Basic Aikido Techniques

Youtube playlist containing most of the basic techniques in Aikido - demonstrated by various random Aikidoka. Enjoy.

Take a moment

My job can be stressful, when I take myself too seriously.  There are so many people around me taking themselves and what is done unto them seriously, that it's hard not to follow suit.

My teacher is always saying one should take what you do seriously, but not yourself.

I think this works really well with the philosophy that what people do or say to you should not be taken personally.

Whenever negative intent is sent at you it comes from a place of unconsciousness.  The person stood there in front of you as the ranting customer has slipped out of reality as it is and into their role of the affronted, offended, cheated or otherwise unsatisfied 'customer'.  They are no longer themselves, they have identified with the role they are playing out and so feel they have to behave in such a way to you, the representative of of, or as they more likely see it, you are the company.

Thinking about it like this it's very easy not to take it personally - well, maybe it's not very easy but it gets easier with practice.

Whilst all around you are losing their heads and getting caught up in roles, 'the unhappy customer', 'the stressed engineer', 'the underpaid overworked employee' you can breath, refuse to take whatever is said to you as a personal attack.

I would rather practice this surrounded by superficial role playing then try it for the first time when someone, identified with the role of axe murderer, comes charging at me with murderous intent!  Think about it in martial terms if you like.  If you are still taking flippant remarks about how long it has taken to fix some one's computer as a personal affront and feeling the blood rush to your head as your ego screams at you to 'Say something!  You can't let her talk to me like that!' (for example) how the hell are you going to stay calm and centered enough in a violent situation to help matters or at the very least save your own skin?

So today, in the wake of senior managers sticking in their oar, in the midst of colleagues raging against the machine, under the weight of a never ending list of service requests - I pruned my banzai tree.  

Take a moment for yourself and breath.  For a moment, don't do anything for anyone else.  The voice in the back of your mind urging you to 'hurry up, move on, what's the next thing?' doesn't have to be listened to.  You can take a moment and not 'do' anything with it at all.  The more you do this, the more space you will see around the events in your life, the less reactive you will get and the more intelligently you will act.

Refuge

Although I have been meditating on and off for some years now, it's only the last 3 weeks or so that I have finally succeeded in habitualising at least ten minutes twice daily.

The results so far?  I am exceedingly aware of the constant chatter my mind produces every single moment of every single day.  How was I not aware before of this mental noise?  I was aware when I was thinking, but it seems that even when I'm not consciously thinking there's a stream of babble that is mostly useless regurgitated information spilling through my head.

It's doing my head in.

I am told by reliable, worldly and spiritual sources that the next step is to accept without judgement, as I try my best to do with the world outside my head, every thought that comes.  And yet one of the thoughts that comes quite often now is 'Oh shut up you're so annoying!' which, of course, just adds to the mental clamour.  In fact, my head is doing my own head in.  Making sense?  Of course not, it's mind!

So where do I take refuge from this noise?  There's no way out!  So I must enter deeply instead.  Morihei Ueshiba is quoted as saying : 

'You cannot see or touch the Divine with your gross senses.  The Divine is within you, not somewhere else.'

I do find from time to time in my meditation that towards the end of my session, I am left calm and the noise has quietened significantly.  I remember one night last week which felt truly blissful and I did not want to leave my position.

I feel my practice must be extended now to start just when I start to reach that state.  Ten minutes to quieten the mind's chatter merely by watching it and then ten minutes mediation, sitting in the calm state.

Too Fast

I awoke this morning to my daughter Anabel doing a monologue of some sort.   She's saying she's going to go round to her friend's place and they're going to dress her in a nice dress, put on some makeup...  and I'm thinking, ah, my seven year old daughter being all girly again, playing dress up... and then they're going to straighten her hair, or maybe curl it, she doesn't know yet, and I'm thinking OK yeah, I should really get out of bed now, and then she's going to go across the road to his house and knock on his door...  wait a minute, what?!!

It was then that I found myself fully awake and musing that my seven year old daughter shouldn't be - should she?  Isn't she too young to be trying to attract boys?  Oh dear god, it begins!

Yes I know it's just an innocent way of copying the adult world and making it her own experience, and I know that the event she's actually describing is never going to happen (no way, uh uh) but it left me knocked sideways.  

So who is this boy?  What about the little fella you previously were calling your boyfriend?  Oh, you dumped him.  I see.  And this new fella's available now because he's just been dumped by your other girl friend.  Hmmmm.

They grow up so fast.

Mixing it Up

This last seven days I have trained more with strangers than I have my regular aikidoka and it's been a terrific experience.

