Following: What's with the following, anyway?

Monday, October 5, 2015

What's with the following, anyway?

Scott here, posting as Jen, while I get a few details worked out about my user ID.

I have been thinking a lot lately about following, mostly as a result of my aikido practice. We follow for a lot of reasons, but I think I am somewhat safe in saying that one reason to follow is that going with the flow in a situation allows you to keep tabs on what others are doing (or trying to do) while keeping your own integrity. For me, at my not-very-accomplished level, that means the integrity of my body and my balance. In theory, if we spend enough time doing this, the mind-set becomes part of us, and we can approach all our interactions with aikido spirit. The end result is, I am told, an approach to conflict with an emphasis on resolution rather than winning and losing. I'll let you know when I get there.

Following. Earlier this year, I was struck by a realization. I thought I was following my partners when I was training with them, but what I was actually doing was anticipating where they were going. There is an opportunity to go all Zen-master at this point about living in the now, but I'm not gonna do it. One of my teachers said recently that listening is ukemi (thank you Barb Sensei). I think that following is listening with your body (and I guess your mind, but at this point my mind is not my friend in aikido, because it mostly gets in the way and makes things more complicated). So it's not about "Oh, I know where this is going, so I'm just going to take the short cut." This short-changes both the speaker and the listener, or the nage and the uke, because part of the point of the interaction is to see what happens right now when these two people connect. It could be a mess, or it could be beautiful, and usually it's somewhere in between.

What does this have to do with a road trip? In our family, we're mostly planners. Jen is a big-time planner, and I would say that while I am maybe not so much a planner, I definitely believe in very thorough preparation, which is a form of expectation. Evie is a more nuanced case. In most of her life she is a planner. The girl loves a good spreadsheet, and she will rehearse the heck out of a performance piece. But I find her aikido movement to be spontaneous and inventive. Attacking her should cost you two tickets, because the ride you will go on is as fun as anything at the amusement park.

So we've made plans for this trip--where to stop, where to train, and in some cases where to find what we hope will be great pastry. A lot of our trip is oriented around seminars, which of course happen in a particular place at a certain time, which to me says "plan". But my hope is that we've left enough wiggle room in the plan that we can be open to the cool stuff that comes about spontaneously. Stay tuned and find out!

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Aikido Glossary

These are the most common terms you'll see here. We've also prepared a more detailed glossary (see below).

Dojo: “The place of the way”. The training hall where we practice our art. In the US, many dojo are decorated with a Japanese aesthetic, but some are in racquetball courts or gyms. In the end, the dojo is wherever the people are who show up to practice.

Gi: Training uniform consisting of jacket and pants (normally plain white for aikido) and an obi, or belt. In our federation, belts are either white or black, but in many federations, there are colored belts, most commonly blue and brown, but sometimes there are more gradations. Some aikido practitioners also wear a hakama.

Hakama: The pleated pants (that look like a skirt) worn by some aikido practitioners. In some organizations, it is (or can be) worn by students of any rank. In others, it is reserved for black belts, and in still others, there are different rules for men and women (which are derived from some interpretation of Japanese ideas of modesty). It has no real practical purpose, but serves as a sort of historical link to samurai tradition.

Hanmi: “Half body.” We use it to mean an aikido stance which is sort of triangular. Front foot faces the partner, back foot points out at about a 45 degree angle. It provides a great balance of agility and stability, while offering only half the body as a target for attack.

Musubi: “Connection” or “joining”, although the word is also used to mean “knot”. A key principle of aikido because it helps avoid confrontation and collision, which lead to destruction.

Nage: The person “doing” the technique, generally the person being attacked in some way.

Seiza: Formal sitting posture, kneeling with a straight back. Tough on the knees if you are not used to it.

Shomen: The focal point of the dojo, the proper direction to face. Most aikido dojo have some sort of shrine to the founder on the shomen. Shomen is also shorthand for Shomen uchi, which is an overhead strike to the forehead with an open hand, like a classic karate chop. It's a stylized attack when performed with an empty hand, but would be devastatingly effective with a weapon.

Uke: The person taking ukemi. A good uke is more precious than gold, because he or she will help you learn better aikido not by teaching, but by creating the conditions that allow you to discover how to make sense of Sensei's teaching.

Ukemi: “Receiving” is the closest translation from Japanese. When someone performs an aikido technique on you, your are taking ukemi. It encompasses a lot of stuff, including the punches, grabs, and kicks that we use to simulate attack, as well as the falling and rolling we use to keep ourselves safe.
On a deeper level, it refers to the act of connecting with and following your partner. Great ukemi keeps you safe, allows you to be alert for opportunities to reverse a technique, and helps your partner learn better.