Hikari Aikido Dojo

Sensei Clif Norgaard

10th Dan, Judo, Aikido, and Ju-jitsu

Recognizing Dr. Clif Norgaard, Judan – a Great Sensei of Judo, Ju-Jitsu & Aikido…
For many years, Sensei Norgaard partnered with Karl Geis. Today at 90 years, in spite of fighting cancer, he is still teaching on the Tatami.. Sensei Norgaard began training in Judo & Ju-Jitsu in 1948 under such notable Sensei as Al Holtmann (USA), Henry Stone (USA), Vince Tamura (USA), Sumiyuki Kotani (Japan) & Karl Geis (USA). He holds the 10th Dan (Judan) in Judo, Ju-Jitsu & Aikido.

We will always remember Sensei Clif Norgaard as our honored Teacher who was always visiting with all of his martial and life experience, wisdom and humor.  If you had any need of any help he was always ready to be of assistance.  We will truly miss his Presence as he was always full of energy, insight and was willing to work through issues whether on the mat and any time you needed to delve into any real life circumstances that you needed to work through, business or personal, he would lead you in the right direction.

We will sorely miss him, we loved him and hold him in the highest of esteem for all of his abilities and accomplishments, Will Gable

In my experience with the Art of Aikido I was always asked, what is the essence of your practice? This has always been of utmost scrutiny since the practice has been based on martial application and its history is immersed in some of the samurai traditions that were some of the most violent approaches to the survival of the individual on the battlefield and yet they were some of the most disciplined, honorable, and devoted practitioners of their craft.

Since most of the perspectives on the martial arts have alluded to how to defend oneself into how to kill another to save themselves or others who know nothing about these techniques and abilities, many not involved, use their vivid imagination along with the movie industry to fill in the blanks of what they think is actually being presented.

Obviously, many of the arts that are being taught with competent Sensei and Instructors have produced a varied and compelling way for humanity to bring its animal instinctual brain into a very great place of value for the possible real growth and evolution of our societies.

By disciplining this facet of inherited nature we are able to move beyond it and tap into the other levels of expression and discovery because we are no longer caught in its “default control”, we are able to see that since it was given to us by nature, we can now start to understand its power and start to learn how to use it in a more unified way to help the individual start their climb in understanding what it is we might be doing here, instead of being caught up in fight or flight as the daily existence.

Since we have at least technologically transcended the hard cycle of the earth, we have established a survival foundation that has allowed us to consider many other arenas of our existence. The martial arts can and have contributed greatly to creating a foundation for helping the fabric of societies around the planet by showing the way on spiritual, mental, emotional and physical levels ways to bring oneself into a centered, grounded, stabilized and mature condition that serves the integrity of the individual who is the fabric of culture.

As we can easily get caught up in what things mean and think that what we have created as the meaning is the absolute, this is obviously not the truth, although in our minds, our relative momentary assessment of our experience can be very compelling and limiting because we can keep being entranced by our belief in it.

Since I started this essay with the inquiry into the essence of Aikido I have now started into a divergence from the brief historical vantage into my experiential involvement that has for many years taken on a more transcendent perspective than the physical, traditional viewpoint, although our Essence is source, so it is inscribed into all dimensions of our practice and existence.
Even though there is a dynamic expression of the art, all the outer is based on the internal principles that actually allow one to transcend themselves if they can see that their default conditioning of their life experience and what nature has gifted us is really only one level of their existence.

My approach with each individual is to point to this like I am pointing to a diagram of the Tao.  As an example, the dark side representing one’s life conditioning from birth that one has not fully made conscious and the Light side, the arena of awakening to this default and programming as what one has limited themselves to as who and what they are and how this represents their own unconsciousness, as they haven’t brought these aspects out to be investigated and let go of  because they are for the most part miasmas, (obstructions, traumas, repressed pain) that we all shoved away to the dark side not wanting to face them.

In our practice of Hikari Aikido we focus on Principle.  Some of the higher more refined Principles such as non resistance, non harm, and non conflict from the beginning allow us to start to discover a way of living our lives and how we approach each other on the practice mat or the mat of the world.  Our founder, Morihei Uyeshiba, after his awakenings realized Budo as Love, not just limited to the military definition.  In other words, take care of your fellow individual, being disciplined in compassion and caring, not just bujutsu.

