On Coming Back For More: Nidan

Jonathan Miller-Lane

The most marvelous part of coming back to Two Cranes for an intensive week of training was the opportunity to experience how much everyone’s practice had grown.  Each person I touched felt more grounded, the atemis were more frequent and precise, centers were lower, bodies more fluid, techniques more powerful yet less violent.  It was inspiring to see what consistent, long-term practice in a vibrant dojo could do for one’s development.  Richard teaching Friday and Saturday, Nat on Monday, Kris with the sword, Dan moving the bo like it was made of honey rather than hickory, and then, of course, there was Kimberly Sensei running her beautiful lines and bringing still more depth and power to every technique AND sharing it openly and without hesitation.  I discovered that ukemi is an odd thing when no matter how hard you try by the time your strike gets there, there will be no there, there.

After moving to Middlebury, Vermont three years ago I looked for Aikido.  An hour away in Burlington there is a wonderful dojo founded years ago by Terry Dobson and Ken Nissan, now led by Aaron Ward Sensei, where Mary Heiny Sensei holds an annual seminar in the Spring.  It is a wonderful place to train, but it’s an hour drive each way—too far for regular practice during the school year.  As a result, in order to have people to play with, I started offering “Beginning Aikido” through the Middlebury Parks and Recreation Department for anybody aged eleven and up.  After a year of training with a small group, the town gave us a basement space below the basketball courts that had formerly been used for dog training.  We took it.  We convinced the town to purchase 27 Zebra mats that we paid back through the dojo dues.  After eighteen months we had paid off the mats and had about a dozen people who regularly trained AND who now wanted more mats. As a result, after yard sales this Spring and lots of work this summer we renovated the basement space, added seven more mats and we now have a beautiful, clean, bright training space in the town municipal building where elementary, middle and high school students, college students and adults from town all train together.  We are steadily building a community of practitioners.  In honor of our aviary origins we have called ourselves Blue Heron Aikido of Middlebury Vermont.

To get ready for nidan, I started cross training this year to build up my endurance and once the school year ended I was able to increase class offerings from 3 classes a week to six classes a week, two of which were weapons classes.  I took lots of ukemi from every student during every class as Sensei always said that the best method for preparing for a demo is to take lots of ukemi.  Thanks to the presence of Justin Stearns, who is also a professor at Middlebury College and a shodan, I was able to get tossed at full speed.  Yet, the week at Two Cranes Aikido brought me back to my home dojo now filled with colored belts and many skirts moving and striking with joyful intensity and marvelous focus—it was great to be back.

As I return home after this week, I feel a tremendous sense of gratitude to everyone who spent time with me, who helped to deepen my understanding of Aikido and who has inspired me to keep pushing my own training.  Mary Heiny Sensei spoke about open heartedness during the hour before Robert and I danced.  Conceptually, I am all for it.  But, then, suddenly, there are four people coming at me and I think, well, let’s do openheartedness tomorrow because right now it seems more prudent to close up and start throwing.  But, surprise, suddenly all four are on top of you and your shoulders are all tight and your heart is constricted and no one has been “thrown” anywhere.  Sensei claps and you do it again and try to move from a lower center, turn, believe in the technique, believe in the ability of the heart to absorb and connect and turn and come out the other end whole, intact, softer and more powerful.  And, not so surprisingly, there are four people moving through and over and around you and your heart is pounding but the shoulders are looser, a little.  And so it goes and goes…

Many thanks to the gifted Aikidoka of Two Cranes Aikido.  Please know there are mats in Middlebury, Vermont waiting for your rolls.

Jonathan Miller-Lane is a assistant professor at Middlebury College in Vermont and the Chief Instructor of Blue Heron Aikido