Once again, we gathered in an exceptional setting to enjoy an equally exceptional practice. We did so under the guidance of Luis Mochón Sensei, a sensei with a wealth of ideas, concepts and wisdom to share, and surrounded by fellow practitioners whose human and martial qualities are truly extraordinary.
It is Friday afternoon, and people are beginning to arrive at the sports hall. As I watch them come in, I feel the same emotion I experienced on the very first day I organised an aikido seminar. I am filled with enthusiasm, excitement and the desire to share with everyone the aikido we carry within us.
The scent of incense, the mottled tatami, the subdued lighting and the photographs of Matti Sensei and O’Sensei remind us where we are. We enter our temple, that place where, once again, we can rediscover ourselves through stillness, silence and dedication to the Way.
The first session begins.
Concepts return that are not unfamiliar to us, for we have heard them before from him, yet now they resonate within us more powerfully than ever: yamabiko no michi, “lazy space”, centre and ki-musubi, the extension of ki, from the body to the hand, peace, emptiness, the bodily tide, mushin and presence.
Everything seems so obvious and straightforward… Yet it is neither simple nor easy for our habitual mind. It is something we all wish to access, but which, somehow, we have unlearnt how to find and, above all, how to sustain.
“Find the ‘lazy space’, and once you are in that place, everything happens by itself.”
We work from the body to the hand.
Luis Sensei reminds us that we should not moralise aikido. We do not practise in this way in order to cloak the technique in a particular discourse, nor because it is better than another way of doing things, but to accustom the body to working in a particular manner. A time will come when the body has learnt to work in this way, without our having to direct our attention towards it.
In our practice, we speak of the search for peace, and it is then that a question arises:
What is peace? What does peace mean to each of us?
Within this question, we may find the answer to how we should practise. Luis Sensei suggests that merely not wishing to harm others is not enough, as he understands that most of us already share that feeling. He invites us to go further: to practise with peace in our hearts, preserving a genuine feeling of peace within ourselves.
To reach that state of peace, the sensation we should seek in our practice is that of creating an emptiness within uke. It is possible to work without producing that sensation, but the proposal is to develop a practice that arises precisely from that emptiness, for this is what will lead us to the place where we can preserve our inner peace. When that place appears, tori is left with the impression that uke falls by themselves. That is what Luis Sensei invites us to discover.
Throughout the weekend, he also spoke about the use of ki-musubi, emphasising that practising through ki-musubi means engaging in a practice based upon a relationship with the other person’s centre. He continually invites us to focus our attention on perceiving and connecting with uke’s centre, whilst the arms act simply as a means of access through which we can reach it, establish the connection and set it in motion.
“The greater the ki-musubi, the more the form fades away. The less ki-musubi there is, the more technical movements we need in order to unbalance uke and take them out of their sphere of power.”
This does not mean that technique disappears. On the contrary, technique is refined and becomes simpler. It no longer requires pronounced angles or broad movements, because the connection renders unnecessary everything we previously tried to achieve through outward form.
Within this context, the importance of softness becomes evident, as does the significance of moving softly. To connect with uke more easily, we need to move softly. Soft does not mean weak or limp; it simply means moving with a relaxed body. This is the kind of softness we need in order to relate to and connect with our partner.
Once we are able to reach this degree of relaxation, it becomes possible to generate a tide through the body. We use this bodily tide to mobilise energy: a wave that reaches uke’s energy and sets it in motion. Upon making contact, both bodies begin to move as a single unit.
“Do not sacrifice the advantage.”
If we gain an advantage when making contact with uke, we must preserve it. The martial relationship between tori and uke should allow tori, whilst both remain connected, to be strong—stable within their centre—and uke to be weak, in the sense of being unbalanced. Yet the encounter does not begin when physical contact occurs. It begins much earlier: at the very moment we take our place in front of our partner. That is where the connection begins. Once connected, we can move uke without resorting to force.
“This is the martial strategy we seek to study and develop.”
We endeavour to find that place in which uke is no longer comfortable and remains unbalanced and unstable, whilst we occupy a space from which we are balanced, settled within our centre and able to move with complete freedom and ease.
Guillermo Balderas
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