Category: on the mat

Getting Here, Being Here

natebrush

I recently had a wonderful conversation about the mindset of martial arts with a college professor. He is particularly qualified to speak on the subject. His doctorate is in Sports Psychology. He is Japanese, with a Japanese teacher’s license, and he is an experienced kendo competitor.

We sat on my couch, enjoying a drink and good company in the afternoon sunlight, and talked about healthy competition. He asked me two questions. First, why do I practice aikido? Second, why do I get unmotivated to practice? I practice because I love the art. I slack off when I get too focused on me or my own achievement.

I asked him his mental approach to a kendo competition.  I was asking about his pre-game routine. His pump-up jam or meditation. His answer wasn’t what I expected. Japanese athletes train to approach their competitors with respect before the match because without the opponent, there would be no competition. At the end of the match, they bow in respect–win or lose–because without the opponent, there would be no competition. The concept was so foreign, I didn’t even think of that as pre-game preparation.

As we compared Japanese and American approaches to competition, we circled around the topic of motivation. Sport can’t only be about winning. Winning is a moment. Just as losing is a moment. That can’t be everything. Wins and losses lead to team and athlete growth.

From there, our discussion led us to the mindset of martial arts training as distinct from sport training. Why do we learn to hold a wooden sword and learn how to hit with it and be hit with it? Why learn to strike and block rather than do sports that are more traditional play? Although people have different motivators, my friend and I share the same core perspective: Training isn’t to win. It isn’t to dominate or be the best.

We train to be in this moment. Whether we are facing an opponent in the ring or chatting at a barbecue, we try to be present. Ready. Awake to what is going on. Mindfulness is bringing all your awareness to where you are. On the mat and off. Present and aware. We train to connect to what is happening around us. And, maybe more importantly and more difficult, is to connect to the people around us.

It all comes back to motivation. In sports, we train to be in the moment, to be alert and ready to play. We don pads and special shoes, bend into special stances, do special exercises that serve the game. Then we play, aiming to win while the clock winds down and the points rack up. And then, whatever the outcome, we wind down for the post game.

In martial arts we train to change the baseline, to create a new normal. We don pads and special clothes, bend into special stances, and do special exercises that train the body and mind to permanently change. We practice throws and strikes and falls to prepare for potential future threats. We practice reacting to threats, to violence, so that we change our reactions. However, there is no post game, just progress.

We slouched on my couch in the afternoon sunlight, neither of us worried about our posture. Neither of us was ready to jump up and smack someone. Yet our martial training shaped the moment and our respect for each other. We were present. As awake and aware as we could be to each other and the world around us.

Practice Watered Down

jenmichellemason

“Don’t change the kata,” Sensei Mark reminds the class.

We stand in pairs down the mat, like characters in a Jane Austen novel about to dance a quadrille or cotillion; only we are equipped with swords, not witty repartee. We are struggling with the day’s weapons instruction. Specifically, we cannot comprehend the correct and proper way to hajiki age (powerfully strike the opponent’s blade horizontally).

In bokkendo (training with the wooden sword called a bokken, in lieu of a real katana), the swordspeople have an arsenal of attacks, blocks, counterattacks, and counter-blocks at their disposal. According to today’s lesson, I should be able to deflect any kind of attack with a hajiki age. I can alternatively employ an uchi otoshi (a powerful downward strike on the attacker’s bokken), or a nuki, a maki, and so on.

With polite and obliging practice partners, I and my classmates have no trouble rehearsing the hajikis.

Jab!
Hajiki-whack! Win with my blade inches from my partner’s temple.

Slice!
Hajiki-whack! Win again.

Chop!
Hajiki-whack! Win!

This form of practice instills the mechanics. It drills the motions into the body, hopefully automating them for future applications. But then we play with hypotheticals. What if the opponent is no longer polite? What if the opponent wants to win as much as I do?

Jab!
Hajiki-whack! Wi–what the…??

Basic Newtonian physics enable my partner to win. Because every action has an equal but opposite reaction, my partner rolls the force and momentum of my sideways hajiki into a spiral and wins with his blade inches from my sternum.

The class is frustrated. Hajiki ages do not seem to work against any and all attacks. Maybe if we alter the footwork…? Perhaps, if we play with the pacing…? What if we just trick the opponent and beat him to the punch…? Some students insist a hajiki must only exist for very particular and specific strikes–obviously not the ones we are receiving from our partners right now.

