​The dojo fell silent, all eyes widening as Sawa Sensei entered deeply and stopped the yokomen-uchi not with a powerful kiai, but with a full, soft, disarming inhale. O'Sensei, he said, would teach to inhale in that first moment of contact with uke, drawing uke in like into a vortex. Uke naturally exhales when attacking. That exhale is a gift of energy. If nage accepts the gift by inhaling as uke exhales, there is no conflict. It's aiki.
 
Jason Yim Sensei's face clearly showed he had no escape when pulled into Sawa Sensei's inhale vortex. It makes a big difference, he confirmed.
 
Four and a half years into my aikido practice, I find myself enthralled by this concept. Since I'm usually the smallest person on the mat, fear is often there with me, ready to make me retreat, defensive. My instinct, especially when a bigger uke attacks, is to hold my breath, bracing for impact. It takes conscious thought and effort to exhale or kiai when meeting a strike. 
 
Inhaling when blending with the strike seems almost contradictory, like the last thing my body would want to do. Yet I give it a try, and, somehow, it feels alright. The inhale feels like an invitation, which empties the mind of fear. I find it easier to then take uke's balance and pin or throw. It's as if the inhale lifts uke on top of a wave crest, from where the only way to go is down. This makes me realize that I often forget to inhale during a technique, so how can I keep exhaling without replenishing my breath?
 
Breath obviously plays a critical role in aikido. The term "kokyu," which translates to "breath," comes up in nearly every aikido class. We often also encounter the term "kokyu ryoku" or "breath power," and I've been told that eventually the whole body behaves like a breath during aikido techniques, expanding and contracting, drawing in and projecting out, like a wave of energy.

​Yet, after many years of practicing yoga and more recently aikido, one thing has become clear to me: I don't really know how to breathe. I use a mere fraction of my breath's potential, of its ability to promote healing and affect muscular contraction and relaxation. I sometimes get glimpses of the deeper treasures hidden in the seemingly simple act of breathing. I believe the breath is key to finding power within oneself beyond physical strength.
 
I know that's something I need to work on: letting the breath flow instead of holding it and bracing for impact. Just a few months earlier I had this revelation. Whenever we practiced rolling into a slap during warmup line drills, I'd watch everyone else stick to the ground after the slap, only to find myself partly bouncing back up. However hard I'd try, I couldn't remain in the right shape like everyone else. I thought my core was too tight, causing me to curl back up. But then, one day, I realized I was holding my breath. Even when I kiai'ed, I'd still hold on to some breath, as if afraid to let it go in that moment of impact. That lingering breath propelled me back up, just as it does when diving under water. To stay down, I had to exhale fully. Now that I do, I always stick to the ground, just like everyone else. This small observation made a huge difference for me, showing me just how much our practice depends on proper breathing.
 
Now I wonder about the blending breath. I've seen my sensei and sempai effectively meet strikes with powerful kiais. And now I've seen Sawa Sensei do so with an inhale. That might sound like the breath is unimportant because either way works, yet I'm sure there's great precision in how they use their breath. 
 
There are many ways of breathing, some more effective than others. During normal, relaxed breathing, the abdomen expands when inhaling and deflates when exhaling. That's because on the inhale the diaphragm, the main respiratory muscle, contracts and domes downwards. This expands the thoracic cavity, lowering the pressure inside the lungs to invite airflow in. The downward movement of the diaphragm also causes the abdomen to expand. If the abdomen is held tight, the body compensates by expanding the upper thoracic cavity using the accessory muscles of the neck and shoulders (this is a common cause of chronic neck and shoulder tension).
 
Reverse breathing, or Taoist breathing, is an advanced practice in yoga and internal martial arts. In reverse breathing, the practitioner contracts the abdomen on the inhale, compressing the abdominal organs. This builds up energy that's then released by expanding the abdomen during the exhale. When purposefully developed during mind-body practice, reverse breathing is believed to help activate and extend ki, deepen meditative states, and promote healing.
 
