Archives for 2012

Aikido has become a unifying factor in both my life and in the life of my family.  After nearly six years of marriage, my wife and I were finally able to visit her family in Craiova, Romania. It was to be the first time that she had been home since 2005, and the first time she would visit her parents since she was eighteen. Naturally, the planning process of this trip was extensive, and the duration was to exceed a month in length.

I had her promise me that I would be able to practice Aikido while there, especially since we were going to be away from home for so long. In preparation, I looked up the local dojos in the towns and villages near her family and began sending e-mails.

The dojo closest to her sister’s house was only a few kilometers from where they lived. In April of 2011, I contacted the Sensei there, [Adrian Albeanu, 2^nd Dan] to let him know when we would be in the area. He promptly provided the best dates for me to visit, and he also sent his contact information, so that I could confirm our visit when we arrived.

We arrived in mid July, and after spending a few weeks catching up with family, my opportunity to practice Aikido in Romania was approaching. I planned and expected to go on my own, but to my surprise my spouse’s entire family wanted to come and watch. They had never heard of Aikido, and their impression of martial arts up to that time was that it was something that only young children did, or something that only people that wanted to fight practiced. They knew that I was a schoolteacher in the United States, and that I was relatively passive in manner so, they were not sure why I was so interested in this martial art. The night before my niece insisted that I teach her a few things about Aikido before we went. It certainly peaked her interest and the interest of her parents.

The day came, it was a great class that lasted just over two hours. Although some of the warm up techniques were different, the practice was mostly the same. Most of the lesson was conducted in Romanian, but Sensei Albeanu was also able to speak English, and all of the techniques were called out by their Japanese names, which were familiar to me.

We had a great time. Sensei Albeanu stated at the end of the class that he was impressed that though we had learned from different teachers on different continents, our ways differed little, and the transition was nearly seamless.

It was only at the end of the class that I discovered that he normally did not conduct classes during the summer, but had opened the dojo because I was coming. I felt a bit embarrassed, but was honored by him and his students for going though all the trouble for me.

Even though we left Romania in about mid August, the experience did not end for everyone. My niece had been incessantly nagging her parents to let her start Aikido in September, when the dojo was to officially reopen, and so they enrolled her to start in the beginning of that month. Not only has she continued to practice Aikido, but her cousin, her cousin’s boyfriend, and some of his friends have since joined.

If she pursues it, I promised her that when she comes to visit America I would take her to my sensei’s dojo.

The whole experience has inspired me. Now, every time I leave home I look up the local dojo, and plan to take at least one class while there. I just can’t help it.

Matthew McCann

Shodan, Soto Deshi

Aikido Schools of NJ, Roselle Park

The ‘Aikido Craiova’ website:

http://www.aikidocraiova.ro/en/blog/2011/08/31/un-oaspete-deosebit-la-clubul-nostru/

The light enters…

My aikido training began in 1988; with whom is not quite important and where is even less important. What is important is the moment that “this is something different” occurred to me, created an instant change in my perception of the martial arts and human interaction. I matured physically, mentally, and emotionally, but discontinued my training as a result of just what I’ll call “life”. Always in the recesses of my mind, was Aikido. Again, I will be blunt. I was immature; I wanted to study a Martial Art that would allow me to solely gain physical power.

As a young athlete in fantastic physical condition, I was reckless. I did not appreciate the different path on which this art places its practitioners. I was more concerned with the physical accomplishments that I believed Aikido would allow me to achieve. It is more than just the generic statements that many make when they discover Aikido, or listen to the esoteric statements about the spiritual component of this fantastic style. What is interesting is that even in my immaturity, I still saw a power in Aikido that was unique, and cloaked from the general Martial Arts community.

Indeed pure physical power has its uses, for if one must do that in the face of eminent danger, it is certainly important to know how to act in an expedient, effective way. It would be disingenuous to say that a little doubt isn’t in my mind when I train. “Will this work, if I need to protect myself?”

