Seminar – taking stock 2 (Atari & “Hitting the structure”)

There is another thing that I realize I’ve walked away with from the Aikiweb seminar, evidenced by how frequently it’s been popping into my mind. It is the phrase that George Ledyard used, “hit the (partner’s) structure”. This phrase fits so well that I am tempted to say I prefer it over the expression “tai-atari (体当たり)”, which would be the original term I heard. Perhaps tai-atari would show its usefulness in the connection to “ki-no-atari”, which of course leads to an early point, namely that there is no absolute distinction between body and ki, or body and mind. For now, I had a train of thought run through my mind based on “hitting the structure”.

With variation among schools of aikido, there are place where the partners pause. E.g., after nage does the turn in tenkan/tai-no-henko; the first cut down in ikkyo omote; the first cut down to create kuzushi for kata-dori or katate-dori ikkyo, the cut down after the initial irimi movement in irimi-nage, etc.

What the examination of pauses boils down to is, what possibilities do you have from that position? The scope can be as narrow as, can you and your partner go to the next proper step in the form? It might be wider, such as can you extricate yourself from that position and continue attacking, possibly with the other hand, without opening yourself up to all manner of techniques and attacks? From this general question of possibilities, the examination is no longer restricted to the codified pauses in the forms. It’s anywhere uke’s balance is broken, which direction they fall or stumble, and how they recover. And, possibly the extraneous question, how to still “be uke” in that the interaction between nage and uke is completed with uke falling or being pinned.

What the idea of possibilities has to do with “hitting structure” is that in order to have the possibility of acting on a partner, one must be engaged with them. That is, I might have many possibilities by disengaging, staying away, and making noncommital gestures to engage, but none of them will give me access to the possibilities of interacting with or acting upon my partner.

The more or less codified pauses are points at which uke can check whether they are organized enough to a) hit the nage’s structure with their structure (as opposed to with only their arm) and b) move in accordance with the next step in the form, or more precisely speaking, move such that the next step in the form is fitting (or else the nage can either forcibly continue the form or change to something else that is more fitting).

Offhand there are 4 ways in which the interaction can go.

1. Uke hits nage’s structure with his own structure.
2. Uke hit’s nage’s structure only partially (eg with muscular strength only).
3. Uke hits part or none of nage’s structure (eg only the arm) but with his own structure.
4. Uke hits part or none of nage’s structure and without his own structure.

There’s a fifth way, consisting of uke leaning on nage. I’m presuming that this gives uke the sensation of pushing on nage. Suffice it to say, using one’s body to push and to lean are quite different actions. At the least, leaning creates the potential for falling, and likely makes acting upon uke’s body by nage a completely different action. Utilizing the fall is probably primary and not necessarily easy.

One way that it is not easy (if uke is leaning skillfully, like a good tackle), is that nage must still be moving with his structure, not just any old way. A skillful tackle will fill up the “space” within nage’s body such that nage may be literally backpedalling, or unable to use his body with the feeling of backpedalling.

When one “grows up” in a particular school, they learn where to stop and how. The “how” part might not be examined very deeply, though there might be a sense of accomplishing it better or worse. Another piece that might not be examined is “why”. From what I myself have seen, both students who do and don’t come from schools where these “pauses” are practiced struggle to one degree or another when faced with the examination of “how” and “why”. This examination is probably presented to students familar with pauses as pausing in unfamiliar places and times, with consequences relating to what happens after a pause. These students may at least have the possible advantage of having something to translate to become more flexible or generalized. To students unfamiliar with pauses, the examination is likely more of a struggle. For one thing, if a student is used to continuous movement, they may face the demand of organizing their body only at a few points, such as at the very beginning or very end of contact with nage. If demanded to pause right in the middle of flow, their body organization might be lagging behind, accustomed to the luxury of catching up later in the flow, or jumped ahead, knowing what the next leg of the flow will be like. Or perhaps the student might not even be behind or ahead, but simply doing an approximation, sort of like counting from 1 through 10, “1, 3, 5, 34, 2, 78, 5, 9 9.1, 10″, used to getting by within the loosest of criteria. If a student was suddently corrected that this was not really counting from 1 to 10, they might have some justified response, indicating the criteria that they’ve been using, such as “I counted 10 numbers didn’t I?” or “I started with 1 and ended with 10 didn’t I?” The student who is already used to pausing may be used to counting correctly from 1 to 10, but struggle with the task of struggle with the task of counting from 1 to 20 using whatever numbers they deemed fitting. For both, the examination of pauses may seem nonsensical.

