JOURNEY - on Mastering Ukemi

on the mat. A senior black belt student smiled and said, “He gave up the attack because you didn’t seem to respond to it.”
“Yes Erik, that’s pretty good.” I pointed at Christian and looked to make sure that he was not suffering any effects from the impact he had taken. His face was bright red, but he seemed fine.
“Christian didn’t get the reaction he expected from the punch, so he was unprepared to deal with my reaction – which was pretty nominal. When he realized that I was actually entering – attacking – him, he was too late to be able to get out of the way. He got hit pretty hard. Christian, I apologize. I should have had better control. I didn’t mean to hit you. If I had intended to hit you I would have done it harder.”
This got a big laugh; everyone in my school has been hit from time to time.
I continued. “So I want to make sure you understand that I am responsible for my actions and if I intend to strike you in order to teach you something, I will. But to strike you accidentally is something that I am obliged to apologize for. It means I was careless and a warrior is not careless.” I bowed to him and he bowed back.
I really wanted to make a smart remark along with this apology, something funny, because that’s my nature, but when you train people in arts that can kill, you have to keep up some kind of appearances.
It’s good to understand your nature. If you ever learn to keep your mouth shut at inappropriate times that understanding can keep you out of trouble. If you ever manage to learn, that is. I think it was Larry King who once said, “I never learned a damn thing while I was talking…” Even a fish would stay out of trouble if it just kept its mouth shut.
***
I run a martial art school that is called Shoshin Aikido Dojo. It is situated on about 65,000 square feet of land covered in bamboo, orchids, and orange, lemon and cumquat trees. There are many varieties of ginger, impatiens, and other flowering plants, tress, and bushes. There are grape vines that produce big, delicious grapes in the early summer and a garden that grows sweet potato and collards almost year around. We have a nice situation. The dojo sits behind my home and next to a luthiery studio where I build mandolins, violins and guitars from wood harvested from my land in the great northern state of Maine.
The wind was blowing cool, humid air through the open screens of the dojo when class resumed. The aikidoka (aikido students) formed into pairs and began to practice the techniques that I taught. First, one student (uke) would attack nage and be pinned or thrown. He would repeat this four times and then it would be repeated as they changed roles. The two parts - uke and nage - mean different things to different instructors. Oddly, there doesn’t seem to be much consensus about it.
Oh, I don’t mean the details. That’s pretty apparent. One person attacks the other and is either pinned or escapes into a roll. Sometimes players will switch roles during the play, counter a move and attempt a move of their own, but for the most part it is fairly straightforward. No, I’m talking about the ideas behind the ideas. That’s what this story is about. I have been thinking long and hard about the far bigger picture and it seems to me that very few bother to think beyond the point of a break fall.
I watched Christian attack Erik and he seemed a bit distracted, but his falls were clean and precise. He even seemed to be pushing Erik a bit, which is rare and not always the smart thing to do. Erik is my chief instructor among the black belts who train under me. He can be a fierce practitioner and is enormously strong and talented. But tonight he seemed content to let Christian gain some small ground on him and train at Christian’s intensity level. I moved over to where they were throwing each other about. I watched until Christian stepped off the mat to get a drink of water.
“Erik, is Christian okay?”
“I guess so,” he replied. “He isn’t hurt if that’s what you mean. But he does seem to be a little puny, if you get my meaning.”
“Yeah, I do. Tell him I want to see him after class up at the house, if you don’t mind.”
“Yes, Sensei,” he said, and went back to train some more.
The breeze was coming a bit stronger now and I could smell ozone in the air. The ceramic bells, trees and towering stands of bamboo were singing and there was a steady rattle of debris on the tin roof of the dojo. My dogs were wandering around restlessly outside the screen door and the sky rapidly grew dark. The first drops of rain hit the tin roof as I clapped my hands to halt training. Everyone went over to the side of the mat to sit and watch the next demonstration. I again called Christian to be my uke and motioned for the attack I wanted.
He struck over and over and I demonstrated the technique that I thought would be a logical continuation of the previous one. I wanted to explain how moving the hips to place the nexus, or joining of energies, into the center established the center, but the rain was so strong that I could not make myself heard. I looked at everyone and shrugged, pointed to the ceiling rafters and shrugged again, then motioned for them to train. The sudden, total humidity was like a blanket and at the same time the temperature seemed to fall a bit to compensate. That’s Florida.
***
Celine stuck her head in the door and asked if she could come in.