So, in doing this he turned bujutsu into budo or a Way Art.  This is a revolution in transforming oneself from resistance to non resistance in which a whole new balance was brought into the Light because in doing this he showed the way into the Unknown and presented an enlightened way of discovery as to how to live and use the Principles of Aikido so humanity could more effortlessly awaken.

So, in order for us to benefit from this revelation for ourselves and humanity overall we need to come into our full fruition of each of our individual spirit’s purpose for what we are truly doing here on earth and how it is to be expressed in existence.  Upon seeing that our conditioned existence from birth was survival based for the most part and not necessarily a conscious participation we can see that it had a shadow element to it in that we really didn’t know what or who we were.

As I have stated in earlier essays, most of the earlier years are mainly based in survival, whether aware of it or not.  This was given to us by Nature and was mainly based in resistance because of the fear based separation feeling that the reptilian brain keeps online as a way of approaching existence.

In our approach to our art of Aikido, we start out using the conflict survival metaphor as the basis of how we will interact with each other which is in the beginning a perfect depiction of the separation perspective of how the ego mind sees the world, all the objects separate from one another, including ourselves.  This does allow us to function here since we are born into the space time dimension, we almost automatically fall into the separation paradigm as our approach to living which seems appropriate because everyone else is doing the same thing which could be looked at as hypnosis and not fully, consciously examined.

As humanity has progressed technologically, we have not really awakened to these facets of our existence and this has left us in heavy reliance on the tech advancement but not coming into realization of our core Essence and we are still caught for the most part in this survival agenda as the underlying basis unconsciously for our purpose for being here and it is almost totally not examined because of the immense power of Nature that we inherited.

When we start to see this in our practice and our life, we can make a decision to investigate this facet of ourselves to see if it is “the whole picture”.  There are lots of rituals, practices and beliefs that seem to be able to fit the bill to fulfill this quest in the form of a search.

Once we are caught in the ego searching to make the ego extinct we are following a futile path, the ego is only a function in consciousness or our Greater Self, once we can move beyond most of the lower levels of our human nature we start to see clearly with Clarity, this allows Realization or recognition of Real Nature, otherwise survival nature will keep us in her lure.

From the platform of Principle we step into doing something totally different than one’s otherwise repetitive life of cyclic habits which can be quite numbing to our brain, body, nervous system and thus affecting our life perspective in a non awakened condition.  Once we allow ourselves to consider approaching our existence from a totally restructured, rewired alignment with a more balanced, centered and open ended vision, we can we say we are reborn, a condition less condition, that is a greater understanding of harmony and peace that was obscured by being born here and having to wade through all of the conditioning of living here.

I started this essay around the subject of the Essence of Aikido with a hint of the warrior spirit that humanity seems to align itself with in respect to being caught in the reptilian brain agenda of survival, nothing necessarily bad with it, it is like ego mind in that respect, they are great for their functional expression, but don’t need to take over one’s existence.

The Essence of Aikido from my decades of practice is based in several realizations that have come from many satori like revelations in that if Aikido is an advanced spiritual art that was designed and evolved to the point of seeing that if you harm another, you have harmed yourself because of our Essential core connection no matter what the supposed ethnicity.

We cannot see clearly until we awaken and remove the conditioned life energy obstructions that our lives tend to become.  We can then see clearer that our Essence from the Eternal is Innocence.  Sincerely, Will Gable

Art, Will Gable @ 1979

In our existence here we tend to live from our assumptions, beliefs and life conditioning which, when formed into a conclusive sense of value can run our lives in an automatic, habitual and unconscious expression.

When we live our lives from this manner, we can be caught up in a realm of the social, educational, theological and philosophical perspectives and may never look beyond these assumed institutions to realize that we have taken most of the status quo of these organizations as the basis of our life.

The tendency from the input of this in our lives seems to be to think we know who we are, what we are doing and are for the most part placing major trust in this past along information trail that is based mostly in one’s self survival agendas that physical life seems to demand.  There obviously is a certain necessity for survival, but to not know you base your whole existence on this un-inspected agenda should hopefully awaken your ATTENTION.

Almost everything we do in one way or another is geared toward self survival and we as a collective take it for granted and we don’t know we are involved in this linear consensus behavior which seems to govern our whole existence.

In order for us to come to grips with this insight we either may have had some awakening experiences that directly started to show us that we have been hypnotized by this agenda or we realized we had been moving along on a heresay agenda that we have never felt we needed to deeply inspect and now we find ourselves having to find a way to show us the way in the form of the search.