Sensei shakes his head to that theory. “These katas have been practiced for thousands of years. They have to work or else they would have been changed already.”

He reviews the basic principles and the basic form again. He demonstrates the hajiki age with precision and clarity. He encourages his demo partner to misbehave, be sneaky, do whatever she wants to win. She obliges, but no matter what she does with her bokken, Sensei executes a smashing hajiki and wins.

We are sent back to our partners for another round, once again urged not to change the kata; change ourselves instead. Adapt ourselves to the form.

“Assume the kata is perfect,” Sensei encourages us over the bwack-bwack of wooden blades slapping. “Adjust your form until it works no matter what the attacker does.”

While my partner and I take turns hacking and jabbing at each other, I begin to visualize symbols of perfection. The Fibonacci sequence fills my imagination with its perfect spiral that simultaneously contracts and expands infinitely. The insides of seashells, the heads of cauliflower, the fat plate of seeds on a sunflower’s face, a hawk’s circular upward climb into the stratosphere, ocean waves, a fly’s compound eye–essentially, my thoughts are inundated with everything in nature possessing innately balanced form and perfect composition.

How can Aikido–or, in this instance the weapon work we practice to bolster our Aikido–become a Fibonacci spiral? To me, Aikido is made of so much flow. It is like water. All churn, pour, and gush. Water doesn’t naturally take the shape of the seashell, it grinds it into shimmering powder.

By the time class ends, my hajikis are still flash-flood messy.

Impossible! I brood all the way home. Water is too free, too wild, too vast to ever Fibonacci.

I share a distracted hello with the neighbors as they haul out hoses and sprinklers. Green coils ribbon across their winter-thirsted lawn. I am an automaton in the shower because I am so consumed with Sensei’s impossible instructions.

I head out to lunch with friends. The server sets artisan glassware on the table. The glasses have more curvaceous hips than the Colorado River. The server sloshes water into each glass then scurries away, leaving us to examine menus.

I am not reading the menu. Instead, I fixate on the condensation beading the outside of the glass while the water hugs the bizarre innards, just as it hugged the garden hose next door or the pipes in my house. In the glass, the water is so clear, so glasslike. Hydrogen and oxygen become silicon and potash. Seamlessly.

“That’s it!” I shout and am met with astonished eyebrow bridges around the table. “Water doesn’t have to destroy the Fibonacci spiral. It can fill it. That’s how a wild, unwieldy thing attains perfect form. That’s how you don’t change the kata. You change yourself.”

My friends nod then suggest moving to an indoor table–one where the sun cannot further cook my wits. I wave them off with a laugh then take a long, quenching drink.

 

Image credits: “KKDH_07_04-13_02” CC BY-NC 2.0; “frustration” CC BY-NC 2.0; “shell” PD; “water abstract art blue surreal” CC; featured image “water spiral” PD.

Connection

philipriffe

In my early years of aikido, connection was not emphasized. I first conceived of connection as something to break away from. Someone grabs your wrist, and well, you’re trying to escape, right? Make them let go!

It was a long time before it occurred to me that one of the principle things we are practicing is connection.

When I first began to experiment with connection, I understood it on a purely tactical level. When someone grabs me, I want him to hold on. I’ve got him right where I want him! He has committed to an attack, and I encourage him not to let go so I can guide him to a peaceful resolution (face down on the mat, safely entangled in an air-tight pin).

Soon I began to sense a deeper purpose for connection. I started to notice that when uke grabs my wrist, I can learn a lot. Through the grip I can feel the direction and intensity of the attack, the attacker’s intention, where the tenseness resides in his body, and where he is out of balance. If I’m sensitive enough, I can feel all the way down to the soles of his feet. It’s rather mysterious, but it’s not that hard to do.

But there is another level of connection that can happen even before physical contact. Lately I have been practicing extending a form of awareness that connects to uke from across the room. It’s a non-verbal observation. I liken it to listening to instrumental music with full attention. The analytical mind is disengaged and a different kind of perception is employed. If I imagine that my center is connecting to uke’s, as she approaches I gather a great deal of subtle information. I see her posture and sense her balance, her intent, the direction and speed of her attack. I begin to sense intuitively how to move in order to unbalance and lead her.