Then the light entered…one day, a sempai and close friend said to me, “You know, a sensei said to me, that you have to trust the technique.”

Trust the technique? What does that look like on the mat? How do I do that when someone is rushing to me to harm me? I doubted the merit of that concept. Trust what technique…what is this sensei talking about? If this person is telling me that I’m doing it wrong, then how do I do is properly? As I listened to my sempai, waiting for an opportunity to say, “You are crazy”, or “I have no idea what you are talking about”, it occurred to me that he had hit the nail on the head. If I trust the technique, then my mind and spirit will quiet down, the doubt will be stilled and my body will focus on moving out of danger instinctively without trying to physically destroy someone else.

And so, a new way of training began. Suddenly, the sentences spoken to me by my senseis and sempais, weren’t sentences anymore. They were specific instructions as to how to move, re-direct, blend and subsequently off balance my practice partner. These words became keys to unlocking the power of Aikido; a power that only an Aikido practitioner would begin to see and commit to learning deeper. The light enters…..my youthful immaturity could not have fathomed this. Tonight the sensei said to me, “maybe you needed this as a youth, but your mind is now ready to accept it.” I believe this sensei was right.

One of my senseis also said “Aikido is personal, it’s your own”… “It’s a process. You must be patient.” My Sempai said to me, “You’ve got to respect the process. You can’t just go from point A to point B.” I understood that notion and tried to incorporate it into practice. Then one day, the light entered and I realized that I had to respect the process. This statement does sound redundant, but there are two parts to its meaning. There is the one-dimensional level of understanding, but then there is the holistic level where your body and being suddenly becomes somewhat ‘comfortable’ with the continued, repetitive, movement. We begin to feel when we take someone off balance, if we trust the technique and respect the process. We begin to feel when we move away from our center…My body seemed to look for the practice, so to speak. I’d heard these statements many times before, but This Time, I was absorbing it. This time, I truly heard “Trust the technique, respect the process….train, train, train.” It all made physical and spiritual sense to me. It has never been about rushing to the end, to conquer the “other;” “the outer”….It’s always been about commitment, patience, confidence and trust. I trust that this process lets us know that our continued, committed training will result in a positive outcome. Our senseis show us specific techniques. If we practice what they show us, we will develop a trust in this art, which will lead us to learn the power of Aikido. We must practice with confidence, commitment and intention.

The light will enter…..

Dena Williams

Aikido North Jersey

Listening to the radio a while ago I heard some really great music.  It was jazz.  As I listened it occurred to me that here was someone who was simply playing musical scales.  Well, of course he was doing quite a lot with those scales: Improvisation.  But, nonetheless, it sounded essentially like he was simply playing scales.

I recently came across a piece online, that first appeared in the 1981 Spring Edition of Federation News.   Following are excerpts of the thoughts expressed by Yamada Sensei in that article:

“. . . Many people are interested in doing fancy movements or techniques.”

“ . . . Please remember that an advanced student doing more complicated or fancy movements is quite different from a relative beginner performing these movements. And this difference is obvious to an experienced Aikidoist.”

It’s “important . . . for a student to have . . . basic elements so that later on . . . if he or she wants to, he or she can perform the fancy movements.”

This led me to think about the basic, warm up exercises we do before every class.  Early in my career they appeared to be simple, traditional warm-up rituals.  We’ve been doing them forever, but I never got a clear explanation of their fundamental importance to the art.  When special guests came to teach at seminars, they started every class with their own version of them.  When Arikawa Sensei came to New York for a seminar in 1978, he spent nearly an hour with us practicing sitting down and standing up.  Yamada Sensei and all of the uchi deshi in New York Aikikai always do them with great conviction.  So, I assumed we did them as a warm-up.  They are, in fact, the basic movements of the art.  My senpais[1] were continually telling me so, but I was not advanced enough to appreciate this information.

