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10/8/2020

Adaptation and the Journey (Dan Essay)

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by Cathy Garrett

Ai-ki-do is the Way I had never imagined.

One day I was given a gift certificate for four classes. I put off attending.

“You’ll like it”, she said.

I had never wanted to fight. The “martial” part of “martial arts” was the bit I was cool on.

“The Aikido Institute looks like the real deal”, she said; “a long history and it’s a not-for-profit, so they are in it for the love of the art.”

I sat and watched a whole Aikido class before I attended one. With suspense she asked, “What was it like?”. After I’d attended it, I was immediately cognizant of the role of the fourth dimension - Time. The hook was set.

The scale of time, in aikido, runs the gamut from the transitory moment of weight-shift during kokyu ho to the unending journey of aikido practice itself. The experience of a test is a marker somewhere on this time-line of continuum. During my recent test preparation, I mused “How did I get here?”

As a beginner, I was open, receptive, and continually surprised, first by the techniques themselves, second by what they promised, and then on occasion when they worked. I came to aikido as an adult who was neither the youngest nor the oldest in the dojo. My mind was immediately engaged, it made me want to know more. The physical joy of rolling made me radiant.

Practice, it turns out, is a remarkable thing. With skilled and warm-hearted guidance, what is strange reveals a certain logic. First it becomes less strange, then alluring, then, like a difficult puzzle, engrossing. Learning with a beginner’s openness, I was trying to connect with the place from which techniques flow.

Everyone around me was learning too, and helping each other to learn. Little by little I worked on assimilating the techniques. It’s funny how as your knowledge grows, so too does your lack of knowledge.

Shifts in ability and understanding are based, in part, on adapting. Adapting initially to unfamiliar ways of moving, then adapting to partners whose bodies are larger, stronger, older, more fragile or more slender, and perhaps sometimes obstructive to a specific practice. As a white belt I avoided practicing with a few individuals because I was intimidated by their dimensions. Then, after a time, I sought them out for the same reason, because of the challenge of their size.

“Adaptation” is defined as “a change, or the process of change, by which an organism or species becomes better suited to its environment”. By receiving the Senseis’ teaching, generously offered, I gained the appetite for greater challenge. The concept of the phrase “better suited” from this definition is not about a destination but about a path. It hints at the continuum of improved ability through time and ongoing adaptation.

I’ve been reflecting on my aikido experience as my knowledge and rank have changed. Regular training at the dojo remains the foundation, attending seminars offers new perspectives, learning from highly diverse and skilled Senseis, and of course adapting to other groups of aikidoka.

I’ve been lucky to be able to attend a range of seminars and dojos in the Bay Area, Tahoe, Washington DC, Sydney, Viterbo, Bolsena, Berlin and a couple of weeks in Iwama. These experiences, adapting to other groups, plus a healthy dose of binge-watching Saito Sensei, has helped expand my horizons. Helped me to adapt.

It is a beautiful sensation when something clicks in a moment of insight, during classes, a seminar, or through the month-long pre-dawn weapons practice during Kangeiko. When an abstract notion comes into focus in the spotlight, it seems to glimmer like a pearl. Before Covid, after class someone would occasionally say “that was fun and really clarified something for me”, and it seemed they too were glimpsing a treasure.

In these times of Covid-19, adapting has taken on a greater significance.

The way of Covid means imagining your partner, their energy and extension. Working to feel and envision them as they move; trying to intuit the dimension and position of their hand, wrist, or elbow as you grip it. Sometimes that fell into place. Other times, usually in motion, I found I would lose where they were and be left not able to capture their energy. I was sometimes frustrated by the absence of the partner’s presence. There were moments when it could be baffling. I tried to remain open and receptive to what this new context had to teach. Movement and flow of a technique without a partner allows you to concentrate on balance, the shift of weight, and the precise sequence of the maneuver. With intense practice, the focus sharpened and comfort with an increasing range of techniques emerged. New patterns formed, founded on the learning of the past, but with an utterly new zeitgeist.

Conditions that change constantly require adaptation. Having a partner is a luxury. On the other hand, aikidoka offered to meet to train together at a distance. Their readiness and support was tremendously valuable. This kind of coming together is perhaps the very definition of community. A side benefit was a growing familiarity with the parks of Oakland, Berkeley, Emeryville and El Cerrito where we met. The persistence of encouragement was boundless and uplifting and I am grateful for it.

Now, newly woven into the evolving fabric of my aikido experience, is the imperative to adapt. Whether compelled by Covid or embraced as broadening a perspective, this is our collective milieu.

