Happiness Runs In A Circular Motion

Tonight we worked on a few responses to Yokomenuchi which is nice since we practiced some of the things on the 4th kyu test I hope to take in September or October ( I'm saving up for a blog entry about Aikido testing).

I suppose this applies to any move in Aikido, but with Yokomenuchi it seems an especially true expression of the whole “deal” and particularly relevant. With a side strike to the head the Aikdo response is to keep the proper distance (ma'ai ) but really you embrace the attack and then redirect the force if you do anything else you are lost. If somebody isn't cooperating you lose. It's all or nothing. With Shomenuchi or tsuki, if you are fast enough you could just get out of the way, but here you are supposed to step into the direction of the strike and use that force all the way to the end.

The video above resembles what we did tonight but Sidney really showed how it was effective when you followed through and maintained the circular motion.

As an aside, I'm still trying to ignore this sore muscle and still trying not to aggravate it but sill keep coming to practice.

The Cat Is Slept ???

It took a while but I finally busted out the Rosetta Stone for some Español action. For the record tonight I finished Level 1: Unit 4: Lesson 5. I think the previous lesson was a bit boring because it was really hard to motivate myself into study mode. Especially when there is animation and video editing on the same notebook computer all just a few clicks away.

This lesson raised the bar somewhat, in that they slipped in the past participle as in “El gato está dormido” after "El gato está durmiendo".

I'm still pleased with “The Stone” but there are some drawbacks such as no explanation of the two types of sleep (-ido versus -iendo). The present progressive is easily translatable as “The cat is sleeping”, but what is “The cat is slept”?

Then there is the problem stepping onto la escalera, las escleras or los escalones. I think they are respectively, the ladder, stairs, steps. You are left to figure these things out just by choosing until you get the correct answer. But maybe that is their point, you learn by failure more than by traditional study.

I hope so.

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Now that I've slept on it, maybe this is a lesson that sometimes the problem is with English. We say "He is sitting" and "He is seated". So why don't we say "He is slept"?

English, what a wacky language.

Cats as Cats Can

This is niether Aikdo, nor Spanish, nor Animation, but I still managed to spend a whole lot of time working on it.

Another one of my peculiarities is that even though I intellectually know other people couldn't care a bit for my cats, I still suspect that deep down if they really knew them they would be totally charmed.

So, here they are and I'm a little ashamed to realize how proud I am.

Animation Station: Lesson 3

I was going to focus on Spanish tonight but after work, grocery shopping, general chores and dinner, I lost energy. So I worked on this week's lesson in Animation from www.eclecticacademy.com. I know the result looks pretty basic, but as far as these things go it was a good project. That 5 seconds worked in multiple ways of creating and coloring shapes while organizing at least 3 layers of images.

In case you can't tell, it is an underwater scene and the object is a cartoon submarine.

Maybe before Aikido class tommorrow I can squeze in some quality Español time in.

Give and Take and Give...

I think we had an exceptionally insightful class tonight. We started off with a short breakfall practice on some soft gymnastic mats but that was just a warm up. However it was an indication of the class to come in that we didn't really work on techniques.

At least half of the class we worked on “feeling” what was an Aikido response would be to pressure from two arms raised with the wrists touching in a crossed fashion. I acknowledged the pressure from nage and stepped off the line of attack, but then I would freeze before I could decide what to do, allowing uke to regain their balance.

BUT, once or twice I actually relaxed enough to to follow up with an actual Aikido technique, thanks to Brian working with me a bit. Even if the whole thing is a little contrived it felt great. It is contrived because Uke and Nage work together, but of course, in a sense any “practice” by it's very nature is contrived, almost by definition.

If I was going to argue what was “real” I think a strong argument could be that this “practice” is possibly more real than than a more complicated and exotic arrangement of flashy techniques. We were trying to sense the motion and respond accordingly which I think is the whole point of Aikido.

Plus for some reason I love it when Sidney talks about how we look for information from the pressure of a wrist. The idea of gathering info from the way a person grabs you is really a pretty cool way to think of an attack. Basically not as an attack but a connection with consequences.

My Strength Lies Within?

I noticed yesterday a leg muscle was sore and as the class progressed I felt the unpleasantness grow.

I suppose this is an aspect of any physical pursuit, sometimes something gets hurt. I don't think the problem was from any particular technique, rather it is as if I pushed too hard during a leg stretch. The upshot is that with each thing we practiced I tried not to use my leg muscles. I had to attempt to avoid using any lower body force or my upper thighs would scream at me.

Not being an athlete I am unused to such problems but it makes me think this......Even acknowledging body ailments are part of any physical endeavor I wonder if there is a feature of Aikido that is fundamentally different from other athletic pursuits. I mean, if you hurt your arm in Baseball, you have to stop throwing until it heals. If you pull a leg muscle in football, surely you can't run while hurt. Basically the muscles are the part of the body that drives the sport. But in Aikido the muscles shouldn't be the force behind the technique, and if you use strength to compensate for lack of technique you actually deviate from the whole point of using the attacker's energy to diffuse the situation and bring it all to harmony. Therefore if you are forced into not using muscle you actually do better at the “sport”.

There is an often told story (told by me at least) perhaps apocryphal*, that I think I read of O'sensei telling somebody that even he didn't appreciate the moves of Aikido until he was in his 70s and he could no longer rely on strength to complete the move, he could only use the essence of Aikido to complete the technique. Where else would a bodily ailment actually lead you to a better result?
*(I just love to use that phrase, "perhaps apocryphal")

Of course I don't know if I actually improved, but I did discover that to do whatever technique was required, I was forced to move with my whole body rather than straining my legs to finish the move.

That said....I read this at an Aikido blog where an injury is a bit more serious. “Two weeks ago I was diagnosed with a subdural haematoma and admitted to hospital for surgery almost immediately. The internal bleeding that was crushing my brain, causing violent headaches and swollen eyes, was the result of an injury sustained in the dojo more than two months earlier.” uchuuaiki.blogspot.com

It's All Just Like Ikkyo

Tonight Sidney Sensei was elegant as ever.

More Katatetori, which we worked on last Saturday was the topic tonight but Sidney has a way of showing you the gracefulness of a technique that, for me, speaks to the heart of why I practice Aikido.

What stuck tonight was that Sidney repeatedly said “It's just like in Ikkyo” when the technique itself was ostensively nothing like Ikkyo yet upon elaboration the truth of the observation was clear. I've heard the multitude of attack-technique variations said to be thousand and conversely the approaches to Aikido as few in essence. So tonight I weigh these two aspects, everything is either an explosion of possibility or merely one of a few inevitabilities.

The picture is from The Seven Samurai and I only use it because I was watching it earlier and I like it.