After hearing the jazzman playing his scales I realized that these were the building blocks of the awesome sound patterns he was creating . . . out of these simple scales.  It also became clear to me then, that basic exercises are the building blocks of technique.  Eventually I learned that it was these movements that trained my body to be balanced and properly positioned to execute technique.

It then became clear to me that all of the beautiful movements we see our teachers and aiki-ancestors make are essentially made up of these simple, basic building blocks . . .  these innocuous little exercises we do before each of our classes.  By repeating these movements over the years we are imbedding basic movements into our nervous systems.  This enables us later to execute technique without having to think about essentials.

What about those techniques?  I have, in the past, mistakenly explained to curious others that one of the differences between Aikido and other arts, such as Karate, was that karateka practice kata while we always do techniques.  I had then developed only to the point at which I thought that technique was the beginning and end of Aikido.  I was relatively inexperienced and had jumped to an erroneous conclusion.  The techniques we practice repeatedly serve the same purpose for us as those kata do for practitioners of other arts.  If the basic exercises are the building blocks of technique, then techniques are the building blocks of aiki-waza.

I like to remind my students, as I have been reminded many times by my senpai, that the practice of technique is not an end in itself.  It is merely an intermediate step in the application of technique toward the realization of aiki-waza.

I was repeatedly told that, when in my practice I come to a point where movement stops or technique is broken, I must not stop.  I must allow something else to happen.  When practicing a technique, I believe it’s best to stick to the program.  Apply the basic scales to each technique until the technique can be executed effectively in each repetition; no two are the same.  If an impasse is reached then it’s clear that some other technique is called for, and eventually will just happen by itself.  This is the beginning of aiki-waza.

How did we learn to speak our first language of words?  If you watch an infant before s/he has the ability to speak, you may notice that s/he will be moving rhythmically as the parents have conversation.  The baby is learning the rhythm of the language.  Before long that baby understands some of the words and begins to have a vocabulary.  However, the baby will not be able to speak because s/he has not yet developed the dexterity, the fine motor coordination necessary to form words with her mouth, lips and tongue.

It’s the same with any complex behavior.  Whether it’s learning to walk or to run, to swim or to skate or to play the piano, we learn basic positions and movements.  We apply these to simple and complex technique, and only then are we able to improvise freely.

Practice well.

I was talking to my training partner the other day and the discussion led to “being in the moment”.   I added that training in Aikido is about being here (at the dojo) now.  Thinking back to that conversation, I reflected on the topic.  What exactly does “being in the moment” mean?

Being in the moment is a state of conscientiousness that is free of stress.  When we are in this state you are more creative, our thought processes are more active and we respond to challenges rather then react to them.

To get to this state, there are two core elements you need, awareness and response.  My dad always told me, “You must always be aware of what is going on around us.(awareness)”  This is a valuable lesson I learned growing up, but what my dad didn’t tell me was the second part of this lesson is the importance of processing what is going on around us (response).

Awareness and response go hand-in-hand.  Once an Aikidoka keys into this awareness, they are in a powerful state.  They reclaim their attention and can now direct it in purely constructive and creative ways.  Awareness is but the first step because we can only control those things that we are aware of.

Part two of being in the moment is response.  One of my favorite quotes comes from Zig Zigler, motivational speaker and author, “to respond is positive, to react is negative”.  At first read you would think, “what is he saying”? Respond and react are the same things, right?  Well, let’s look at this closely.

When we react, we are coming from a place of limitation.  This limitation is the result of direct experiences that have caused us to narrow our ability to see a situation for what it really is.  These direct experiences causes us to think we know what something is about and what it means to us (good/bad/indifferent), and then when we come upon that situation again we react with a pre-established, pre-defined action.

