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CHAPTER 1

Kihon: Basics and Fundamentals

Before we discuss the fundamentals of weapons practice, this chapter will provide an overview of concepts and theories basic to aikido. Although you should already be familiar with these ideas, it’s important to rethink them for practice with weapons.

REI: ETIQUETTE

Everything in aikido starts and ends with the bow. Showing respect to all beings, and toward everything one does, must become an attitude to life in general. Mutual respect, appreciation, and protection are the cornerstones of aikido training. Over time, the attribute of etiquette is generalized and applied effectively and efficiently in any conflict situation. It is surprising how many conflicts are prevented, managed, or resolved using a sense of humor, humility, and good manners.

O’Sensei Morihei Ueshiba trains in technical execution of the jo with his son, second Doshu Kisshomaru Ueshiba.

TECHNICAL EXECUTION

Nonresistance is an essential element of proper aikido technique execution. Intercepting, deflecting, and redirecting an attack—rather than blocking or resisting it—utilize the momentum and inertia of the attack. This is initially practiced by training to get off the line of attack, and by not attempting to stop an attack with force. Nonresistance does not mean being passively overpowered by the attack; that is a fear-based response that perpetuates a win-lose dynamic counter to the basic tenets of aikido Nonresistance is the positive and active entering, joining, and blending with an attack; the goal is a mutually beneficial win-win conclusion in which no one, including the attacker, gets hurt in any way. Rather than blocking an attack, an aikido practitioner with a weapon will simply avoid the strike, allowing it to follow its course without interruption, and then intercept the hands or body as the target. Just as the empty-hand techniques of aikido apply nonresistance, the same techniques can be executed with or against a weapon.

It is always important to maintain good posture and a relaxed body. Good posture increases a sense of power and self-esteem. Good posture maintains a structurally supportive skeletal system and allows for the proper functioning of the central nervous system. Good posture maintains a sense of balance, stability, and mobility. Keeping the body relaxed minimizes stress, anxiety, and fear responses, while preventing antagonistic muscles from working against fluid responsive movement. Proper posture maintains balance, which is vitally important when executing aikido techniques with or against a weapon, since the extended range and torque of a weapon require a stable base.

Like good posture, structural alignment is also very important. Structural alignment ensures that maximum support is provided horizontally and vertically by the skeletal and muscular systems of the body. Structural alignment extends into the attacker so that a simple movement of the wrist aligns and interlocks the structural system toward the attacker’s kuzushi (balance point) and causes a loss of balance. Many aikido techniques facilitate the loss of structural alignment in the attacker, resulting in a total loss of control and power. The physical structural alignment of the body must extend beyond the body and through the tip of the weapon to maintain stability and ki energy flow.

It is important to remain aware of the centerline—the imaginary line that runs directly down the body, dividing it equally into left and right. Keeping your hands on the centerline allows you to defend with more rapidity and efficiency. Maintaining your hands on the centerline also facilitates turning or pivoting from the hips or stepping with the feet, projecting full body power, momentum, and inertia into every movement. Maintaining visual awareness of the attacker’s centerline provides a larger field of vision and facilitates a greater use of peripheral vision to detect movement of both the upper and lower body. Alignment to both centerlines (yours and your attacker’s) provides a connection and positioning, which adds to the effectiveness and efficiency of the technique you execute. The path of the weapon must follow the centerline of the body, especially when executing an overhead shomen-uchi strike. The weapon is always held in front of the body centerline, and movement is initiated by turning the whole body.

Another important line to stay aware of is the line of attack—the imaginary line that demonstrates and denotes the direction of the incoming attack. The attack line usually follows the attacker’s centerline, directed through the feet, to the centerline of the defender’s body. The best rule to remember is to “get off the attack line” to ensure that you are not grabbed or hit. When you get off the attack line, you will not only avoid meeting the attack with the anticipated resistance, but you will also allow the natural momentum and inertia of the attack to become overextended. The attacker will then reach beyond his range of power and lose his balance. Even a large, well-trained attacker with a weapon is easier to control when he is off balance, and is harder to hit when he is off the direct line of intended attack. It takes awareness and experience to adapt and calibrate the extended line of attack in weapons training, both offensively and defensively.

Everything in nature has a rhythm, and aikido is said to follow the laws and ways of nature. There is an internal rhythm coordinating body movement. The arms, torso, and legs move in unison, as if following the same rhythm. There is also the rhythm between practitioners. As dance partners move to the same beat, aikido practitioners also move together, to the same rhythm. This entering into and blending within the same rhythm facilitates a fluid exchange and responsiveness to techniques. Finding the rhythm of movement is important in weapons training. All movement initiates, avoids, or even interrupts the rhythm. In the dojo, the sound of wood against wood makes the rhythm of weapons training obvious and exciting.

Timing is more important than speed. Timing is that inexpressible magic of being in just the right place, at just the right time, to let just the right thing happen. If one gets to the point too soon or too late, the magic does not happen. The smooth, fluid execution of aikido technique is a result of the impeccable timing that blends attacker and defender into one fluid motion, much like notes in a melody blending to form a beautiful harmony. The extended distance of a weapon attack and the danger of miscalculation make timing extremely important in weapons training.