This search can take many forms, some people take up therapy, which may bring about a summation of what your history is, how you may have reacted to your life and in the end may show you your story.  A view of this could be history is what actually happened and what your point of view from your memory is really a hack job of your opinion about what you think happened.

Most of this is a perception and interpretation about how you categorized your ideas about what you think happened even though if others were there watching the episode, they would probably all have a different point of view which isn’t what you recorded and experienced.

We see from this simple example that what we define as reality is only a perception which is the end expression of many other aspects of one’s makeup such as reaction, interpretation, conditioning.  So, in looking at this view that one has come up with, the mind’s meaning making machine is in full gear and we tend to believe it without really inquiring into how all of this content was created.

Many people are looking into the arenas of yoga, meditation, zen and other psycho physical disciplines which promise us many benefits and outcomes that are purported to be way above all the rest of the western approaches and yet if you look, they are not truly aligning us with the Absolute, they are helpful in health, both mental and physical, but again, these are survival orientations, they can help in transformation of negative positive attributes that bother us, but won’t lead to transcendence into being, doing isn’t being.

This essay is meant to bring to light some other higher Principles that have not been organized to allow the spirit to enter the realm of our practice. We have been told that Master Uyeshiba professed that Love was the guiding Principle of Aikido from his Enlightenment and that some of the step down Principles, so to speak, were non-resistance, non-conflict, and non-harm, in order for us to practice taking care of humanity.

These have been the realized and somewhat idealized basis of most of the philosophical perspectives in a general sense so that we had an enlightened path to base our practice on in a psycho physical world, seeing as Principles aren’t really seen, but can be practiced, integrated and lived through our daily lives and our Aikido practice as long as we pursue them consistently and embody their influence.

I have practiced and contemplated our art for many decades and in the last ten years have had other insights as to what helps our practice for the purpose of realization in spirit to come forward as new, more effortless Principles that help realign us as Consciousness Awareness and Flow.

Since we are for the most part practicing a purely defensive art, we are waiting on the energy directional force to show us the way, so we are having to deal with the Unknown. We don’t know who, where, when or if there is energy arising that might be of consequence to us.

In opening ourselves to the vast Unknown, we find a whole new world of discovery and creativity because we are stepping outside of the grid of our ego mind default structure whether conditioned from birth, most likely, or we are relying too much on our own kata training or a combination of both.

The Unknown is our doorway to greater understanding since it is where all our real knowledge is gleaned. We step beyond what our thinking says it should look like, into what it is “as it is” in the moment.

When we can we get our training down to the slowness that is necessary so we can open ourselves to trusting the process purely, and then from No Mind start to see how we are really trying to control the issue instead of understand it as itself, then we can start to practice from an omni-directional open-endedness.

In awakening to No Mind we are allowing ourselves to trust the Unknown and become intimate with the vast input that we have been blocking that comes from beyond the conceptual realm in staying only with thinking how things are and confining everything to it.

One of the biggest steps in trusting the Unknown seems to be founded on nothing but a leap beyond the tangible, but in all reality this is where we have always been, the Freedom of our Innocence in Consciousness.

To step into the No Mind of the Unknown opens us to the realm of Formlessness in that we NOW are not grasping for a concept to rely on as our guide but NOW are swimming freely in the Light of Principle that is our true home as it is our True Consciousness Nature that has been obscured by the seeming world of SEPARATE OBJECTS that is projected by our conceptual ability to want to label and control through duality, is it safe or dangerous?

In our practice of Aikido, we don’t view the other person as separate in that we are blending with their energy as it seemingly arises as the form emerges from the Unknown. In order for us to realize Formlessness we need to absorb their energy as it is and NOW engage in the dance of the universe in that we awaken to the Truth that there never was SEPARATION, only an obscured Misunderstanding that we are limited when we are really standing as an expression of Infinity.

So, in practice we are formlessness to the seeming form that the other seems to be and through this Principle we can NOW be Open ended to whatever energetic form is emergent in the moment. Being Open ended allows us to have an omni-directional free space to what is as it is and allow us to FLOW with the emergent energy spontaneously.

As we allow ourselves to access the Principle of Open-endedness, we are starting to combine all of these Principles into opening to our Presence which as my previous essay, “Presence is Non-resistance to Infinity” invites us to the Presence of the TRUE NOW which is not what many tend to confuse with the relative term, the present, which is only a way to measure your movement or perception in a time based relative relationship.