- Cathy Garrett, Nidan, Aikido Institute

*This article was submitted for a Nidan test taken on July 26, 2020 ... through Zoom. Students of the Aikido Institute must submit Aikido-related essays as part of the dan testing requirements.

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9/24/2020

Aikido in 2020 Vision (Dan essay)

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by Simona Balan

Sheltering

It's 2020, a couple months before my nidan test, but it might as well be 1989. There are long lines at grocery stores, food shortages, curfews, a wannabe-dictator with an insatiable ego, and here I am in Emeryville, California, wondering if one of the many heavily armed police officers chasing people right outside my window might accidentally shoot me.

Back in 1989, when I was only four years old, Romania was in the midst of ousting its totalitarian government. For a couple weeks I couldn’t go near the windows of our apartment in Bucharest. It wasn’t safe. The bullets could find me there, like they found many others, some even younger. That violence lasted only a few weeks, but the fear of being near windows lingered with me for years, the kind of fear that makes it hard to move, think, or breathe.

Today though, the fear does not return. It left me back in 2014, a few months after I stepped into the Aikido Institute dojo on Telegraph Avenue one Sunday morning in early January. So I wonder, if aikido was able to heal my childhood trauma in just a few months, could it also heal our collective trauma? Might it help dissolve our fear of otherness? Might it offer us a way to emerge from our current predicament without further violence, trauma, and suffering?

We've now been sheltering-in-place for half a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic that has divided our society even further, revealing the massive health inequities within and between countries and the deep-seated racism that underlines it all. Half a year since I last trained at the dojo, wore my hakama, rolled on the mat, or got to throw ukes. Half a year of aikido classes via Zoom. And the future seems more uncertain than ever, including the future of aikido itself. The pandemic has truly put us all to the test. But, like all great challenges, it is also a great opportunity. An inflection point.

O-Sensei said that "the world will continue to change dramatically, but fighting and war can destroy us utterly. What we need now are techniques of harmony, not those of contention. The Art of Peace is required, not the Art of War." O-Sensei’s art, however, relies on artists to actualize it. So are we, practitioners of the Art of Peace following in O-Sensei's footsteps, up to the challenge that 2020 has laid before us?

Giving

A week before my Nidan test -which was to be held through Zoom, I almost gave up. I would freeze trying to demonstrate even some of the simplest techniques by myself, unable to recall where and how I was supposed to move. It felt like I had to relearn the whole curriculum, and time was running out.

This made me realize just how much I relied on feeling where uke's body was and responding to that. However, if I were truly one with uke during an aikido technique, I would know exactly where their feet are, how their hips are turned, what their hands are doing. That knowledge is absent from my mind-body because I have never gathered it.

Gathering that knowledge, I realized, requires filling up the space around uke and taking up the slack from both bodies. In other words, it requires internal power – the mysterious mind-body phenomenon found throughout martial arts (and yoga). As far as I understand it, internal power is generated not by using major muscles or joints but by concentrating everything in the center, which is known as hara in Japanese, dantien in Chinese, and dristi in Sanskrit. Tapping into our internal power involves relaxing all major muscles and transferring forces along myofascial continuities, the soft tissue connections inherent in our bodies. And, it involves splitting forces, such that movement extends in all directions at all times, simultaneously away from and towards center. This generates ki, that invisible energy that radiates through and throughout us.

I've felt what it's like when someone who has developed their internal power touches me. They instantly travel from our point of contact to my feet. Through that touch they know not only where every part of my body is in space, but also where I hold my tension, how I distribute my weight, and when I'm about to move.

As my yoga teacher put it, beginners take yoga, more advanced practitioners do yoga, masters give yoga. I believe it is the same with aikido. True masters give aikido. As nage, they give uke everything: a center, an axis of rotation, a perspective, a path to follow. And in return, they give up all tension within their own bodies, all the striving and reacting and fighting and overthinking and wanting, and all that other stuff that comes with a ‘small self’.

Connecting

Paradoxically, the past months away from the physical dojo have helped remind me that aikido is much more than throwing, pinning, and rolling. It's not just about learning how to move my body, where to place my feet, what to do with my hands, or how to more efficiently pin or throw uke. Practicing in the time of COVID-19 has challenged me to become more aware of the subtle aspects of aikido and to strive to further develop my internal power.