Reacting to a situation takes us out of the moment, there is no processing performed.  We are not responding to the situation.  We lose the first part of “being in the moment”, awareness. In our Aikido training, being aware and responding is important.  We say we react to an attack, but in reality we are training to respond to the attack.  We are being in the moment, in a state of awareness.  This is most evident in randori training.  Attacks come in all forms with no predefined order and our responses (techniques) are also not pre-established or scripted.

As we continue our Aikido development, let us stay aware of our surroundings and respond, not react, to the situations.  Let us “Be in the Moment.”

Rey N. Robles

Southern Maryland Aikido Center

A long time ago, I was told that the kanji for the Ai, harmony, in Aikido represented one family living under one roof.  This evoked a wonderful, dynamic image, with all the give and take and blending of different individuals that make any house a home.  When I tried to look for documentation of this etiology, however, I found that the character was usually said to be based upon a pot with a well-fitting lid.  Well, lids may fit, but they are inanimate, inflexible, dead.  Although this explanation may be more historically correct, I prefer to visualize the former image, of Ai as a harmonious home.   And that home is filled with playing children and sunshine and the aromas of cooking rice and fresh mown grass, and maybe a little wet dog.  It is filled with life and life energy, or Ki, all blending under that one roof.

This more vibrant image of harmony and Aiki leads to a way of looking at the roles of nage and uke as hosts and guests in a home.  In Aikido, nage does not merely receive uke’s attack, like a lid clunking onto a pot.  Nage, as host, begins comfortably settled in his home, then opens the door and reaches out to welcome uke, his guest, with generosity and joy.  Uke, in turn, does not approach warily; he exuberantly accepts the host’s invitation, entering wholeheartedly, offering a gift. Nage receives his guest and whatever he has brought, helping him to come in and sit down for a peaceful, relaxed visit.  Now, if the guest were to be less friendly, he could come bearing a nasty letter or even a knife or a baseball bat and no baseball.  It is still offered exuberantly, without hesitation. Nothing in the gracious host’s reception need change.  Nage is always settled, grounded, “at home” and actively invites and welcomes uke’s committed attack, then guides him safely to a peaceful resolution.

In Aikido training, assuming an attitude of generosity and joy can have the effect of changing my entire bearing, much more than simply placing my arms and feet in a given position.  This applies as both nage and uke.  Such an attitude helps to counter any tendency to hold back, with hesitant movements and a closed posture, or to aggressively or awkwardly fling myself through space.  It balances and harmonizes me with my body and with my partner.

Beyond helping my training in the dojo, this approach extends into my life as a whole. When I try to stay settled and at peace in my own space, and actively welcome others into my home and life, to share a steaming pot of rice, perhaps, then my life is that much better, as is that of my entire family.

My interpretation of the Ai kanji may or may not be historically accurate, but I believe the conception of Aiki as a home filled with generosity and joy is consistent with the philosophy of Aikido.  Describing his first transformative vision, at the age of 42, O Sensei was quoted as saying, “All at once I understood the nature of creation: the Way of a Warrior is to manifest Divine Love, a spirit that embraces and nurtures all things. Tears of gratitude and joy streamed down my cheeks.  I saw the entire earth as my home, and the sun, moon, and stars as my intimate friends. All attachment to material things vanished.”  If I could ever truly, consistently, maintain this attitude of generosity and joy in all of my interactions, when my body, my dojo, my home and my world are all the happy, harmonious places I would like them to be, maybe then I would no longer need to train.  But then, of course, I would continue anyway, because Aikido is my home and where I choose to live.

Janice Taitel

Aikido Center of Dover

“Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back.”

As many of you might know, compared to many I train with, I am new to Aikido training. I do not have the years of continuous training. As I continue my Aikido training, I have come to realize that while there are ranks and tests, the true determining elements in learning, training and developing my Aikido skills is a “Test of Time”.

This is not a new idea and I’m sure I’m not the only one to experience this. Time is finite. It has bounders and limits. Our existence is time boxed. How we choose to use time is crucial. For all of us who have chosen to make Aikido a part of our lives, we are told of the commitments that it asks. We are told that Aikido is not simply a recreational activity to be performed on weekends.

