Foot Prints
articles by the tca community

Connection

Scott Blaufeux

     People seek to connect because they have a common understanding or mutually beneficial goals.  At first, I thought that an aiki connection had to be hard. I’m strong so this made sense to me. I’d tense up my muscles (in spite of all that I’d heard to the contrary) and PUSH into uke at the point of contact. Unfortunately, there’s no chance for true connection with this approach.

     In aikido, we first try to connect with our breath.  We breathe together so that our movement can flow naturally. To connect we MUST be relaxed, as ki can’t flow through tense muscles. Breathing allows us to relax. For me, the easiest way to have a soft-yet-compelling connection is to NOT think of the point of contact, but rather to think of ki flowing out of each partner’s fingertips. This normally means keeping that point of contact in your center (is it really?).  However, the hands must be soft. With the contact point no longer the focus, there’s a constant LEADING out the fingertips with an insistence on musubi, blending. It is actually the connection to our hips (oh, big surprise!) that gives power to our movement, making the line we draw compelling.

     Since our connection unites both bodies, the energy must flow through the two bodies down through relaxed shoulders, passing through the waist, knees and ankles, and continuing deep into the ground. (Are we remembering to breathe? Are our shoulders relaxed?)   Once we have made a connection, how do we maintain it?  We must be vigilant and take our time because it is obviously easier to break a connection than to make one. If we find our connection broken, we can think of O’Sensei’s words: “It’s not that I don’t get out of my center, it’s just that I get back into it faster than most people.” So you broke the connection. How can you reconnect?

     Finally, if we think of our aikido practice as a working-together-toward-a-common-goal rather than an I-attack-you/you-attack-me proposition, it may be easier to relax and breathe with uke.  However, if this all seems difficult, just remember: it’s just practice for when we’re off the mat. If we practice for thousands of hours and years and years, perhaps finally we’ll be better able to connect, and stay connected, to those in our lives who don’t practice aikido. If our on-the-mat practice is just a metaphor for what we do when we leave the dojo, how can we connect the two?

Body Principles
(attributed to Wu-Yu-Hsiang [1812-1880])

Relax the chest.

Raise the back.

Enclose the solar plexus.

Protect the cheekbones.

Lift the head.

Suspend the solar plexus.

Loosen the shoulders.

Sink the elbows.

Be evasive.

Avoid Conflict.

Scott Blaufeux taught French for 14 years before becoming a paralegal and then an office manager. He likes travel abroad, mountain climbing, biking, tai ch’i and cooking. He holds the rank of shodan in Aikido.