I Want To Hold Your Hand

I like starting Aikido classes with basic body movement exercises.  They are the basic building blocks to  techniques.  If you do not have a clear and strong "entrance" move -- which almost always involves one or more of these basic body movements, you can pretty much forget about the rest of the technique because it will not happen.  It is over already.

On this day, for our basic body movement exercises, I replaced the usual interface of uke grabbing the nage's wrist with having uke press his fist on the nage's palm.  The moment people paired up, nages changed the way they offer their hands.  As soon as they started moving, they altered the way they moved and the way they carried themselves.

Instead of focusing on how they move themselves to perform the movement, people's attention went to how to keep hold of their partners' fists.  "How do I turn and still keep their fists in my palm?"  "I am not gripping their fist.  How do I bring them around when I turn 180 degrees?"  I could tell their minds were occupied by these concerns just by watching them move.

Aikido is about how to take care of and maintain oneself.  "Your job as nage is not to move your partner, but rather to move yourself in such a way that the uke can move along with you." I reminded the students.  Yet, knowing is one thing; being able to do it is another.  

In order to feel a stronger push from their partners, several nages turned their hands so that their palms are facing forward with their fingers pointing up ✋.  Instead of presenting to their partners with a gentle hand as an invitation for engagement, their stiff palms convey more of a hostile warning: "Back off!"  Not surprisingly, the modified hand position did not bring about stronger connection or easier movements.  Students were perplexed to find that their partners did not follow them along they way they had hoped.  The more they tried to find ways of keeping their partners' fists in their hands, the more readily things fell apart.

"Look at your free hand.  It looks pretty normal, doesn't it?  Now, look at your other hand.  Does it look normal to you?  Why do you offer it this way?  When do we ever do irimi or tenkan with hand position like this?  Is it even easy to move with hands like this?" I asked.  Students stared at their own hands quietly in contemplation.  

"We always talk about engaging 100% of ourselves when we do Aikido.  Just now, simply because your partner is coming to you with a fist rather than a grip, you instantly gave up a big chunk of yourself.  How do you think it is going to work?"

In his seminars, Endo Sensei often poses rhetorical questions to help us reflect on our experiences during practice.  "How are you feeling?  What is your feeling inside?"  "You were so stiff.  You were unwilling to move.  Why?"  "Everybody look so worried.  What are you worried about?"  "Were you afraid?  Why were you so afraid?  What were you afraid of?"  Not many instructors teach directly about how to manage and cultivate one's internal environment.  I find Endo Sensei's approach extremely helpful.

Aikido thrives on mind-body harmonization.  Without spending the time to weed out the demons in our hearts, we may forever flail our arms around, searching for our partner's hands in darkness . . .