Take a look at your Aikido inspirations. If you look at them and admire the skills they possess, ask yourself what has gotten them to that status. They have one major thing in common; they all have dedicated themselves to Aikido. They made Aikido a part of their lives and we are witnessing the results. I don’t know about you but I want to emulate these results. I admire the Aikido Senseis and want to one day attain what they have attained.

As stated earlier, our time is limited. In accepting the challenges of commitment and dedication that Aikido asks of us, we will face the true “Test of Time”.

Continue to train hard, sincerely and passionately, my Aikido cohorts.

Rey Robles
Southern Maryland Aikido Center

Ma-ai is a concept that is often described to Aikidoka as meaning “space-time”. It is taught as a beginning concept of ‘safe distance’ typically measured by both practitioners extending their arms from a hanme stance so that they cross somewhere between the wrist and the fingertips. This “space”, if you will, represents the “time” it would take an attacker to reach the defender… the time required to take the step that spans the distance. This “time distance” provides the defender with an interval to react and thus effectively respond.

Such an elegant a formulation because of its economy and simplicity, but the equation E = mc2 (another space-time continuum) also appears simple but is about as conceptually complicated as you can get. And ma-ai has its complications and nuances as well.

First maai is not a fixed single concept. It is neither a fixed space nor a fixed time. For example if two opponents are of different heights or different arm lengths or different leg lengths then the maai is different for each of them in the same instant of encounter. The taller individual or the one with longer arms may not need to take a step in order to touch the opponent and thus is ‘closer’ and the opponent needs a longer distance for effective maai.

Conversely if one of the opponents has exceptionally fast reflexes and is the speedier of the two then the slower combatant needs more distance to maintain safety. But this requirement also brings with it the problem of giving the slower opponent a greater distance to cover when attacking, which in turn, because s/he is the slower of the two, gives the receiver of the attack an even longer time to respond.

These complications of the “space-time continuum” thus lead to another dimension, a dimension of mind (insert “Twilight Zone” music and the narration of Rod Serling… but I’m dating myself! However, it is where I’m going with this though… more later… with a sudden twist at the end.)

There is a maai of consciousness… the steadiness of attention, the constancy of focus, the point of breath at either inhale or exhale.

To gain a better understanding it is helpful to observe that maai is not just one thing but at least three things. The basic description of maai given above is actually a combination of two types of maai and blurs their differences a bit. When one is keeping a distance that allows for some reaction time this distance can be more specifically labeled as “to-ma” or perhaps called “long distance”.

But when one can strike the other only by covering the distance of one step then that distance is more specifically called Issoku ittō-no-maai (Itto-ma or “chuma”, middle distance). With this physical space there is very little time to react and so concentration must be unwavering. At this distance, all other factors being equal, the advantage goes to the opponent with the stronger steadier mind. Indeed it is possible that a stronger steadier mind that can identify and exploit lapses in an opponent’s consciousness may in fact more than compensate for the opponent’s advantages in reach and/or reflex speed.

The third kind of maai in this categorization scheme is “chikama” or short distance. In this situation an opponent has gotten too close, too far inside, in order to allow for any reaction time and there is nothing that can be done to defend oneself. An example of this is an instance in which a man brandishing a knife has gotten within 10 feet of a man with a holstered sidearm. The man with the knife has an overwhelming advantage. In fact in law enforcement training the safe distance here, the maai, is deemed to be a minimum of 21 feet.

In this last category an aware and “intuitive” mind could still have an advantage by moving ahead of the attack or specifically leading it to a pre-determined spot chosen for its defensive advantage. This is one of the meanings of the concept of “leading” an opponent’s mind.