As Presence, there is no ego mental intention, only Being, allowing what IS to show us “the way of no way”.  Our Source Essence has emerged through all of the conditioning, assumptions, beliefs and conclusions that we have lived as who we are and NOW shines as its joyous Free nature.

We are NOW able to be our Free Attention that is not attached to the world, so to speak, but we are NOW living from Truth that transcends everything and is a Transparency that helps set you free from the tyranny of the mind, obsessive thoughts, ego default constructs and the realm of the unconscious that has held us in its energetic clutches.

The Absolute is outside the mind’s ego construct that is functioning as the self survival agenda and yet is not separate from anything and is “what is” prior to we will say to the “mind’s meaning making machine” that eventually becomes the perceptive mechanism that the person believes is a direct perception and interpretation of reality.

The mind is an aspect of Consciousness, a power of Consciousness in a limited expression that has the ability to see the world in a separate and categorical view and thinks because it can do this that it has control of life and reality, this is the self survival function that seems to take over one’s whole existence.

Sincerely, Will Gable

In our attempt to step into the world of our true ME, we have to awaken to who and what we truly are.  If we do not retrieve our ME from the confusion of existence we will not step into the true Unknown.

The true Unknown is not really aware of the world that seems so apparent to everyone.  The transcendent is a transparency that is so natural and is self contained in that it is just itself with no obstructions or definitions, pure isness

We do seem to be overly attached to the objects in the world no matter what shape they are.  This, in itself is a major distraction seeing as most everyone is totally exteriorized with their ATTENTION.  This is one reason meditation has become a major way to bring ones ATTENTION to their inner life.  It can shut off the seeming exterior so the ATTENTION can take a rest from the linear consensus reality of the objective distraction that can consume it.

If we never see through ourselves transparently, then the survival mechanisms of the ego/mind have us entrenched in its myopic focus of basically staying alive on the planet, food, sex and money dominate our daily regimen.

If we can step back so to speak and simply see that we can see ourselves involved in the gesture of activity, then we may start to see that we are part of the environment and we are a Free Witness Awareness that is not, nor has it ever been separate from anything.

It is just that nature in her tenacity of support to be the strongest one can be, has out done itself and the organism has become numero uno, and that is the illusion that keeps one’s consciousness/awareness contracted and consumed.

You, as Free Witness Awareness can flow with anything, no attachment, this does not mean we are not responsible and accountable, we have brought ourselves through the unconscious and awakened to our Soul that is being realized as our True Nature.

The journey was not external, there is no external, only linear consensus reality, living in time and space and accepting it with no question as to if that is all there is to existence or not.  Self survival and existence as it is aren’t the same thing.

This is what our conceptualization of objects has distracted us to believe until we start seeing that we actually created the concepts and adopted the meanings that are assumed to be the objects because of believing in the separation that we seem to be living as one’s existence.

For example, you invent a new product that no one has seen and invent a name for it, this is fairly common, but no one really sees that the concept is a word meaning that you invent in your mind, that concept is not the same as the physical product, it is just a way of identifying it so the mind can categorize it and control it, and we can use in common agreement, but that doesn’t make it the product as it is.

Once we notice that this is a consistent action that seems to come from who we think we are, we can start to see ourselves being involved in the expression, but now we are beginning to awaken to this very gesture and see that we have been living from this conditioned operating system that we don’t really know is running our lives.

To consider that we have been led along by this string of thoughts and emotions and think that that is all we are without inquiry should shake us up, because now we can see that we have been creating this operating system and assuming that it is reality, we have projected perceptions, assumptions and conceptual labels that we have all agreed upon as the way it is.

So to get beyond this habit of assuming this function is reality, we have to let go of the known and open ourselves to the unknown and this demands we really hone in on “where is your ATTENTION?”  If we do not gather our AWARENESS ATTENTION from the distractions of the what seems to be the outer world of FORMS we will remain its unconscious prisoner.

In gathering our ATTENTION we have opened ourselves to our Presence which is awakening to our true connection with our true nature which is to step into the Unknown and not have to know oneself as an object, but only IS that is our creative, spontaneous source that is beyond definition, but is the source of our Soul or our True Me.

Thank you, Will Gable

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As we continue with our Spiritual growth in our practice of Aikido, we need to be able to relate to our class mates in a language that is clear to all.  If we can communicate with them in a language that is consistent with all of our natures then we can help the Clarity process to start to grow from a basis that the brain can start to see where it is involved whether conscious or unconscious in its contributing functions.