Next time I train with Sawa Sensei I’d like to ask him whether he expands or contracts his abdomen during the blending inhale. It may seem like a minuscule detail, but it might make a world of difference. I think I’m finally beginning to understand what Kim Sensei meant when I was struggling to complete a technique, feeling so overpowered, and he said, showing me his pinky: “The difference between my technique and yours is this big.” I guess the art truly lies in the details.
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Simona A. Balan,
​Shodan

We were on our way to Iwama.
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It’s a couple of hours north of Tokyo by local train on the Joban line, a country town now officially subsumed by the larger nearby Kasama City.

As the long-time home, farm, dojo and jinja of O Sensei, and seat of Saito Sensei’s teaching, it has a natural draw for aikidoka.  My Emeryville chums and I spilled off the train, beamed at the statue of O Sensei, and rolled down the road to a woodlot in the middle distance. Like other shrines, the Aiki Jinja sits amid a forest. Tall Japanese beeches clothe the generous space around the traditional wooden shrine and smaller, more sacred shrine tucked behind it. We passed the beech wood, walked up a gravel drive and found ourselves in the realm of O Sensei and the open dojo of Iwama. 

With senses alert and full of anticipation, impressions burn deeply on the memory. Places imbued with meaning have always attracted me. Luckily, part of my work as a landscape architect consists of recording, assessing and shaping the future of culturally valuable places so the trip to Iwama held great allure.

In my profession we talk about “cultural landscapes”, which are essentially sites of significance comprised of built and natural forms and all the creatures within. They are places that show the handprint of us, the people who inhabit or inhabited them. They are often places where important things happened. The site tells the story of its past. The fact that there is physical evidence of activities from these past times gives the place integrity. The Iwama dojo tells of its human characters and events.

I found myself looking at the Iwama dojo, the Aiki Jinja and its context through the lens of cultural landscapes. An accepted approach to looking at cultural landscapes highlights multiple features focusing on one component at a time. I have chosen three of these: patterns of circulation, spatial organization, and places of connection.

​Patterns of circulation: for me the arrival from the station was a gentle drumroll. It was quiet, even uneventful, but the place it led to was full of promise. It was enticing.
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Like the practice of aikido itself, the day to day pattern of circulation in Iwama is a series of circles, each one a little larger and offering something beyond the first. At the center, where we always returned, was the dojo. The daily pattern of movement encompasses the shokudo - the kitchen and social heart of the place - the dojo, and the grounds. The rhythm of a day in the life of us as uchi deshi could be described as:
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Prepare the jinja / train / eat / rake / train / rest / train / eat / sleep / repeat.

Raking leaves is a good way to get to know the grounds, to know the pattern of roots of the trees as they meet the ground, to become familiar with the stones of the original Aiki Jinja, to gently clean and care for it, to move around it and to trace the path of many people, and originally O Sensei himself, as builder and planter of trees. The pattern of circulation becomes an experience.

The dojo is a large room with three sides that are walls with windows and doors; along the fourth, one of the long sides, are large floor-to-ceiling panels that are lifted out and put to each side for practice. The dojo is opened regardless of the weather. This gives the feel of being completely open to the south. The dojo sits up on half a dozen steps and addresses the garden through the open side. The space flows, so it is immaterial that half is building (with mat and shomen) and half is garden. It is one spatial volume. The dojo has a slender physical connection to O Sensei’s house immediately next door and the shokudo is nearby across the way, but these lie outside the place that defines the dojo and its associated spatial volume. The space has a rarified quality stemming from its association with the shomen and the singular purpose of practice.

​Lines converge on the Aiki Jinja too. For special occasions hundreds gather here.  That was not our experience though, as there were no special events. Instead the jinja offers an emotional place of connection; it invites you to look back. While we were in Iwama, Inagaki Sensei lent us a few books. One had pictures of O Sensei and the newly planted trees around the new jinja. The photos are simply of a guy working on his land. Layers of time, knowledge of O Sensei, and the accumulation of respect and value, at first from a few, and now from many, have built up an attraction that draws aikidoka to it. It has become a landmark. We each trace a line towards the node. The Aiki Jinja is that node. It expresses the quintessential spirit of aikido as telegraphed by O Sensei.

​The concept of the Iwama dojo as a cultural landscape is not fixed in time. It is a continuum. The place lives. O Sensei is still present in a manner of speaking; the people of today, Inagaki Sensei, the rich collective of other senseis, and the local and visiting aikidoka all contribute to its continued value and significance. 
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Over time the place has acquired a kind of communal value. By visiting it and joining in the practice, I had the chance to experience something shared by the collective aikido community.