The center is different from the centerline. While the centerline contains the center, the center is but one point (perhaps the most important point) on the centerline. The center is very important in aikido. One must maintain one’s own center and move from it. One must also become the center of the technique and assist the attacker in losing his center of balance. The center is the imaginary, yet actual, center of the body. That point, halfway between top and bottom, left and right, front and back, is the center. It is located in the hip region slightly below navel level. Many assert that maintaining awareness in the center will make for a powerful and “centered” technique and life. In weapons training, the weapon extends in front of the center. As in empty-hand training, all aikido weapons techniques move from the center and allow awareness to settle there.

Contact can be initiated, intercepted, or focused on the attacker’s intent. Initiating contact and intercepting the momentum and inertia of any attack— with the empty hand or a wooden weapon—can take place at several different references to space and time. Sen is the initiative taken after an opponent’s position is analyzed. Gono-sen means immediately counterattacking. Sen-nosen is taking the initiative and intercepting or counterattacking the opponent’s attack before the opponent has physically initiated it. Ultimately, this depends on subtle perceptions of minimal physical cues indicating the opponent’s intent, but it appears to happen on its own. The body detects and responds naturally and automatically. Once the intent of the attack is assessed, the action can be intercepted by initiating an attack in defense, as a counterattack to the attack, or simply in response to the intent to attack. Intercepting allows an attack to be redirected away from the intended point of impact. Contact in weapons training is not just weapon on weapon, or wood on wood; contact implies a connection, musubi,that allows intuitive as well as actual communication.

Contact can be initiated mentally and physically. Some will talk about the initial eye contact. Eye contact—the eyes being the window to the heart, mind, and soul of an individual—sets the stage and foretells the outcome for the rest of the encounter. Others suggest that contact can be made by means of an energy or kinesthetic sense, by just feeling the attacker’s presence and intent. Contact may be auditory, by hearing the attacker’s approach. Without contact, there is no attack or defense, and there is no aikido. O’Sensei Morihei Ueshiba would instruct students not to focus their eyes on the weapon, for one can then easily be deceived. Rather look through your opponent’s eyes, using your peripheral vision and all the other senses to simply perceive and be aware, rather than focus. This is extremely important due to the extended range and potential danger of weapons training in aikido.

Once contact is established, it should be maintained in one fluid movement, throughout the execution of the technique, and even during the resolution of the encounter or attack. Initially, techniques are practiced in a step-by-step, systematic manner or pattern. This allows the practitioner to focus on the correct form at different stages of the technique’s execution. Eventually, the follow-through of one stage, or phase, naturally and fluidly follows the momentum and inertia into the next. This ongoing flowing execution is characteristic of aikido. The weapon of aikido never stops. Defense flows into offense that flows into defense. Never stopping, all weapons training techniques enter and blend into one motion.

The contours of the body, or weapon, provide a ready-made natural path from the extremity to the center of the body. Follow the contour. Following the contour allows one to stay in contact and maintain sensitivity throughout the execution of the technique. It also prevents one from working against the structural strengths of the body, and allows fluid, direct application of the concepts of aikido. As an attacker extends his arm and weapon, he provides a pathway by sliding his weapon along the contour to hit the target as a strike, atemi, or to provide leverage for a throw, nage, or for take-down and control.

The position that generates the most power is one that allows power to flow from behind and beneath. With the hands and weapon in front of the body, the hips or center moves forward from behind to generate and extend full body power. When stepping and turning tenkan, in a circular step, pull the rear hip back to generate more power than twisting or turning from the front. Rather than pushing a weapon down from above, allowing the weight to rest on the underside of the weapon utilizes the force and natural law of gravity to add power to the striking motion.

One of the unique characteristics of aikido movement and technique is the use of circular motion instead of a linear path. Following the natural laws of circular motion and force facilitates the availability and use of both centrifugal and centripetal force. Centrifugal force moves away from the center, and centripetal force moves toward the center. The circular path of aikido techniques pulls into the center using centripetal force, while those appendages on the circumference of the circle tend to move away from the center. While the center hub of the circle moves slowly, the outer rim or circumference moves faster. Pulling the butt end of the weapon into the center facilitates a faster and more powerful motion on the end of the weapon when it follows a circular path.

Along with circular motion is the range of motion as the circle of power. Every weapon has a specific range of motion and power. The closer to the center of that circular range of motion, the less power there is. Likewise, an attack loses power beyond the circumference of the circular path of power, or beyond the attacking limb’s range of motion.

Movement in aikido makes full use of the natural laws of momentum and inertia. Momentum is the property of a moving body or weapon, a constant force exerted by virtue of its mass weight and velocity, until it comes to rest. The momentum of the weapon allows it to continue its path along the line of attack with optimal force toward a specific point of intended impact and damage. The law of inertia states that something in motion tends to stay in motion, and something at rest tends to stay at rest. This accounts for the dynamic—versus static or stationary—ease with which aikido practitioners move, throw, and even pin larger, more powerful, opponents.