In its attempt to function in its online way, the brain, when it is unconscious will mainly work in its framework of to either fight, flight, or freeze in its relationship with life everyday.  When it is allowed to function in pure default without any consciousness or awareness of what is happening when it is happening, in other words, could be an adrenaline cortisol dump and then we are caught in the crosshairs of where a potential perpetraitor knows enough to set us up and we are caught in no choice of fight, flight or freeze or faint.

When we enter the martial arts world we are moving into an arena that lots of people may never become involved in as an interest.  There are a lot of assumptions about what that entrance is supposed to be depending on why one has decided to join in in whatever art they choose.  People seem to be drawn to an art that at the moment of decision is really being decided to relate to their personality, this may seem to be on the periphery, but could be a lot deeper, but most don’t see the whole comprehensive picture.

Hopefully, what we have chosen will hopefully, gradually reveal ourselves to ourselves from a higher, less locked down perspective that we had when we entered the practice.  So, in the testing ground of everyday existence, we start to get feedback as to whether we are gleaning positive, balanced insight into the nature of conflict.

In so doing, we start to see how we are involved either consciously or unconsciously.  I have had serious students come back into sessions and report their experiences that came into their everyday situations and how they were able to handle the situations so we could start to process where they really were at those moments and how we can use our martial arts training to live more in a flow approach between chaos and rigidity, or fight, flight freeze or faint.

The neurochemicals that come online in a moments instance are very much based in our brain’s survival mechanisms, these are adrenaline, norepinephrine and cortisol.  They all contribute to narrowing our focus of attention to the situation that has arisen and potentially calls for all of our brains emphasis on saving us from the danger it has perceived real or not.

In our practice in class, we are attempting to come as close to a true, committed energy attack and how we will respond from being present or react unconsciously.  At this point we can be made aware by our brain’s reaction as to whether we are or have moved beyond its default position to a more centered, balanced response based in what our art is attempting to teach us, stay centered, grounded, and stable in our breath and how we can start to possibly stay in flow with the energy that has invaded our lives and not get caught up in just fight and freeze so we can safely leave the situation.

If we have become stable in our centered Awareness, we have a better chance of not getting locked up in our brain’s online dump, even if we do, we want to have experienced it enough to be able to channel its strength of the neuro chemical input so we may be able to use it to further our defense to escape or help us to deal with the situation if it turns highly physical or potentially terminal.

So, to become more aware of our survival tendencies to lock up, is to further get beyond their sub and unconscious input at times when we need to access beyond the situational energy and get into an arena of where all of our training, discipline and principles come together as a FLOW EXPRESSION.  This is where we have brought a lot of all of overall attempts to stay balanced, centered and integrated come together and we start to function from a more synergistic, harmonized unification consciousness.

When we start to access this consistently, a lot of our prior conditioning maybe from other arts or disciplines start to fall in line with Principle and we are not left guessing as to our next response in each moment, this is where we become the present moment as NOW Presence and we have an answer to the situation because it is happening out of the present, we have trained to be fully in the present, so all our systems along with consciousness awareness are all firing in unity.

When we are living as Presence in the NOW, we are not surprised by too much in our daily life.  If we are reacting or overreacting to situations that arise, then we are not living in the present, we are not connected with the situation as it is because we are at that moment not in tune as a WHOLE, partially fragmented, not living in the FL
OW of “what is”.

As we allow ourselves through our daily practice to stay in connection with whatever we are involved with, we can start to SIFT our values and see why we might have gone unconscious.  This sifting needs to be continual and go much deeper than just societal, political and financial issues and concerns.  It needs to allow things and situations to arise as they are and feel deeply to see what we are reacting to, which is the feedback of Awareness in the moment as to what buttons are being pushed and by whom or what.

If we are not being affected then there is no reason for concern or to have our Attention disturbed, but if there is emotional upset or being hijacked on our part then we need to inspect what was the underlying internal reaction.

As our practice of Aikido centering, grounding and stabilization and non attachment takes hold we can transcend these possible fight, flight, freeze or faint scenarios by staying Openended in the FLOW of the energy as we practice it in class and move beyond the biological online defaults that can take over because of our not being aware that they exist.

Our practice is much more than self defense, we allow ourselves to go through the acceptance of the possible situations from committed situations in class that show us whole other realms of how we can handle these possibilities that can keep us in the FLOW and not allow us to be overwhelmed by just our ego/mind default self.