Since the beginning of the shelter-in-place, I've also been supplementing my aikido training with other internal power practices (for instance, Sally Chang's Qigong classes on Patreon), further studies in yoga, somatics, and myofascial anatomy (for instance, Shy Sayar's Eight Principles of Posture & Movement, Thomas Hannah's Somatics book, Tom Meyer's Anatomy Trains,), and even with going on walks, silent sitting, and cutting vegetables - all of which have helped me immensely.

The reality of the pandemic requires us to change how we practice aikido, but that doesn't mean it lessens our practice. Like O-Sensei said, "The Art of Peace should be practiced from the time you rise to greet the morning to the time you retire at night." He also famously said, "The Art of Peace begins with you."

Similarly, in an online talk after George Floyd's murder, Sally Chang explained that our first job as internal martial artists is "to make ourselves a safe person for other people to be around," so we can provide refuge to others rather than cause more harm. That, I think, starts with recognizing the role our actions and inactions play in the current state of our bodies, our minds, and even our world.

And we do play a role in the current state of our world, however difficult that may be to hear. If the COVID-19 crisis has shown us anything, it's that we truly are all connected. Unless we all can thrive and achieve our full potential for a healthy life, everyone's potential for living a healthy life is compromised.

Most of us understand this inherently, yet our own lifestyles may fuel these inequities. For instance, when I calculated my ecological footprint using this online survey, I was shocked to discover that if everyone lived the way I did prior to COVID-19, we would need no less than 2.6 Earths! Clearly, not everyone can live like this. Such unsustainable consumption patterns create suffering somewhere else, by depriving others of their most basic rights to a clean, safe, and healthy environment. Perhaps the coronavirus that keeps us away from the physical dojo is precisely what we need right now in order to turn inwards and begin to work on ourselves, from the moment we wake up until the moment we fall asleep.

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Awakening

Perhaps now is precisely the time to remember that O-Sensei said that “True budo is to become one with the universe, not to train to become powerful or to throw down some opponent. Rather we train in hopes of being of some use, however small our role may be, in the task of bringing peace to [human] kind around the world."

When he said that "the Art of Peace is medicine for a sick world," he probably wasn't talking about nikkyo or koshinage. But could we apply the principles we learn through aikido technique to heal racial and social inequity, tyranny, war, climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss, hunger, poverty, pandemics, and other diseases that ail our world?

O-Sensei taught that "there is evil and disorder in the world, because people have forgotten that all things emanate from one source. (…) The Way of a Warrior, the Art of Politics, is to stop trouble before it starts. It consists in defeating your adversaries spiritually by making them realize the folly of their actions. The Way of a Warrior is to establish harmony." But how can we help establish harmony in the world, without first finding harmony within ourselves?

Like it or not, we are all guilty of at least one thing we condemn in this world. Perhaps we need to start by observing and understanding all parts of ourselves without judgment, without more violence towards ourselves, but rather with utter peacefulness, compassion, and loving-kindness. What happens if we sit with that discomfort of embracing every single part of ourselves?

And I wonder, how much power could all aikidoka around the world, working together as one, generate towards peace? What happens when we give up all fighting within and amongst ourselves so that we can give aikido to the world? Can we, practitioners of an art dubbed “the Art of Peace,” become the myofascial continuity that generates a new center and axis of rotation for humanity at the COVID-19 inflection point?

I think all those aikidoka from different styles, ethnicities, and nationalities who joined the virtual Aikido Summer Solstice Seminar in June 2020 demonstrated that we not only can, but we are already beginning to. And that gives me hope. But we have a long and difficult road ahead of us that will continue to test us in unexpected and unprecedented ways.

Back in 1989, a poem called "Awaken, Romanian," became Romania's national anthem at that inflection point. It called on us to awaken from our deadly slumber and, now or never, forge another fate for ourselves. Now in 2020, we are once again being called on to awaken, not only to the ways in which each one of us has contributed to the current environmental degradation and human suffering, but also to our duty to build a kinder, more equitable and peaceful tomorrow. And that call rings especially true for us aikidoka, just as it does for other internal martial arts practitioners.

If not for that, then what are we training for?

So awaken, aikidoka. Awaken.

by Simona Balan, Nidan

*This article was submitted for a Nidan test taken on July 26, 2020 ... through Zoom --a first of its kind for the dojo. Students of the Aikido Institute must submit Aikido-related essays as part of the dan testing requirements.

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7/13/2020

Thoughts on Coming Full Circle (Dan Essay)

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By Scott Roberts.