Mark Sensei sometimes talks about the difference between timing and connection. Timing your reaction to a quick attack such as mune tsuki (a stomach punch) is impossible—or, at best, unreliable. If, instead of timing, you use connection with uke, you will find that you have plenty of time. When I first heard this, it sounded a little woo-woo to me.

Fist by Lorianne DiSabato

But it’s true. If I’m not trying to time someone’s attack, but I’m practicing connection, then we move as one, and it no longer feels like a reaction relying on pinpoint accuracy in timing. Perhaps it can be explained by noting that when we’re connected, I’m observing uke’s whole body while focusing on their center, and not having my attention trapped by that quickly approaching fist.

 

Recently in Steve Sensei’s ki class, only aikido students—those of us who train in the “falling down and getting up” portion of the art—showed up. We took the opportunity to practice some initial aikido moves, such as ryote mochi tenkan, where uke’s two hands grab nage’s forearm, and nage pivots on his front foot while raising his held arm. It’s edifying to practice slowly with an uke who is neither “locking down” with tension to prevent your moving nor just going along with you, but is instead practicing the same principles that you, the nage, is practicing. When uke is centered and extending ki, he provides an immediate feedback loop to nage.

AikidoDemonstration-06 by Harvest Ministries Guam

Ryote mochi can be a difficult hold to deal with. Uke has the advantage of two hands gripping your arm, and he can apply a lot of leverage. There are helpful ways to think about executing this move, such as “not encountering uke’s strength,” or “pivoting around the space between uke’s hands,” or “moving where uke isn’t.” Some aikidoka will advise, “Just scratch your head,” revealing that all that’s keeping you from moving is having your mind stuck on the place where your arm is being held, and once you move your attention away from the point of struggle, it’s easy to move.

In this ki class we threw away those “tricks” and worked on connection. An uke held my arm in a ryote mochi grip, and I practiced responding with connection. This begins with a certain increase in pressure, moving in to make maximum contact with all the places where uke’s hands hold me, and through that connection trying to feel all the way to uke’s center. As I searched for real connection, I would try this and that, attempting to feel my way into that mysterious place. Then something almost magical would happen. When I was almost but not quite fully connected with uke, she could keep me from moving, but then I would make some very subtle change—in angle, or pressure, or just intention—and suddenly I could move uke without effort. And what had changed was something in uke’s neurology. Suddenly she no longer wanted to resist.

Taking uke’s role, I felt it from the other side. I held my partner’s arm, giving feedback to what I was feeling. It was—no, no, not quite… and then, Oh! Some slight but extraordinary change happened and suddenly I wanted to move with her. Even though we both were aware of what nage was attempting to do, and I was doing my best to resist her movement, there was a moment when she slipped into real connection and my resistance turned into compliance. Despite what I had been trying to do, I suddenly found myself wanting to move together with her.

When I feel true connection, I am always surprised. It’s always different from what I thought it would be. I can’t get to connection without trying to, but when I connect it’s always different from what I was trying.

 

Anyone who has practiced aikido for awhile has had the experience of unexpectedly doing a very powerful throw when it seemed that you were doing almost nothing. I remember when it first happened to me. A dojo mate came running at me in a katate kosa tori (crosshand) grab, and I began an ikkyo irimi throw and effortlessly sent him airborne across the room. “Oh!” I realized, “It’s much less than I thought it was.” I had stumbled upon a moment of true relaxation—and connection.

And some of us have had an experience that always seems to happen at a seminar practicing with a senpai of much higher rank who has not yet learned to abandon his ego. You happen to execute a move in which you toss him around like a rag doll, and he gets up saying. “I could have resisted that.” You just smile and nod, thinking, “Why didn’t you?”

 

Aikido by Kesara Rathnayake

 

And the answer is the crux of the biscuit. Your senpai began by trying to test you and resist the throw, but at some point he stopped wanting to resist, and what had caused this change of heart?

Connection.

 

 

 

(Featured image “Hold My Hand” courtesy of operabug.)

Dignity and Respect

natebrush

I’ve always thought of myself as the kind of person who treats everyone with dignity and respect.

In the short 21 months that I’ve been training in aikido, it has become glaringly clear that there is someone new whom I am learning to treat with dignity and respect: myself.

Through our aikido practice, I am beginning to feel a subtle yet powerful shift in the way I perceive others and the way I perceive myself.