Moving Forward in Discussions

This week of 2/15/09 on NPR (search online for “Holder’s ‘Cowards’ Comments Examined“(?)), there was a distinct part of the exchange in which the two people were discussing one of their speeches or essays. One person was critical, saying that he perceived that the writing’s focus on negative aspects of race-related discussions today was negating to all of the progress that has been made in the past few decades, that the focus ignored how different and positive it is for youth today compared to youth of thirty years ago. The author of the writing returned that he fully understood all of the progress that had been made as mentioned by the first person, but that that was not the topic of his writing – what was the topic were things that needed to be faced next. So the first person felt that, by its omission, it was being negated and overlooked. But here we have the author himself telling us he wasn’t doing that. Furthermore, we are given a description of his perspective and background which lend credibility – credibility that we are hearing the truth.

(Admittedly taking his side, here,) how is he supposed to compose a speech/essay that is concise and to the point, without digressing on a related but different tangent only to placate people with certain preconceptions and preoccupations? If we say that his essay has as a primary objective to reach everyone, including those who need placating, perhaps he in fact does need to spend some time on the digression. After all, his composition doesn’t come into this world into a vacuum, but into various contexts, which includes various audiences and respective interpretations. Perhaps, at the very least, a digression expressing what the goal of the composition is and what it consciously avoids would be valuable. On the other hand, we could say it’s the onus of the audience to deal with their own preoccupations and preconceptions. If they take in a composition (or read a book, see a movie, hear something from someone, etc.) and receive something that the creator never intended, shouldn’t they question how much was due to their own “junk”? In fact, isn’t the individual who is making the mis/re-interpretation the best person to have insight of what is happening to lead him to such an interpretation at all? And finally, since this is about communication, the format is relevant. If it is a conversation between two people, the speaker has the opportunity to get a sense of how the listener is receiving the words, and accordingly tweak what is being said. If it is an essay that has been completed, then the author does not have such an opportunity. The author’s skill in “pre-reading” the potential audiences’ reception may become apparent. Also, the audience may need to give the author the benefit of the doubt about what the author is striving to convey, precisely because they do not have the opportunity to hear the author’s clarifications.

In discussions about practitioners of aikido of different aspirations, the “moving forward” often becomes derailed by similar divergences of views and interpretations [1][2]. The people who have the knee jerk reactions of the defensive sort when they hear someone calling them or implying that they are “hobbyists”, evidently associate the idea of doing something as a hobby with doing something with little worth, little meaning, little benefit, little beauty, etc. Even if we consider something most people can probably grasp as a hobby, such as building birdhouses, tending a garden, or restoring old cars – for all of these things we can probably see the person doing it not as a professional yet investing much time, effort, energy, and money, attaining pleasure, peace, meaning, etc. and even bringing joy and benefit to others. How is it that “it’s a hobby” becomes “just a hobby”? Can the person hearing “just” acknowledge that that is what their mind is inclined to attach? Also, can such a person come up with an alternative word that is somehow more placating or satisfying? Would it help to assign a different word to those who are obviously more serious/invested? “Amateur”? “Apprentice”?

Without acknowledging and accounting for the objective of statements, conversations, terminology, and for the perspectives and formats of communication, then the discussions can’t move forward. And moving forward is inevitably going to include encountering some unsavory topics. In the case of race, it could include the topic of how to practically address differently different people’s socioeconomic positions as it related to their history. In the case of aikido, it could be about topics such as how teachers should be expected to treat different students differently, and what kind of discriminating treatment students should expect and tolerate. Recognizing that our discussion isn’t moving forward, assessing why it is so, and settling on some basic common ground are essential pieces of a complicated discussion. Without these pieces, it could be like talking about traveling together to the other side of the planet but not agreeing whether to start eastward or westward; like agreeing to travel some place relaxing or exciting but not agreeing where that is and even presuming the other person is thinking the same thing as oneself; like planning a trip somewhere with someone, with one person intending to stay for a few days and another for months, and packing the car accordingly.

Language/Communication

I find myself often return to the analogy of language (or conversation, communication, etc.) when thinking about aikido and people in general. I realized recently that the first time I wrote anything for others to read – it was for the Saku dojo newsletter – it was about the same thing. (I can’t remember specifically what I wrote but I’m sure it was a crude, beta version thing that covered way more topics than it should have in a page.)

Recently I’ve been thinking about style/method/school differences, such as at seminars, and about the teacher/student relationship. I think that both of these situations entail unique factors not likely found in “usual” relationships and communication.

Aikido Metaphor, Language, DBT

I haven’t had any conscious, pseudo-literal applications of aikido principles for a long time now. Recently at a DBT training, the trainer challenged us to stop using the word “but” altogether and instead use the word “and”. I’ve been trying this and have been giving it some thought also. As I was explaining it to my wife, the aikido metaphor was all too clear, cheesy as it may be.