I stepped out of the car and breathed the fresh air. I immediately noticed three Turkeys crossing the road. I laughed to myself and walked inside to the Doyle Street dojo, filled with emotion, nostalgia, and anxiety. This would be my first class at Aikido Institute in...almost 7 years, and my first time visiting the new Doyle Street dojo. I had moved to the Inland Empire of Southern California 7.5 years prior, in the fall of 2010, for work, days after taking my 2nd kyu test. That move was incredibly challenging, a significant part of that due to the Telegraph location of Aikido Institute. Aikido became such an integral part of my life since my first class 2.5 years prior in the Spring of 2008. It got me in better physical shape and connected me more deeply with the joy of being in my own body (I can still remember the excitement when I learned to take high falls without apprehension); it helped me stay focused, positive, and light in the grueling years of my law school education; it helped me structure my study of guitar; it helped me better feel and accept my emotions; and it gave me a wonderful intergenerational community unlike anything I had experienced before. But the economy was not in great shape, so for longer-term career goals, I packed up and moved to San Bernardino, where I could be a practicing public defender, walking away from the life I had in the Bay.

There were no Iwama Ryu schools anywhere near where I moved. I started attending a dojo operated by one of Donovan Waite Shihan’s students that was located in Upland. (Waite Shihan has studied with many Aikido masters and his ukemi is breathtaking.) The dojo was about a 25-mile drive each way after work. Classes were held 3 times a week and, while it was different that what I knew, it was still worth the trip despite the extraordinarily long days when I would train. I was able to adjust and fit in. The more experienced students enjoyed the Iwama style I brought, and I enjoyed learning about the different yet still very effective ways they practiced. We had fun. Classes were small: no less than 4 and never more than 9 students, no familiar bokken or jo suburi (Waite Shihan studied Iaido so they did some bokken work that didn’t overlap with Iwama bukiwaza at all as far as I could tell), and a new community that...just didn’t feel the same. Waite Shihan came to visit once for about a week. He was phenomenal and it was a treat to train with him. It was a reminder that there are incredible martial artists and teachers all over the world, in all types of practice. He had a special awareness of all that was happening on the mat and seemed to know exactly when and exactly how much input to provide. This was starting to seem not so bad, after all.

I visited my AI community for the 2011 Memorial Day Gasshuku and had a blast. I was reminded of what a special place AI was, and I left invigorated to continue my Aikido path back home. I continued to train at the Upland dojo, and I joined some AI friends on a trip to Reno for a Hitohiro Sensei seminar, which was incredibly special. However, soon after returning home from that trip, the Upland dojo relocated 20 miles west to Pasadena so that they could be a larger and more robust school. A student body of no more than 10 was not sustainable. A 90-mile round trip commute after work was not sustainable, so I quit the dojo. I felt lost.

I had to stay physically healthy, so I let some coworkers talk me into running a half-marathon. Around that same time, I started going to the gym to lift weights (something I never thought I’d seriously do once I got past my teenage years of thinking Arnold Schwarzenneger was the coolest). I primarily focused on the “Big 3” lifts: the barbell squat, bench press, and deadlift, all three make up the lifts in a powerlifting competition. There was a pretty good online community of amateur powerlifters who were incredibly helpful and supportive of people looking to get stronger and more competent at the lifts. This “hobby” had clearly defined goals, and there were various templates of strength training routines that one could choose - and, when one is more competent, modify. So my physical practices started to change, and fairly rapidly. I started to get reasonably strong and noticeably leaner. I was experiencing a very different relationship with my body than when I was on the mat but I was still in my infancy of this path.

In May of 2012, I went to the Memorial Gasshuku after months of no Aikido training. It was great to see my Aiki family but it was ultimately bittersweet. It was so exciting to be there but I had no dojo or community to practice with. I knew when I left Tahoe that it was the last Gasshuku until and unless I was able to move back to the Bay or some area with a thriving Aikido community. I grieved and went back to lifting weights.

I soon moved to Riverside and was now living close enough to a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu dojo to make it to class after work. I started going to about 3 classes a week on top of my powerlifting training. It was extremely hard and a lot of fun. A lot of the fun from efficiently taking someone’s balance or applying an Aikido joint lock is also found in BJJ. Details appear infinite. I learned so much in such a short period of time and felt much more comfortable defending myself if I ever found myself in such a situation. After 6-8 months of training, even though the instructors and fellow students wanted to help each other improve, I still didn’t feel a bond with the dojo, community, or art as I did with Aikido. There is definitely a deeper BJJ path but what I was seeing struck more of the “fighting” notes and less of the “personal development” ones than I was looking for. I stepped away and focused solely on powerlifting.

