“The goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord.”
- Abraham Heschel
The good Rabbi might well have talking about Aikido when he wrote this. From it`s inception Aikido was meant to do no harm, Aikido (合気道) can be read as the way of meeting energy, and interpreted as promoting harmony with even your enemy.
In our daily practice we learn to become good at falling and being thrown, as much as we learn to throw and immobilise. The sensei had a message for us last night about being on the receiving end (受身), we were thrown solidly in turn over 200 times, for close to 2 hours.
Almost 40 minutes in to training, as the pounding was starting to take it`s toll on us we shifted from rounds of 10 (十本) to rounds of 30 (三十本). It was then that two of our newest members of the dojo straggled in, a mother and son, they couldn`t have come at a less fortunate time I remember thinking.
As they were thrown, their technical weaknesses in falling were exposed, and gently but firmly corrected. For the young boy it was perhaps the first time to be thrown in such a way repeatedly, but each time after being thrown to the ground, legs still shaking, breathing erratically, he would rise take one step and be thrown again. Eventually with his belt undone and uniform open he was allowed to return to his mothers side.
What I witnessed was certainly an initiation of sorts, the boy was learning to deal with his fear of being thrown, and once he had done with that he was learning to stand again.
The sensei spoke the whole time as this was happening, mostly words of encouragement, firm and direct. His message to the rest of the class was that as your body grows tired and you are unable to move except through force of will, you acheive the best technique. Your body loses it`s rigidity, as result of thinking too hard about your technique, and simply chooses the path of least resistance.
I truly am grateful for the opportunity to practice with such a dedicated teacher, he is truly cast from a mould that was discarded long ago.
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