We deal with maai constantly in everyday life. It is as simple as the time elapsed between the knock on the bathroom door and the same hand then turning the knob to open the door. It seems rarely, if ever, does the “knocker” allow for any time for the “current user” to respond before s/he tries the knob. If this occurs on an unlocked door in a public place like an office or garage restroom the “current user” soon discovers that there is an “opening”!

More dangerous is a failure to maintain a safe following distance between cars on a highway. Here severe tragedy can result from chikama, maai that is too close and inappropriate. This situation is exacerbated by texting while driving. Here there is a lapse in consciousness that allows great distances to be breached before there is even an awareness of danger and response and reflex speed remain as factors after initial awareness.

And then there are the more subtle nuances of maai that are manifest in body language and the cultural overtones embedded within non-verbal communication. If you are adventurous, experiment with the invisible boundary that represents the half way point on a shared table. Spread out across that line in a cafeteria or a library… what’s the body language (or possibly the spoken language) of the “sharer”. Or what’s your comfortable speaking distance? How close do you allow a boss or a co-worker? Where’s your line? What’s your maai?

Culturing an awareness of details and allowing for the healthy sensitivity of “relaxed alertness” is the way one can take advantage of “kokoro-no-maai”… a lapse of spirit, a wandering of the mind which leaves a momentary “tsuki” or opening. Such moments are said to exist at certain points in the breath cycle such as just before an exhale is completed. One would unleash a most successful attack if coupled with a “ki-ai”, a spirit yell, an exhalation at the moment of the strike. The same would be true at the moment of response. However if one has not quite finished an exhale then this has to be completed, followed by an inhale before there can be a powerful exhale again. Thus there is an “opening” at that specific point of the breathing rhythm.

But none of this has anything to do with my point! Or maybe it has everything to do with it.

This all started while I was listening to a discussion on my car radio as I drove to work in congested morning traffic with an aggressive driver tailgating me as she did her lipstick in her rear view mirror. One of the contributors speaking on the radio used the phrase “the problem with the world today”… when it occurred to me that this was a confluence of issues in space and time that could be eliminated with an awareness of maai.

Technology has become a virulent attacker to the act of living in a relaxed manner in the here and now. Multi-tasking and web surfing and television with “57 channels and nothin’ on” and a 24 hour hyped news cycle, and tweets and postings and a virtual community that frantically devours bits of minutia like piranha in a feeding frenzy leaves no time or space for solitude… just a zombie crowd engulfed in a steady numbing drone.

The dialogue on my car radio had lost its sense of real context and seduces the listener to journey to conceptual abstractions. The “world” is the space we live in… that is immediately around us. I cannot describe the world solely as this commute. The discussion of the “world” was a provincial look at a microcosm and reduction of urban America. It certainly was not the universe. It was not the world of medieval burgermeisters, or the Omo tribe in Sudan, or for that matter of a farmer in the Midwest USA.

And “today” is just that… a “moment” that is “here”. It is not eternity… it is not “all of the time”. And yet “now” is all we have… and it is only “here” and it never goes away so it is “eternity”. A Roman gladiator only had “now”, a mugging victim only has “now”, a runaway slave only had, or because it still exists somewhere on the planet and probably in more than one place, they only have “nows”.

Sure we have memories and we have goals and plans but these too are abstracts. They change according to the now. The humiliating moment last summer when a co-worker accidently walked into the bathroom you were using becomes the funniest story at the office Christmas party. The righteous argument you had in college with the dorky disheveled and disorganized weird kid because of how much space he was taking and the noise he was making in the library becomes patty and sickening when you found out he jumped off a bridge later that day. The happy goal of buying that house suddenly becomes a burden when you’ve be laid off and your home mortgage is under water. And the lay off becomes the best thing that ever happened to your career because it created the opportunity where you stumbled into your dream job.

Practice Aikido to develop penetrating awareness… to find your place in space and time… to guard your maai… and to see the openings… to stay in the now… in big things and little things… like maybe I shouldn’t be texting this while I’m driving!

Robert A. Whelan
Shodokan