Find Aikdio In a Rock and a Hard Place

After class tonight Sensei made the analogy that aikido was like the thought of Michelangelo that it was not the sculptor forcing the art on the stone but every stone had a sculpture that was up to the artist to let out. I think he was alluding to those moments when you are working on a technique and suddenly, magically, the aikido thing just presents itself without you forcing it. Basically the technique presents itself.

I also think it relates to another story he likes to tell where a reporter saw the Aikido Founder, O'Sensei, do irminage and the reporter was so amazed and asked to see it again. But even thought uke kept attacking, O'Sensei kept doing different techniques and finally the report asked why he wasn't doing iriminage. But the thing was, even a seasoned attacker can't always control all variables of and attack and since the founder would not force a technique where it didn't apply so he kept doing different techniques.

So much like Michelangelo seeing a different sculpture in each individual stone, given the differences of stone grain, density or what every, so O'Sensei would see the difference in each attack and do the aikido that was just waiting to be released.

The photo above is an unfinished Michelangelo sculpture where the subject looks like he is struggling to step right out of the stone,

Below is O'Sensei just doing his thing