In addition to these three analytical aspects, cultural landscapes can have an intensely personal component. Every individual, past and present, who comes to Iwama, participates in the evolution of this as a cultural landscape.

For myself, while I was in Iwama my daily patterns changed, and as a result my priorities changed. Getting up at 5 to prepare the jinja or clean the mat, and then to engage in exhilarating and arduous daily practice, made me focus on my physical self and the well-being of the group. Each of us buoyed the group and it buoyed each of us in turn.  

Fatigue necessitated efficiency of movement. How to move less but achieve the desired goal of moving your partner? The notion of space in the landscape shifts in scale to become very personal during practice. On the mat, space itself has a presence. You’re aware of it. Every cubic inch contributes to the practice and where you position yourself in relation to your partner.
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There was a striving to listen with your body, i.e. not to rely on words but instead to see an action and try to emulate it. During practice there was an imperative to relax even as you needed to be most alert. As an uchi deshi, even for a short time, you are a part of the organism that is the life of the dojo. That experience, and the enduring physical presence of the Iwama dojo, give it a sense of place that is, in every sense of the words, a living cultural landscape.
 
Cathy Garrett,
​Shodan

​This article was submitted as part of a requirement for Dan test.  At the Oakland dojo, students testing for shodan through yondan are required to write an essay on an Aikido-related subject. This helps reinforce and strengthen student reflection, understanding, and ownership.. 

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​Everyone has different reasons for starting Aikido. Usually it has to do with some sort of conscious decision that spawned from the desire to try a new martial art, to find a hobby that involves physical exertion, or a desire to better yourself, whether it be your sense of awareness or ability to govern your own body. The first reason I started Aikido was not so much because it was specifically Aikido that drew me in. I didn’t learn about it elsewhere and then decide that’s the martial art I want to spend my life learning. I started because it seemed natural. My parents practiced Aikido and I was already always at the Dojo. We would even joke that I was already practicing Aikido before I was born because my mom was still rolling around on the mat while she was fairly pregnant with me. So why not practice it when I actually had the opportunity to?
 
Along the way though, my decision to practice Aikido became more conscious, especially after I took a temporary hiatus during high school and college. I initially started Aikido because it was what I knew and it felt like a fun hobby. As an adult, it meant something a little different. Once I had the ability to return, I could see what I had enjoyed before I took the break, but I could also see the opportunities it could provide in terms of personal development. My decision and my goal became that I wanted to continue Aikido and I wanted to improve myself.
 
Aside from being armed with the desire to continue and new goals to accomplish, I was initially nervous about returning. These emotions stemmed from the fact that I had been away from the mat for a few years and I had only recently made the jump from the kids class to the adults class before taking a break. Returning meant going back into the adults class while actually classifying as an adult. That meant people would not go as easy on me as they had when I was younger and smaller. What helped bring me back though was the fact that my parents were still there. They still taught the kids class so I was never really fully away from the dojo, and they still practiced in the adults class so it was never a room full of strangers. So I had the desire to come back, and just enough resolve to make it happen.

​Aside from the physical and practical aspects of Aikido, I began to really appreciate the philosophy behind the art. I appreciated that it focused on making the conscious decision to practice something for the sake of self-preservation without the intent to do harm. Instead of reciprocating ill will, you attempt to remove it from the equation. You absorb your partner’s energy and redirect it instead of clashing with it. It’s a philosophy I wish would extend further into the rest of the world, but at least I found it in a Dojo that I always call a second home.
 
Part of practicing Aikido whether it be the techniques on the mat or the quiet contemplations in your head, means showing you are willing to be dedicated to the art, to your dojo, and everyone in it. This is because all of those things and people already show their dedication to you by helping you progress in your practice every day. It might seem like a small thing, but when I took my first test in the adults class, it felt like I had finally graduated from the kids class. It felt like I had finally made some progress in my attempt to better myself. It was an accomplishment that was only possible with the help of the entire dojo. It was a personal victory, but it was also a collective one, and I can never be thankful enough. It is with this feeling of gratitude that I continue.

Meagan Holm,
​Shodan