Aikido Essay-III
In the learning process of Aikido participation, one is always practicing with another individual who is always involved in the further benefit that they can give to their mutual training involvement. This is traditionally depicted as the attacker is Uke and the receiver of the attack is Tori. These two perspectives help practitioners to open themselves up to what is the core of their practice together.
Uke is always attacking Tori and both are benefiting mutually from being what our Sensei Geis has defined as “two parts of a learning machine”. So, the information and consciousness that is being gleaned is transmitted via our kinesthetic sharing in which we are communicating on a multi-channel processing dialogue which is felt in the silent levels of intuitive guidance.
We are processing the experience of being attacked from a completely different vision, one that doesn’t look at it from a traditional perspective of self defense. Yes, those views are there but we are looking for a different outcome in the light of both people learning from the interaction on the mat as one from which the growth of both people on many levels is more important than just how to defeat someone. The process of centering oneself in relation to working with someone on the mat is a deep and profound practice and is regarded as one of the main Principles that brings about fruition in one’s life on or off the mat.
Being centered is a balance that almost everyone can benefit from in relating to just about anything or anyone, once one is accessing this conscious wholism in oneself they are more Aware of themselves from a responsive level of interaction and do not fall into the easily accessed “reactive” self or the unconscious survival mechanisms that one is not aware of and can come out as attempts to make one secure in the form of overreacting to situations that were not that serious but through the unconscious were determined to be of greater consequence than they usually are when we are not centered, and live from clarity.
After years of practice one gradually stops trying to control what is happening in the interaction in one’s practice, with the continual input of many levels of one’s self in relation to another person involved in the same process the practitioners are opening themselves to higher levels of understanding of what the art is about for themselves and others.
This does not mean that the fundamental levels of self protection are abandoned since the whole art is based on this foundation but it helps the practitioner to evolve from this level of survival and grow to other, greater understandings where one is not as concerned as they once were about survival as they have greater skills in that arena and can transcend the need to look at life from that one view.
Thank you, Will Gable