Thank you, Will Gable

I am posting Aikido Journal’s blog that listed my posts.  I wanted to thank Mr. Brandon Clapp for posting these over the years to Aikido Journal’s profound collection of the issues that are being discovered and practiced every day in the worldwide martial arts and spiritual community of practitioners.

Again, I want to thank Mr. Stanley Pranin and Mr. Brandon Clapp for accepting my writings as part of the commentaries in their publication.  The connection is http://blog.aikidojournal.com/?s=will+gable.

Thank you, Will Gable

HIKARI AIKIDO DOJO LOCATION AND HOURS

We are located at 122 North May in The North Park Mall, you can enter the South entrance, come North to The Obvious Group tinted sliding glass door on the east side of the mall, we offer sessions for beginning and advanced practitioners, our class hours are:

Monday  and Wednesday -6:30-8:30 PM / Saturday 11:30 AM -1:30 PM.  Monthly fee:  $125.00 a month, no contract!

We want to thank Sensei Quang Van Tran for his generous and gracious welcoming and use of his great training facility.

We have enjoyed our time with Mike Darter, he has been a great business partner, as well as good friend and been a pioneer in many ways to further the martial arts in Oklahoma city with his innovative ideas and programs.

I want to wish him personal success in his new business venture as well as his family life.

If you have any questions about dojo hours or any other questions, please call 405-921-6457 or 405-495-8128, thank you, the monthly fee for classes is $125.00 a month, with NO CONTRACT, I am also available for PRIVATE CLASSES FOR INDIVIDUALS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT PERSONNEL  we are also considering an after school class for children and pre teens, Will Gable

Are we just caught up in all the objects in the world and missing what is truly the support and all pervading expression of Source?  As I have stated in the previous essay, Space is Peace that seems to go on to Infinitum.  We tend to overlook the most poignant, in our face indicators of Universal Principles because they are usually the most simple.

We are constantly permeated by the Universe, this reality seems to escape the ego/mind and its constant attempt to organize, plan and direct our lives with its almost inescapable clutch on our attention and awareness.  We seem so distracted by its incessant drive to focus on survival and life which keeps us at a low level of awareness to the higher level information that is always right in front of us.

All the planets and stars seem to be hanging in this same Space which seems to indicate that it could possibly be a support even though we perceive it as something we would fall into and not be supported.  My view of this is that we are moving through space continuously and only what we call gravity seems to hold us to the planet, otherwise, Freeflight.

The ego/mind wants the security and solidity of the physical, this keeps our Identification with the body mind and as long as we want this connection to be the only ID point of Existence we tend to stay entrenched in mind and not able to allow internal Space to  actually free us of our internal conditioning and attachments.  We cannot become more Aware if we do not let go of the conceptual machine and see that Space provides the opening for Awakening.

Our ID stays where it is unless we move into internal Space and be able to see Where we think we are and how identified we are to What we think we are so we may actually see Who we are.  But only when we can “step back or step away” long enough to loosen the grips of attention in our Silent Stillness can we let go into the Freeing Space of ISness.

We are virtually breathing space, we can’t really touch air or oxygen and Space seems to be a constant support for all the functions we rely on to move freely and live our lives.  Space can be looked at as an expression of Isness, or Oneness, and as Awareness that we tend to take for granted.

The openendedness necessary enough for Inner Space to be contacted needs to be consistent and not shut down because when True Inner Space is allowed, you can get very dizzy and there can be possible anxiety because the self image at the personality level is being shook probably harder than ever but if you do not resist this you are allowing your contraction which is your self image and your personality to breath the Freedom of Space.

The training we pursue in Aikido allows us to open ourselves to our Internal Space, we are not competing which obviously sets up resistance instead of flowing with the energy when we slow down so we can actually see and have great sensitivity to what we are involved in, in the moment.

This is a large part of how we are able to Realize a Real Center, not just the Hara but our greater Spiritual Center of Awareness/Consciousness that can awaken when we turn our Attention to Inner Attention so it realizes itself as Free, All One, not attached to any thing.

In constantly relaxing in the inner action we are contacting Inner Space, letting go of our ego/minds incessant desire to control the seeming outer action.  This is the realm of having epiphanies and Satori while involved in the practice, this is part of the reason Aikido is defined as Zen Moving Meditation, there is actually Silence Stillness while in dynamic action.

Thank you, Will Gable