Do only that which adds to, and is necessary for, successful execution of an aikido technique. Minimize any motion. Relaxation minimizes tension and maximizes fluidity of motion and responsiveness. In throwing an individual, it is often enough to break his balance and allow him to fall. In the application of a joint lock, just enough pressure to gain compliance and submission is enough, without the necessity of inflicting pain or doing damage. It is natural initially to feel tense while training with aikido weapons. Eventually, with honest and genuine training, one remains relaxed while being attacked by or attacking with the wooden weapons of aikido.

The technical execution, application, and utilization of leverage and pivot points greatly enhance the power of aikido. Leverage generates more power by using a fulcrum type of pressure to move an object with less effort than if force were applied directly to the object. A slight movement at one end of a weapon can produce a large impact at the other end.

The technical execution and application of the wave motion is to move up-down-up, down-up-down, in-out-in, out-in-out, forward-back-forward, or back-forward-back. The movement takes into account the resistance offered to an initial move, accepts it until the resistance is released, and then immediately reapplies the directional intention to the now emptied and open pathway.

SEQUENTIAL EXECUTION

There are four sequential stages of aikido technique execution: (1) enter and blend, (2) redirect and unbalance, (3) throw or control, and (4) let go and move away.

The first stage, enter and blend, applies to the utilization of weapons. Entering means to move toward, and in synchronization with, another. Blending means to become one and move as a unit rather than as two individuals. When attacked by a weapon, rather than retreat, an aikido practitioner allows the attack to continue on its attack line without resistance, while stepping off the attack line and entering or bridging the distance to the attacker.

The second stage is to redirect the attack and unbalance the attacker. Blending with an attack often includes just not being at the point of intended impact. Extending past the point of intended impact reduces the power and control exerted by the strike. As one blends with the strike, one begins to take control and redirect it. Usually following a circular path, this redirection continues towards a kuzushi, or until the momentum and inertia create unbalance. An unbalanced opponent or attacker is easiest to handle. He will follow the redirection in an attempt to regain balance. The principle of redirect and unbalance applies to facing any opponent, with or without a weapon.

The third stage is to throw or control the attacker. While many people do not immediately think of weapons as instruments for throwing an attacker or applying a control technique, they actually work very well. Perhaps the unexpectedness of their utilization in this fashion adds to their effectiveness. While there may be some debate about atemi, or striking, in aikido, there is no debate about the effectiveness and efficiency of utilizing a weapon specifically designed for that purpose. Atemi in empty-hand aikido techniques is often reserved for distraction and unbalancing, unless it is more of a self-defense situation and application. In weapons training, striking, throwing, and control are all viable and valuable options.

After successfully completing the execution of an aikido technique, one must learn to let go and move on. A slight pause before letting go allows for a sense of closure and completion. Zanshin is the term for the idea of a lingering spirit or connection. Once the encounter is completed, however, let go and move on the next attacker or opponent. This is especially true in randori practice against sequential multiple attackers, or in a real self-defense situation where one can never assume there is only one attacker.

CONCEPTUAL EXECUTION

Shoshin and mushin are two very important frames of minds to continually cultivate and maintain. Shoshin is “beginner’s mind,” and mushin is a calm and empty mind. Shoshin is the openness and awe of the beginner’s mind. It is the mind ready and available to learn. Mushin is the serene, unoccupied mind that, through years of disciplined training, is able to allow the body to be aware and respond with spontaneous execution of the appropriate technique.

Shizan-tai is a relaxed, natural state of being. The concept of natural movement and natural forces is very common in aikido. Maintaining a relaxed state, both physically and mentally, allows one to respond appropriately with greater effectiveness and efficiency. A state of being is different from a state of doing in that being relaxed and natural, without fear, may be all the doing that is necessary.

Metsuke is the soft eye focus that facilitates better utilization of the peripheral vision to be aware of motion and to help maintain a sense of physical, emotional, and mental calm. Metsuke perceives as if looking into the distance, without focusing or stopping the eyes or mind on any one thing. Without attachment to any one thing, all things are seen and perceived for what they are. “Seeing without looking = perceiving” (Random 1977, p. 78). Looking implies looking for something specific, while perceiving means to be aware of what is there. Metsuke also facilitates the ability to perceive and distinguish shapes, contours, and textures that do not fit a specific context, giving advance notice and the ability to respond proactively and protectively. Too often, in weapons work, the eyes focus on the weapon. This is a mistake, since it leaves the vision and reaction fixated on only one aspect of the opponent or attacker.

Ma-ai is the concept of cultivation and maintenance of proper combative distance. Too far away, and the technique is ineffective because one is outside the circle of power. Too close, and the technique is ineffective as well. The beginning ready ma-ai is often the distance required to have the tips of the weapons touching, so that one step can deliver the single lethal strike.