I spent Sunday morning and early afternoon with the fantastic and formidable Gordan Jones (6th dan, UKA) and at least forty other people studying kaiten (thank you Mark Walsh for explaining, after four hours of practicing it and getting it wrong, what kaiten actually is).

And this evening I have just come back from a two and a half hour class with Nick Doyle (3rd dan, Brighton Aikikai).  So lovely to find eight people throwing themselves round a dojo at half ten on a Friday evening when everyone else is hitting the pub.  Excellent class.

So it struck me this evening that you can tell a whole lot about a person practicing in the dojo that you might never learn from talking to them.  There's a great line in the Matrix that says 'You do not truly know someone until you fight them'.  Aikido is even deeper than that.  You walk up to someone you've never trained with before and make contact by holding their wrist and then you listen to their whole body, down to their very core.  You might not pick it all up on a conscious level at first but you'll pick up everything about them, their childhood, their current mood, their energy level - it's like taking a complete psycho physical profile of another human and giving all that you've got right back.

I experienced this a few times at both practices this week but you can tell across the mat, before you even pair up, who you're going to enjoy training with the most.  You know who you'll come back for more with - who you're favourite play mates are going to be. Because when you strip all the martial art away, that's what we're doing.  We're playing on the mat, risking injury for the buzz of sailing through the air.  And playing is something that the adult section of our society has mostly forgotten how to do.  I prescribe aikido all round.

Training with new people is also a fantastic way of truly testing your aikido.  When you don't know how someone is going to react you have no preconceptions, you have to truly open up to the possibilities and listen to your partner and how they move.  

When someone doesn't know you or how you move you are pushed sometimes to your limit as they sound you out.  I remember, in particular this week, training with a dan grade on Sunday and trying desperately to keep a good grip on his wrist as he moved me very powerfully and incredibly swiftly.  I kept finding myself behind the movement of my arm attached to his, and this resolved itself in my body as a jarring sort of energy, a non too pleasant one that I couldn't leave unchecked.  I really had to focus, breath, stop thinking and loosen up to move fast enough to smooth out the motion.

Sore all over for four days afterwards I kid you not - but there's a masochistic side of me that loves that in a kind of no pain no gain kind of way.

So this year for me, start grading (I haven't graded since my 6th kyu six years ago!) and attend more classes and courses outside my usual dojo.  Loving mixing it up.

Own the Mat

Am currently reading several books and have put them aside temporarily to go through a nice, if somewhat cheesy, little book by an American sensei, George Leonard.

He writes about this lovely little concept that could be misunderstood as ego manic but is actually a brilliant way to put into practice acceptance or non resistance.

He talks of 'owning the mat'.  So when you step onto the dojo mats you say to yourself, 'this is my mat'.  You treat everyone as your guest and act accordingly, including everyone in your gaze, sending out welcoming feeling or intention toward them, taking responsibility for them.   And you acknowledge that they own their mat also.

But this expands way beyond the dojo.  When walking down the street, try, 'I own this path' and smile accordingly at everyone walking along it.  Welcome to this space I am walking through.

I love this concept and am using it everywhere I go today.  I visit alot of different sites in my job, entering alot of offices as a face that may not be recognized by most that work there daily and thusly encounter spiky energies from time to time that can be uncomfortable.  I am entering someone else's territory if you like.

But when 'I own this office' my energy is transformed completely out of discomfort and into acceptance of all around me and good intention to those I meet in it.

When people are a guest in your home it is your responsibility to make sure they are comfortable and relaxed yes?  If they fall over you rush to pick them up.  If they ask you for something you do your best to get it.  What if everyone you meet is met as though they're a guest in your place?

Recommended practice.

Prayer

I am thankful and grateful for this healthy mind and body.  There are many that have not this blessing and I appreciate it on a daily basis.

I am thankful and grateful for my partner, Catherine and my children, Anabel and Jude and especially thankful for their health and happiness.

I am thankful I do not live in a war zone.

I am thankful and grateful to have chanced upon great teachings and teachers in my life.

I am grateful for Aikido, my teachers and fellow aikidoka for throwing me to the ground repeatedly.

I am thankful for my job and other life circumstances that allow my family to live in comfort and security.

I am thankful for the thin envelope of air that gravity has stuck to this beautiful ball of rock.  I am grateful for the spinning molten metal core that has generated just enough of an electromagnetic field to protect us from the searing solar winds and radiations of the universe.

I am grateful for the incredible set of circumstances that have resulted in this life event I call 'I'.

I am thankful and grateful for this moment.

Happy New Year.