generously and with a big spirit.

If the technique is performed in a fluid, more advanced way than you are literally sucked in and projected back out again. It's a fascinating feeling, sort of like accelerating to the crest of a steep hill before freewheeling down the other side. If the technique is performed staccato, when your partner is figuring out the technical movements, then you allow yourself to be lead, whilst always maintaining a good healthy posture, and a good all round awareness.

My teacher has been saying for some months now, look past your partner's fingers as you take ukemi. Follow the energy that is projecting from his/her fingertips. I feel like I finally got what he's been saying about this last night practicing one of the last techniques, Irimi Nage. You attack, allow yourself to be taken and then follow your partners fingers with your eyes. They sink, you sink, they raise up, you follow, they turn, you turn. Instead of following your partner and thinking, 'Oh what's happening now, this isn't the way the technique should be done, I'd do it othrewise... etc', you end up simply following the line of the fingers, the energy of your partner's movement and much less thought is involved. A flow happens.

The less thought is involved in Aikido practice, the better. It's much like music. You get the basic forms, practice and think about them alot, then you try to throw that away ('cut off your legs' as they say in Japan) and go for flow. Technique does indeed seem to be the last 5% of the action.

In the end it all comes down to the same thing - Ukemi, losing oneself. Opening yourself up to your partner, to life, to the flow, accepting whatever happens and not resisting. Apply it to whatever you want.