While powerlifting training was solitary (there are powerlifting gyms that exist but nowhere near where I was living), there was a robust online community that helped with the feeling of community with like-minded others. I competed in a few competitions and made some real-life friends, too. Life wasn’t bad but it was lacking the sangha-like feel of a vibrant Aikido dojo.

I finally moved back to the Bay late in 2014. At that point, I was fairly serious about powerlifting, and had plans for more competition to see how far I could go. I was very motivated and disciplined for a while. It was very much a solitary thing for me at this point, although I had friends in the sport, but I was progressing well and had incorporated powerlifting into my identity by this point. The inner world that is cultivated by regular training is fairly mechanistic and valorous. By this time, I had also lost all real memories of what my robust Aikido community felt like. Unsurprisingly, I ended up hitting a fairly serious plateau. It occured in 2017 and lasted months. Training strategies can and must be adapted, but I was at a level of strength where getting stronger would have required even more of a commitment. The modifications I made weren’t cutting it.

In strength sports, all that matters is how much weight you move. There are no points for style or form. I faced a choice of pursuing bigger numbers and...every other area of my life. Most of the people stronger than I was at my weight treated powerlifting as a second job and a core part of their identity. I didn’t have that interest. There are many good and inspiring people in that community but the path wasn’t something I felt could be sustainable long-term for most people. So I drifted while still training, and I started to think more and more about Aikido until, one Sunday in March of 2018, I impulsively fetched my gi. Having it in hand, I immediately decided to go to class on Monday. I felt rejuvenated for the first time in a long time just thinking about it.

Returning to the dojo filled me with many conflicting emotions. I was excited to get back to the fluid movements that I hadn’t practiced for years. I was happy to see all my old friends and many new faces. I grieved what I had lost for so many years, and imagined the parallel universe in which I had been able to progress on my aikido path for all that time. I was also frustrated by how my body forgot how to be soft, fluid and elastic, yet I was excited and determined to get back there. Other than being 7+ years older, I was also about 30 pounds of muscle heavier. I could deadlift 250 kilos but I was as much of a klutz as I was at 4th kyu. At least I still opened doors with kokyu. What overshadowed all of these thoughts and emotions, however, was the excitement to be back on the Aikido path and to be doing it in this community.

I slowly tapered down my weightlifting exercise to allow my mind to dust off the cobwebs and deepen my Aikido neuropathways. I started training at the dojo 4-5 times a week and slowly remembered how I once moved. So much was happening internally for me at this time that stemmed from the reconnection to Aikido philosophy, to my personal Aikido mind-body history, and to the Aikido community that I’d missed for so many years. My training deepened, as did my internal sense of harmony. Training became more fun, too.

One of my biggest regrets was not being able to visit Japan when I trained previously. There was an Iwama trip planned relatively soon after I had relocated to Southern California - and I was invited - but I was too disconnected from the Iwama style world to feel right going. I felt like I didn’t belong...or at least it didn’t belong in my life. Not then, not like that.

I was finally able to visit Japan in October of 2019. I didn’t understand much of what was being said but it barely mattered. I felt so energized (especially for waking at 5am to do chores, and not really having any downtime time until bed) and felt connected to O-Sensei and all of those who spent time at the Iwama dojo, including so many of the wonderful instructors in our organization. Every moment there felt like a slice of history and a deeply spiritual experience, whether it was daily training in the dojo, cleaning the Aiki jinja, cooking and eating in the shokudo (kitchen), going to the grocery store, or hearing Inagaki Shihan recite the same prayers every morning before class that O-Sensei would during his life.

I returned home with a greater appreciation how our teachers (Kim Peuser Shihan, Deborah Maizels Sensei, and many more) brought back the physical training from Japan but also brought back and cultivated within themselves Aiki and internal peace that was modeled at the Iwama dojo. It is my hope and belief that by modeling the Aikido of great practitioners that all of their students could also begin to cultivate their internal peace and strength.

O-Sensei once said, “The purpose of training is to tighten up the slack, toughen the body, and polish the spirit.” He also said, “Aikido is not a technique to fight and defeat an enemy. It is a way to reconcile the world and make human beings one family.” Ultimately, through the loss and rediscovery of my Aikido practice many years later, I have gained a greater sense of appreciation of how Aikido benefits my physical, emotional, and spiritual health than I may have otherwise. The more I train, the more I am coming to understand how Aikido has a special, multifaceted ability to help us cultivate the body, mind, and spirit, and move us towards both inner and outer harmony.

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Adaptation and the Journey (Dan Essay)

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