One of the big lessons is to maintain my own center. For me, this flies in the face of my habitual patterns associated with being “a nice guy” in order to earn approval from others.

As always, our aikido practice on the mat serves as a wonderful mirror for my life.

Katate kosa tori kote gaeshi tobi komi: If I don’t maintain my own center as nage, I may find myself bending over uke as I try to complete the technique. I may end up initially taking uke’s balance, only to hand it right back to her, surrendering my effectiveness.

Copyright 2012 J-O Waldner.

As I truly begin to learn to maintain my own center, I find that I worry less about trying to please others and I focus more on speaking and living my truth. The more I treat myself with dignity and respect, the more I treat those around me with true dignity and respect. My old habits of manipulation and passive-aggressive behavior drops away as I learn to openly ask for what I want, knowing I may not get it.

The more fully I accept myself, the more authentically I show up on the mat and in the world. Joy replaces self-judgment. Giving myself over to the lifelong process of training replaces the idea of reaching some sort of “finish line” represented by a hakama or a black belt.

Turning around my own center, I maintain my balance. And I discover that I no longer need to agree with someone in order to treat them with dignity and respect.

Teaching Learning

jenmichellemason

Finally: the answer to the conundrum which has bebuggered our dojo and its instructors—maybe all dojos and instructors—since the dawn of forever!

Ours cannot be the only dojo that wonders what constitutes the best practices for teaching aikido. Should you demonstrate techniques silently and allow practitioners to repeat them ad infinitum? Should you provide minimal verbal instructions? Or should you provide descriptive details, memorizable steps, and plenty of explanation?

And what about when you’re not the instructor, but just the senpai (senior student) paired with a novice, or kohai? Should you remain mostly silent while your partner reps a technique? Should you correct the errors you see or feel—either silently/bodily like a mime or verbally/accurately like a tutor?

 

I am especially keen to unravel these mysteries because I am co-teaching our 4-week Monday/Thursday Intro to Aikido class (download the intro class flier) coming up on March 12th, 2018 (for questions or to register, contact Philip Riffe: philipriffe@gmail.com)!

Upending Convention 

The answers to these and other questions can be found in Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. Co-authors and experts Peter Brown, Henry Roediger III, and Mark McDaniel compile recent findings from neuroscience and cognitive psychology and combine the results to reexamine what learning is how best to facilitate it.

Conventionally, our culture believes that learning anything the hard way is a waste of time and effort. The student and teacher are better off when the learning is fast and easy. We also believe that practice makes perfect. Repeat something over and over AND OVER until you have it down. However, like nearly all the revelations arising from fMRI (real-time observations of living brains) evidence, the takeaways on learning are counterintuitive and quite opposite from the quick-and-easy conventions.

The Make It Stick authors reveal that when it comes to learning, easy in equals easy out. For example, whenever someone tells you a phone number, you might repeat the number over and over until you can plug it into your phone or jot it on a piece of paper. If asked to recite the number again later that day, odds are good you would succeed in the memory task. But, if asked to recall the number days or weeks later, odds are you will have forgotten the number entirely.

Why?

Because the brain stores quick and easy info in short term memory. Think of short term memory like a chalkboard. It’s as easy to mark on as it is to wipe clean. Long term memory is more like a safety deposit box. It will cost you to put anything in it, but once there, it will endure.

The cost required to store anything in long term memory is effort. Learning actually needs to be effortful if it’s going to last, expand, and enrich.

Worth the Effort

How can we make learning meaningfully effortful? The authors recommend “interleaving” or mixing the tasks and skills to be practiced. Their example comes from a study of youngsters challenged to master the art of chucking a bean bag into a bucket two feet away. One group of kiddos practices exactly that: lobbing bags at a bucket set two feet away. Over and over in the usual “practice makes perfect” style—or what learning specialists call “massed” practice. The other group interleaves their learning. Their buckets sit three feet and four feet away and they can shoot at either or both targets as mixed or as methodically as they wish.

On an immediate skills test, the first group nailed the two-foot bucket more often than the second group. However, within a few weeks without additional practice, the first group missed the target while the second group nailed it. The interleaved practice was more difficult and did not produce desired results immediately, but it built a wider range of skills thanks to mixed targets. Over time, the brain massaged all that learning into the physical finesse needed to land the shot, regardless of the bucket’s distance.

