Aikido of San Diego had it’s holiday party at my home this past Saturday afternoon after a fun and vigorous class at the dojo. Like most parties, it started slowly with a few early arrivals. About an hour later I looked over the back yard and thought, “Yes, this is the most well-attended one we’ve ever had. Good sign. I hope there’s enough food (that’s my Jewish mom coming through).”  Then I started to look a little deeper—beyond the numbers. There were children, seniors, and every generation in between represented. There were retired people, scientists, students, store clerks, construction workers, computer programmers, bookkeepers, teachers, and the list goes on. There were groups of people engaged in stories and conversation, and no discernable way in which the groups were made up. You just couldn’t profile them, and for some reason, that made me smile. I was gazing over a community of people with Aikido at its center, and all that it truly represents turning its wheels. What is that? Our common humanity, and desire to belong. Real community. I love it, and love that the practice of Aikido helps create that.

Me and my family just came back from a cruise. I had never been on one of this magnitute. Let’s get to the point. It was hard to find the “Aikido.” If you’ve ever been to a loud, crowded party and came to a point where it was just too much, that’s where I was at after about an hour or so. There we were…jamming through the ocean in a big can built to be a floating cheesy version of Las Vegas. There was nothing harmonious about the big picture. Thousands of people practicing decadence and debauchery while being served around the clock by over a thousand others from far-away lands, waste like I’ve never encountered before, and noise that makes the serenity of the ocean passing by hard to appreciate. But I did anyway. I think the moment was just after an Asian man completed his very loud and enthusiastic karaoke rendition of “Rub Me Tender” for the entire Lido deck. I couldn’t take it anymore. So I went in…way, way in. I found a less crowded spot on the back of the ship and just watched the ocean pass behind us. The noise started to drop off even though I was still aware of the guy next to me trying not to puke, and the two drunk and pasty cowboys at the bar talking smack about Obama. If I could hold this, the next day on our way to Puerto Vallarta would be much less stressful. I walked back to see my family at the pool and then started to notice the “Aikido.” There were my seven-year-old boys demonstrating the principle of non-resistance as they bulleted down a big curly water slide. It wasn’t much, but it made me smile. And then I started to notice the acts of kindness among the unsustainable organized chaos of life on the ship. People helping those who have obviously been on way to many cruises to get to the buffet line, people holding elevators for each other, and people recognizing the efforts of all the workers on the ship with their smiles and tips. Like I said, it wasn’t much, but under the circumstances it was something. And it made a very strange experience much more enjoyable.

At the dojo we’ve been focusing lately on the quality of initial contact when engaging Uke. I’ve been calling it “One,” as in step one. It seems to be helping a lot with peoples’ integrity of form and application. Here’s the basic outline. Upon initial contact Nage has a base with a center line extending out of it, and that base-center is in deliberate relation to Uke. It’s really simple, and at the same time, kind of challenging. One is about the integrity of a first impression that greatly effects the whole engagement. Or we could say, the better the integrity of One, the more naturally technique seems to unfold. There’s no particular thing to do in order to practice the basics of this other than to take a moment after initial contact. Pause. Notice your base and center line. Notice how you’re aligning with Uke. Carry on…

One
There is connection
The touch of a leaf in a breeze
Grown from the center of the earth
Lightfully speaking its words
of ‘I am here’

The underlying principle that points to a true expression of Aikido is non-resistance, and that implies receptive values. That doesn’t mean we don’t take action, but simply that we’re not in opposition to what is. Aikido is obviously an art form that is expressed through the body, which gets information from our sensory awareness. That means feeling. Feeling is a physical form of receptivity that’s always relevant to a centered and appropriate expression of any action quality (yin or yang, doesn’t matter). And, awareness of what you feel is the only real and effective instrument for gauging actual improvement. In other words, if you want to get better at aikido, be receptive, place your awareness in the body, and feel. For some people this can be very scary as their awareness is absorbed in the doing of the technique—the mechanics of form. Over the long term, though, mechanics ultimately have little to do with Aikido as non-resistance (a tough pill for some people to swallow, including me many years ago). There’s nothing wrong with practicing mechanics, but mechanics doesn’t speak very deeply to the qualities and appropriateness of aikido form as it’s unfolding.  It’s an inorganic level of dealing with organic conditions. I know of only one way to include solid mechanics in an organic process of being non-resistant and effective. Feel what’s happening now, act on that information, and trust. If I’m an average example of how that process goes, then expect some train wrecks before awareness and action connect more consistently, but don’t abandon it because it’s uncomfortable or scary. You’re a warrior for god’s sake, and it just so happens that aikido’s path is most effectively and dimensionally practiced from the inside out. Feel. It’s good.

My teacher, Robert Nadeau Shihan, told me over the summer that I should watch for any O-Sensei dreams. I didn’t have one until very recently. It was short, but kind of cool. O-Sensei and Einstein were hanging out (I know, it sounds like the beginning of a joke), talking and laughing like kindred spirits. Einstein suddenly turns to O-Sensei and asks, “Really, what is one plus one anyway?” O-Sensei’s eyes light up and with a big smile on his face says, “You decide.” They both got a little chuckle out of it in a way that indicated agreement. That was as much as I could remember, but enough to spark some thought on O-Sensei’s process, especially in regards to alchemy, which he referred to. I have frequent experiences in freestyle when everything slows down and things just happen seamlessly—so seamless it’s like it’s not even me doing it, but rather me seeing it happen. It’s a wonderful feeling. Alchemy? Maybe. I don’t know. I do know, though, that there is harmony, and if it was alchemy then harmony is the path to it. Practice harmony. You don’t need to be doing freestyle to do that. Practice harmony whether you’re uke or nage. Practice harmony whether you’re doing basic ikkyo, or randori. Practice harmony.