Sensei's Notebook

Nidan

Robert Chang

I thought my Aikido was broken. That was my conclusion as I prepared for my nidan demonstration. I was determined to fix it. So I analyzed every technique for flaws. And there were flaws, lots of them. There was always something I wasn’t doing correctly. The pattern usually went like this: find flaw; chastise myself for flaw; try to fix flaw (usually to the chagrin of my very annoyed uke); fail at fixing flaw; chastise myself again; try again (and hope uke didn’t just bonk me on the head); repeat. Sometimes, the fix worked and I would feel a brief moment of elation. But then I would try the fix on another uke and well, you all know how that usually goes.

All of this sounds like what typically happens during regular training. But this wasn’t regular training. This was nidan preparation training. I didn’t feel like I had the luxury of experimenting. My Aikido had to work

So I sought information from everyone and everywhere. All of it good. And all of it helped. But information, like everything else in life, is a double edged sword. On the one hand, each piece of information shed a bit more light on how my waza should work. On the other hand, it became a crutch of a sort. I relied on it when a technique didn’t work. I mentally stopped, analyzed, then scanned the information like I would an encyclopedia to see what information would apply to the problem at hand. Aikido became a cerebral exercise. Gerbil-on-a-treadmill intensive. There was no flow, only the stepping of instructions as I attempted to make each and every one of my techniques work, each and every time. It was exhausting and it didn’t always work. In fact, it failed more often than it succeeded. Which of course only added to my growing frustration.

Then I had my private lesson with Mary Heiny Sensei.I had just pinned my uke after an ikkyo. I moved to establish mai-ai, then like a good nage (or so I thought), I maintained my zanshin, keeping my attention on uke as she tried to get up off the mat. But she couldn’t get up to attack me again. It seemed that even though I was no longer physically pinning her, she was still being held down by my presence. No, it’s not as cool as it sounds. Actually, it was more like me hovering over her, almost menacingly. Sensei asked me what I was doing. She said I should let my uke up. For a moment, I was puzzled. My mind could not understand what she was talking about.

So I turned to Sensei and asked her, “Isn’t this what I’m supposed to do? Isn’t this the martial thing to do?” She replied (not her exact words), “But you’re not letting her have a say. You are perpetuating the conflict instead of resolving it. That’s not Aikido. You might as well practice jujitsu or some other martial art.”

Oh right! It was a moment I remembered vividly. I flashed back to the day I started Aikido. I remembered that I had wanted a more spiritual martial arts practice. I remembered why I chose Aikido after having spent many years in another art. Then I fast forwarded to the present, saw myself struggling mightily to make my Aikido work, and realized that I had been going about it all wrong. My focus on the physicality of the waza was one dimensional and myopic. Mary Heiny Sensei’s comment reminded me there was more to Aikido, that there was a bigger picture – the same one that drew me to Aikido in the first place. I had forgotten the bigger picture.

I had forgotten why I was practicing Aikido. I was reminded of this one scene in Enter the Dragon in which Bruce Lee whacked his young student on the head and said, “Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all the heavenly glory.”

The heavenly glory, of course, is the philosophy upon which this art is based - the principle of nonviolent conflict resolution. The intent to not cause harm, to not further the conflict, and to act compassionately to resolve the conflict – that’s what I had been missing. That very intent should be what drives and shapes my Aikido. Otherwise, all I’m really practicing is a collection of techniques. Which, I suppose, was what I had been doing up until the proverbial whack on the head.

It is natural to want to focus on how something works, especially if that something doesn’t work. This is particularly true for me as I’m very detailed oriented. In my desperation to fix my waza, I had put blinders on and saw Aikido only as something that I could dissect, analyze, and reverse engineer. I did so because I didn’t think it wasn’t possible. After all, that had been how I learned Aikido up to this point: I observed, analyzed, and experimented. When I felt my Aikido needed work, this was the approach I took as I was comfortable with it. I clung to it like a lifeline.

It seems that that is a valid approach only up to a certain point. Beyond that point, the physicality of the technique, though still important, must be combined with the energetic, metaphysical, and philosophical aspect of the art. And that means incorporating the bigger picture into the practice. The observing, analyzing, and experimenting will still continue, but with added dimensions. I suppose it would be like the difference between observing space through a telescope and actually being in space itself. The former provides only a narrow view while the latter offers a much fuller experience.

So as my nidan demonstration approaches, I am opening my practice beyond the details of the waza and the step by step instructions I have constructed. I have locked the gerbil in its cage and covered it up. No more analyzing. No more attempting to engineer Aikido by assembling movements and techniques together. It just doesn’t work, not at the level at which I should be practicing.

Ikeda Sensei once said that it’s alright to do 1 + 1 as a beginner. But if you are still doing 1 + 1 years later, then your Aikido has not progressed, an imitation of your teacher’s Aikido at best. Although I’m no longer a raw beginner, my Aikido is still very much an addition of parts in attempt to form the whole that is Aikido. My equation must change because if all I’m practicing is a collection of techniques, then I should quit and go do another martial art.