How might this apply to teaching and learning aikido? We may all benefit by mixing what we rep. Maybe, if I want to get better at that hiki-hiraki ikkyo irimi, I should rep some kote kaeshis or shiho nages from a hiki-hiraki start. Maybe I should rep some ikkyos from yoko-hiraki or dashi-hiraki starts.

Mind the Gap

Another vital point which contradicts convention concerns forgetting. We assume forgetting stems from a flaw in our ability to remember, or that the way we acquired the information was somehow flawed (otherwise, we would remember it). On the contrary, forgetting is what the brain does naturally and needs to do in order to acquire information for the long term.

How can we encourage beneficial forgetting? Build open spaces or gaps into the learning process. Following a lesson, allow for a gap in time and attention on the topic. Allow the brain to erase some or most of what you acquired. Then quiz yourself. The effort you put into reconstructing the lesson strengthens the wiring in and across your brain. To recall what you learned (and partially forgot), you must tap various regions of the brain—those governing sound, smell, touch, taste, and so on. Your prior learning and experience will also feed the reconstruction process, which in turn, bolsters the wiring (synaptic connections) around the new information. More connections equal deeper storage and longer retention.

Riddle Me This

Another way to build in gaps is to hold back “right” or “wrong” feedback. Gaps of silence. When your kohai is fiddling about with footwork or handwork, simply giving them a few unaided attempts is enough to let their bodies relay important information to the brain, like: this is weird…this feels inefficient…this doesn’t seem at all like what the sensei showed…etc. In the wake of that evidence, the mind and body work in tandem to problem solve, to imagine alternative solutions, or to re-imagine sensei’s demonstration. This attempt to solve the problem before being given the answer builds robust learning because when you do offer a correction/solution, kohai’s mind and body will padlock that information and connect it to all the wiring that arose during unaided experimentation. Again, more wiring makes the revealed solution stick better and longer.

Consider any time you were given one of those bizarre brain-teaser puzzles to solve. Like those two ten-penny nails twisted together that supposedly come apart. Or think of any time someone has challenged you to solve a riddle. You try out answers and solutions until either you solve it or you ask for the answer. How well do you remember the solution years later when you hand over the same puzzle or riddle to a new, unsuspecting victim?

Naturally, this book belongs on every educator’s shelf, but for senseis and aikidoka, this book represents an opportunity to strengthen and expand not only their practice, but also the essential senpai/kohai relationship which makes practicing so rich.

 

Featured image “Chalk” (CC BY 2.0).

Joy and beginner’s mind

natebrush

My shaky signature on the little sign-in card betrayed the fact that I was choking back some fear. This was Day One of my aikido training, and although I was greeted with warmth, kindness, and friendly smiles, all I could see were hakama.

The hakama. Symbol of someone else’s perfection. Mockingly pointing out the fact that, once again, everyone (EVERYONE!) outranked me. Reminder of my own broken, flawed self. Always too young. Too old. Not smart enough. Not rich enough. Not patient enough.

For a split second, I considered just turning around and heading back out the door. They could keep my monthly fee and I could keep my dignity intact. As long as I didn’t think about the fact that I had given up before trying.

On the mat as I stumbled and flailed, straining to understand and to execute techniques “correctly,” I felt worse than insignificant; I felt like I was getting in the way of everyone else in the dojo. Being a nuisance. Somehow delaying their training by requiring their guidance.

But I have kept coming back. In starts and fits at first… lots of absences. An injury. Plenty of excuses. But, for now, with increasing consistency.

And now, 17 months later, I’m seeing that all of this IS the process.

The beginner joins the class and is introduced to katate kosa tori kokyunage tobi komi. The “Twenty Year” technique. (Or maybe it’s “Thirty Year.”) Witnesses the technique for the very first time.

Thoughts occur. Emotion arises. And the journey begins.

A young Shizuo Imaizumi taking ukemi for O-Sensei, the Founder of Aikido. Even Imaizumi Sensei started out as a beginner. Regarding this photo, Imaizumi Sensei recently said, “That was taken at the old Honbu dojo around 1967. I used to stay in the dojo daytime in those days. So if someone came to visit the dojo to see O Sensei, I took uke for his demonstration. Good old days!”

Some of us beginners will be on fire for awhile; believing that we’ve found ‘the answer’ to all of the problems in our lives. We may race around the dojo with elation or move with exaggerated humility, trying our best to fit in. But we will hold some belief about the value and impact that “success” in aikido will have upon our lives.

