One Thing
For many years, I tried very hard to prove that my teacher was wrong. I found what he told us hard to believe. "They are all the same," my teacher said. Takeguchi Sensei was talking about the many different moves and Aikido techniques that he was trying to teach us.
Years later, I find myself saying the exact same thing he has been telling me for years. In front of me are the faces of students containing a familiar look of doubts and disbelief.
"Iriminage, Shihinage and Kotegaishi are the same technique -- just different distances."
"The throwing hand in Iriminage and the upper hand in Tenchinage share similar body movement. They are the haso movement in jo and bokken."
"The body movement of nikkyo pin and kokyu-ho is the same."
The list can go on and on. At the end, how many strong positions can a human body have? The packaging may be different, but the content is always the same.
We had a class on koshinage just the other day. Students encountered varying degrees of difficulties. Someone suggests that koshinage is hard because "the movements involved are so different from those of other techniques. We don't drill them enough." Of course, repetitions always help. To me, however, koshinages are just oversized tenchinages. Just because the dimensions and angles are exaggerated, they have become almost not recognizable to students. We have been drilling these movements all along. It is just that, at their level, students cannot see it. With time, hopefully, they will realize that koshinages are no different from other techniques.
It may be hard to believe at first that, at Aikido, we are just learning a few things. Aikido movements are very simple. The difficult part is how to perform them consistently and be able to adjust them to fit different situations as they come up. It is not unlike life: as a person, we do not need an infinite number of skills. It is all about being about to wing it on the fly with the few skills we have.
The only constant in life is change. The essence of Aikido is also change. It is impossible to learn specific techniques to cover every single scenario in life. If someone cannot deal with change, or refuses to adjust, he is definite missing the point.
Years later, I find myself saying the exact same thing he has been telling me for years. In front of me are the faces of students containing a familiar look of doubts and disbelief.
"Iriminage, Shihinage and Kotegaishi are the same technique -- just different distances."
"The throwing hand in Iriminage and the upper hand in Tenchinage share similar body movement. They are the haso movement in jo and bokken."
"The body movement of nikkyo pin and kokyu-ho is the same."
The list can go on and on. At the end, how many strong positions can a human body have? The packaging may be different, but the content is always the same.
We had a class on koshinage just the other day. Students encountered varying degrees of difficulties. Someone suggests that koshinage is hard because "the movements involved are so different from those of other techniques. We don't drill them enough." Of course, repetitions always help. To me, however, koshinages are just oversized tenchinages. Just because the dimensions and angles are exaggerated, they have become almost not recognizable to students. We have been drilling these movements all along. It is just that, at their level, students cannot see it. With time, hopefully, they will realize that koshinages are no different from other techniques.
It may be hard to believe at first that, at Aikido, we are just learning a few things. Aikido movements are very simple. The difficult part is how to perform them consistently and be able to adjust them to fit different situations as they come up. It is not unlike life: as a person, we do not need an infinite number of skills. It is all about being about to wing it on the fly with the few skills we have.
The only constant in life is change. The essence of Aikido is also change. It is impossible to learn specific techniques to cover every single scenario in life. If someone cannot deal with change, or refuses to adjust, he is definite missing the point.
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