Glimmerscape

"Try" Finds Ability

I'd just merged onto US 101 north heading home from noon class at Bay Marin Aikido when I flipped on the FM radio to see what was on NPR. It was an interview, with Gary Leffew, champion bull rider. His voice rolled easy over the radio, brimming with humility and slow, whimsical humor that is the mark of someone who has lived harder and suffered more than you could ever imagine.

As I wondered whether to change stations, interviewer Dave Davies asked Leffew to describe life during the eight seconds a rider has to stay on the bull to get a score. He laughed and began, "eight seconds doesn't sound like a long time, but I promise you, when you're on the bull, time becomes relative," and it seems like forever.

As Leffew continued in a relaxed drawl, I was still thinking about what we trained at noon class, the 31 kumijo paired jo awase, and how hard it is for people who are used to the 31 no jo kata to get out of the frame of mind of a solo practice and into the larger mind-space of a two-person shared practice. Instead of being in this little capsule containing only yourself moving through a series of strikes, thrusts, and parries you expand into a bigger sphere, one that encompasses not one but two people wielding weapons. Often what happens is that you get two people sequencing through their own solo practice in close proximity, never cultivating a mind large enough to include the other. This is not only bad practice, but it is dangerous too.

During today's class we put aside everything but the requirement to explore how expanding the mind to include both yourself and your partner allows the moves to make sense in the larger game. Widening awareness to include the other allows each to find the blend in a natural give and take where both partners move with a rhythm that is neither that of the one nor the other but a synthesis of both.

As these thoughts echoed through my mind I heard Leffew say, "my best rides happened when I got out of my conscious mind and opened up to the way the bull was thinking. The bull is 2,000 pounds of animal totally out of control, and if you can relax and become one with the bull, you can have a great ride. Every wreck I've ever had, whether I got thrown or stepped on, it was because I got caught up in my conscious thoughts."

He continued, explaining he'd been teased a lot by other rodeo cowboys for using terms like "zen" to describe his mental practice. But even his detractors had to agree he was onto something when he kept winning year after year.

I was riveted to the radio. What he described was what we were trying to do in class, except that we pay a smaller price for getting it wrong.

Then Davies asked him, "can you tell which newcomers are going to be great riders?" Leffew answered, "I don't look for talent so much as I look for 'try'. I've seen a lot of riders with talent give up after a few times being stepped on by a bull. The ones who end up being great are the ones who have enough 'try' in them to get slam-dunked, stepped on, or drug, and keep coming back."

He concluded in his understated way, "'Try' finds ability." So that riders with enough "try" in them to keep practicing eventually get better than the ones with talent alone.

Immediately I remembered a section in Terry Dobson's book, It's Almost Like Dancing, in which he describes the mind set for learning to take rolls. He writes, "nobody can make you leap off of your feet, you have to do it yourself" and just fly, trusting that the courage and tenacity you show will lead you to knowledge.

For those of us who may not be talented, or have started Aikido late in life, Gary Leffew's "'Try' finds ability" is like a sudden unexpected comfort, a humble cowboy's pragmatic encouragement that persistence, perhaps even in Aikido, will eventually pay off.

technorati tag aikido

Linked Kumi Jo with Carmen and Candy

With Tatoian Sensei away in Japan on holiday, the choice of what to practice this morning at weapons class was left up to those of us who showed up. That group included me, Carmen, and Candy.

I immediately noticed Candy's new jo; a substantial hickory-looking (I didn't ask) weapon with "Aikido" calligraphy on the shaft. It was a little thicker than the usual 1-inch staff, probably measuring 2.5 centimeters which is a good diameter for a jo.

Sensei has told Carmen to get ready for his Nidan test, and since the 10 kumijo, paired jo forms, are on the test requirements that's what we practiced. Actually, we focused on the linked kumijo sequences, establishing a linking move between kumijo 1 and kumijo 2, and then using that same linkage to merge kumijo 1 with all the others up to kumijo 10.

Saito Sensei also taught ways of linking 2 and 3, 3 and 4, 4 and 5, and 5 and 6; but nobody knew them, and besides, you couldn't do them all anyway within an hour's class time. As it was we only got through the paired kumijos 1 and 7 before time ran out.

The hardest thing about doing linked kumijo is that it's confusing to always do number 1 and then find yourself doing some other kumijo as a part of the continuous form. I always wonder, "did I finish with all the parts of number 1 before converting over to number (N)?" The evidence is in what your partner is doing; if she is still moving in coordination with you then you haven't left anything out.

We practiced at first on the long grass outside the sports complex until Carmen slipped a little and we moved over to the concrete plaza for safety. The sun was bright and there was a little breeze shaking the blossoms that still hung in the trees.

Repeatedly I felt rusty and then realized this was natural for someone who hadn't done any kumjio for about six weeks. Fortunately Carmen remembered what to do even when I faltered, and so we methodically progressed up the ladder, beginning each set with a round of stop-start followed by a round of awase.

Later, after Candy had to leave, Carmen and I finished out the sequence and tacked on a few minutes of jo dori practice, which is also going to be on his test. We cycled through 6 different take-aways from a left-side entry, and then 6 more from a right-side entry. These are fun to do when you can do the flying ukemi out of them. It's also fun to watch someone lunging at an unarmed person with a long staff only to see the attacker suddenly go flying while the person attacked ends up with the stick. But we couldn't do the ukemi today because we were practicing on concrete and I just had surgery. Of course I would have flown onto the concrete had I not, just three + weeks ago, been in the hospital having my gall bladder out.

It would have been no problem, no problem at all.

technorati tag aikido

Simone has a birthday

Simone had just returned from Iwama, where she had trained for a few weeks with Hitohiro Saito Sensei, and she seemed full of energy and renewed enthusiasm for Aikido. She's fearless and predatory while at the same time being exceptionally good-humored about carving you into little bits. Her kiai is enough to rattle the gizmos on shelves at the Radio Shack on the other side of the wall from us. If you ranked someone's Aikido solely by the quality of spirit they demonstrate on the mat, she would probably be at least 6th Dan.

Animated as always, that's Simone on the right, entertaining Karen, Joan, and Ginny.

The first day I saw her back on our mat in San Rafael she was full of helpful reminders, earned no doubt at the personal cost of many "dames" from H. Saito Sensei. "Slide your hand to the end of the jo," she chirped, when one or more of us were lazy with the weapon. Her strikes with the weapons were economical and stark, coming straight over her head while her hips rotated back. It was beautiful to see how the few weeks she spend in Japan had sharpened her precision and focus.

Everyone who goes to Iwama always seems to come back demonstrating an extreme makeover, and Simone was no different. I stood and watched her for a while, just soaking in what tiny wisps of influence I could grab out of the way she moved.

After class she came up to me and handed me a small gift she'd brought back. It was a small Japanese towel with a lovely stylized fish pattern print. She quipped, "this is to wipe yourself off after I make you sweat!" I bowed and thanked her, thinking, "this towel is way too small to soak up the sweat I get from training with you." I'll probably be lucky if perspiration is all I have to towel off.

Only after I'd gone back to the dressing room did I realize that while Simone was in Iwama she'd had a birthday. With my belt undone and gi jacket partly hanging open I returned to the mat to give her a big birthday hug. Her eyes sparkled and she hugged me back with a strength and suppleness belying her 70 years.

technorati tag aikido