“Once I earn 5th kyu, everything will be different!” “Once I become 4th kyu, THEN I’ll really know my stuff!” “Once I get my HAKAMA, footwork will just take care of itself and life will be easier…” and so on.

After some time, the New Romance energy fades. The honeymoon ends. And we are faced with ourselves.

Some of us will disappear abruptly, just too busy. Some of us will drift away, making promises and repeating oaths of dedication, hoping that somehow our words will mean more than our actions. Yet we show up less and less often. We all have our reasons.

But some of us will find ourselves intrigued. Entranced. Puzzled and delighted as aikido slowly expands, filling our lives from the inside out, more and more. Other interests begin to take a back seat as we discover that this aikido stuff is way more than learning and executing techniques. Way more than “moving up through the ranks.” That the word “connection” means way more than I’ve ever realized.

In my aikido practice as a beginner, something new seems to be emerging. A new, deeper sense of enjoyment, fulfillment, and joy that is not dependent upon getting something “right” or achieving some particular level of rank. Rather, a new sense of delight in simply being part of the dance of aikido.

We beginners, (without hakama, sometimes without gi’s, whatever our age) play a SUPER important role in the dojo, whether we realize it or not. I like to believe that every time I show up to practice, learn, screw up, and try again, I am offering myself up for refinement in some small way. Offering myself up to have yet another rough edge sanded down a little bit… to surrender another tiny little piece of my egotism, my selfishness, my stubbornness. Surrendering another tiny little nugget of my resistance to connect; relaxing my grasp on my belief that there’s a need to protect myself as something separate from the interconnected web of life.

By showing up time and time again, we beginners are giving all of our sempai (Teachers/Guides; more experienced sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles on the path) the opportunity to dive even more deeply into their own learning, training, and passion for the Art. And in doing so, they have the chance to start fresh as a beginner, as well.

Everyone in the aikido world, at some point, was a beginner. Even Imaizumi Sensei. As long as I can keep that in mind, I have hope.

 

How You Contribute to a Harmonious World

jenmichellemason

For almost 15 years, Durango Shin-Budo Kai has been a community resource for boosting mind-body unification, refining the spirit, and teaching nonviolent conflict resolution. As a 501(c)3, we are committed to the embodied practice of aikido as a means to increasing the peace and harmony for each practitioner, their families, the community, and beyond. As a martial art, aikido is remarkably adaptive. Its principles can be practiced by anyone of any gender, age, cultural heritage, or physical ability. (Indeed, we have welcomed onto our mats practitioners who were partially blind or wheelchair-enabled.)

While our nonprofit organization outlines our 2018 community outreach and education goals, we wanted to share the most exciting accomplishments from the last year.

Growth
New Year’s Day marked our one-year anniversary in the new dojo at 1140-A Main Ave (inside YogaDurango). Within this location, we hosted a jam-packed Open House, not to mention two successful semiannual introductory classes. We trained our bodyminds and refined our spirits during our solstice and equinox shugyos. These events brought guests from other dojos near and far, which contributed fresh zest to the training mix.

We added this blog to our website! The original articles you find there every month are generated by our own practitioners. There, we delve into what is new or old, lost or found on the path of this remarkable martial art.

Guides
DSBK once again participated in Durango 9R School District’s Keys to High School Success program where middle school students preparing to enter high school circulate through various learning stations throughout the day. With 6-8 dojo members on hand, we lead exercises that allow the young people to experience for themselves the power of relaxation, how to access calmness under stress, and what a difference it makes to center attention in the lower belly when facing a challenge. This year our participation made The Herald!

Michael Wilkinson (left) instructing the adults’ class.

In 2017, we also witnessed an important torch passed. After serving as the Kids Class Instructor for over a decade, Michael Wilkinson (4th degree black belt) retired from the post. Michael was a guide and a mentor to many, many children and teens. For some, he was a beacon—the only reliable and trustworthy adult available during those tough, transitional years. We are grateful Michael continues to practice and teach in the regular, adult classes. Meanwhile, Sky Yudron and Philip Riffe took over instruction of aikido’s next generation. They enjoyed packed classes with attendance reaching the double-digits during the long, hot summer.

Promotions
Promotions in rank occur when a student successfully demonstrates a selected range of techniques, ability, poise, and weapons exercises known as katas. Preparations for these “tests” unify the entire dojo around the candidate, generating a spirited, committed exchange of knowledge, skill, and insight. Promotions underscore the health of the dojo and the perseverance of its members. In 2017:

  • Tim Birchard earned 5th kyu (and in October, earned 4th kyu)
  • Sky Yudron earned 2nd kyu
  • Nate Brush earned 2nd kyu (and in December, earned 1st kyu)

Jenny Mason completed most of the weapons demonstrations required for Nidan, 2nd degree black belt. (Imaizumi Sensei will have the opportunity to review her promotion once she has completed all the requirements in 2018.)

Gratitude
We are all deeply grateful for the opportunity to train together, to grow and develop together, and to share the wonderful and transforming art of aikido with adults and especially the next generations in the kids’ classes. We know that this opportunity exists only because of the support of our partners and families to whom we are deeply grateful. As always, we will seek additional ways to extend our contribution to the community in the coming years. This natural rhythm of give and accept, extend and receive, inhale and exhale is fundamental to aikido and to all healthy relations.

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to DSBK Aikido, a registered 501(c)3 educational non-profit. All our instructors volunteer their time for free. All funds go toward rent, insurance, and aikido outreach events and efforts in the community. Contributions allow us to keep the cost of membership as low as possible, making the practice more accessible. The ripple-effects of these benefits translate directly into your meaningful contribution to a more harmonious world.

For information about how to give, please visit our Patronage page. Or mail a check to: Steve Self, DSBK Treasurer, 120 Trail Ridge Road, Durango, CO  81301. Make the checks out to DSBK Aikido. You will be sent a receipt with the nonprofit info for taxes.

Here’s to a more harmonious 2018!

Which way is down?

natebrush

Which Way Is Down?

I’ve always been a bit clumsy. From bumping into walls to drawing surprised glances when I dance in public, I have always felt challenged by my lack of physical grace.

But even so, I’ve always believed I knew which way was down. It’s just right there; look at the floor. Toward the center of the earth. Gravity is pulling me there all the time. Easy, right?

Well, on this fresh new journey into the world of Aikido, I’m beginning to realize that locating “down” may be simple, but it’s not always easy. Not for me, anyway.

Don’t get me wrong: when I am serving as Uke, my sempai clearly show me where “down” is. I am led down again and again, so it would seem that my intellect would understand instantly.

And yet over the past inaugural year’s training, countless times I have been under the impression that I was leading my uke “down,” only to be shown that I was actually leading them in any number of other directions. Currently, in the process of learning katate tori ikkyo hantai tenkan, a technique requiring Nage to lead Uke around and down simultaneously in a corkscrew-like path, I am surprised how easily I forget where “down” is. I lead Uke toward this wall, that wall… across the room… or even at some cockeyed angle approaching the ceiling. But not down.

The challenge I’m facing, I believe, is my habitual tendency to run all teachings up into my head and through my intellect before committing to movement.

I am graciously reminded by my sempai that the body often knows how to do a technique, but the intellect wants to “check it out and make sure it’s correct” before allowing the body to move. The result: confusion, leading to breaks in flow and continuity. Or, more recently, leading me to stare at my own hand as if I had never seen it before. A few of us shared a good laugh over that one.

All of this became clearer to me the other day as I was participating in our dojo’s Kids Class. A new boy about 5 or 6 years old attended for the very first time with a big smile on his face, occasionally glancing back at his father for reassurance. I asked the kiddo to roll over backwards, and he immediately did a very impressive back roll without even thinking about it.

I offered what I thought would be helpful corrections, pointing out that whichever knee is up shows us which shoulder we roll back over.

After my feedback, the poor kid could no longer do a backward roll. In fact, all I had truly done was brought the boy’s awareness up into his head where his intellect tried to “make it perfect,” resulting in a partial back roll turning mid-way into a front roll/barrel roll flop.

Turns out this is all good news, because it’s leading me toward some key questions:

In this moment, how aware of my body’s position in space am I? Where are my arms? Where are my legs? Where are my hands and feet? In which direction(s) are they moving?

And, in the bigger picture: What intention am I setting today? How am I feeling? How will I respond to perceived challenges, conflict, and friction?

As I come back to the present moment, time and again throughout the day, perhaps the best question I can ask myself truly is, “which way is down?”