At my next aikido practice, a day or two later, I saw that these comments had jarred loose some of my expectations and preconceptions about “real aikido” and what I “ought” to be doing on the mat. What did I really want, anyway? Whatever it was had something to do with participating in shared movement on that mat, something about freedom and ease in relationship that might outwardly look “powerful” but was more like inhabiting a musical phrase full of grace and energy. For that, it seemed to me, a certain boldness was needed, something like a decisive stepping away from all my fears about correctness, which now seemed rather imaginary. I could let go the assumption that real aikido meant you had to be constantly falling.

So sometimes I did fall that morning, but more often I didn’t. The movement of falling was there, either way–that sense of a wave breaking at the end of each technique. When I fell, the wave’s motion overwhelmed my balance. When I didn’t fall, the wave still surged and crested, bending my spine out over space. When I peeled away from the breaker just before it sent me into a fall, there was still an acknowledgment of it, and an acceptance.

But I was back today, sitting with Kimo to meditate beforehand for half an hour, a precious custom we’ve been trying for a year or so now.  Then, after our sitting, Kimo was leading practice and I felt really invigorated about being on the mat, falling, getting up, falling and getting up again.

After a while I realized that the invigoration wasn’t going to last the whole hour, but I kept falling and getting up anyway. A tiredness was definitely there, sort of surprising after the invigoration, and I really wanted to deny it. Something in my body must have given me away, and Kimo, with whom I was practicing, asked me if I was okay.  I said oh yes and went on but afterward had to ask myself if  at my age (I’m in my 80s) maybe I didn’t  have to do back falls all the time.  There is so much of that, endlessly in aikido, even though all the subtle things about blending and joining happen before that.  Already I don’t always roll (the aikido version of the somersault), although it feels good for a few times, and rolls are so exciting that I don’t like to give them up completely. But all this is something to consider.  Aikido is so much about my life and staying awake to all the challenges of the present moment that I may have to swallow my pride and give up some of the falls in order to experience all the other good stuff.

Cheryl’s life has included expeditions to Antarctica, Alaskan glaciers, and lots of climbing in California and the West as well as her commitment to aikido and to music making of an unusual kind.  She is a good example of someone who knows how to use “the gift of danger” wisely as she continues to live “outside the box.”

You can find our interview at this link: http://www.conversations.org/story.php?sid=262

http://www.conversations.org/story.php?sid=262

I told her about the lecture by Jennifer Arnold that I had heard, mentioning Arnold’s comment that dogs were not interested in vying for the alpha position, that they know very well that their persons are “alpha” because they control the food. Thirda raised an eyebrow at that claim, and said, “Well, it depends on how you give them the food. If you give your dog his food timidly, as if you’re afraid of him, he might not think that you’re the alpha person.” Thirda breathes self-confidence and could model the way to feed a dog authoritatively.

I’ll confess that I hadn’t thought of how I feed my dog Ashford as a potential issue. He is so excited at the prospect of eating that I don’t think he notices whether I’m being bold, timid, or neutrally objective in handing him his dish. It’s pretty obvious that he accepts the fact that I control his food and am thus identified with a huge source of his joie de vivre.

Thirda has worked with dogs as well as horses, and she told the story of a big dog she once had, a 110-pounder, young and arrogant. When she first gets a dog, she said, she covers her sofa with a protective sheet until the dog has learned that the sofa is off limits. This particular dog jumped up on the sofa, settled in and stared at her with a “so what are you going to do about it?” look, the look of a dog staking his claim for the alpha position. Thirda said, “I reached over for the edge of the sheet and bundled him up in it, rolling him right off the sofa. Then I sat down on top of him and stayed there for a while, with my whole weight on him. Finally I peeled off the corner of the sheet and looked him in the eye. And he just gave a big sigh. It was over then.” The alpha question had been settled.
It struck me that there was something decisive–and also humane and appropriate–in the way she’d moved with that dog. Thirda is good at aikido too, as you might imagine.

She also spoke about how certain assumptions concerning a dog’s nature create unnecessary difficulties. To assume that a dog is wolf-like and in rivalry with you for the alpha position, in her experience, leads only to frustration and neurosis for the dog (and possibly the owner). The dog already knows you’re in the alpha position; after all, you control his food. What could be more clear?

After the talk, my friend told me a story about Alex, an African gray parrot who became famous for his intelligence.  He had mastered a large vocabulary and was even able to put words together into meaningful unique sentences. One day, so my friend’s story went,  the scientist who worked with Alex spent the morning trying to teach him phonemes—the spoken components of words (for example, the phonemes for “teach” go something like “tuh . . .eee. . . chuh.”) She was in a hurry, so instead of rewarding him at the end of each mini-lesson, she hurried on to the next thing, ignoring his expectant “Want a nut.” Finally, after this had gone on for some time, Alex fixed an eye on her and intoned once more “Want a NUT . . . nuh . . .uh. . . .tuh!” The scientist realized that Alex had probably gotten the point some time earlier.  (I haven’t been able to verify this tale, but Alex’s ability to discriminate objects in terms of color, size, quantity etc. is legendary.)

Moving on from dogs and parrots, there’s the question of  how and what we  human beings need to learn. For me that inquiry opens up on the aikido mat. As a student of aikido, I have this vision of the humanity that aikido could teach me, the spirited movement in sensitive and effective relationship with another person or group of people that I’ve had a glimpse of at the dojo.  And sometimes I can see for myself what gets in the way of that–including striving for the alpha position! But at other times, I don’t have a clue, which is where a teacher is needed for personal coaching. There’s no point in his telling me something that I can remind myself of, or that I already have internalized, and there’s no point in showing me something I’m not ready for. But that moment when he or she says “What you’re trying feels forced because you’re looking down at your hands”–that’s an effective teaching moment.  I’ve been helped to have an impression of the way things are, just then.

What does uke want?   Like the legendary question, “What does a woman want?” there are different ways of thinking about that.  And the answers all are “right,” in that they all have a certain validity.

1. Since I’ve brought all my competitiveness as a human being to my practice of aikido, as Uke I want to “win”;  I definitely don’t  want to “lose.” This desire was strongest when I was a beginner at aikido, though it undoubtedly influences my practice even now.   Deep down, there’s something in me that takes falling as a sign of “losing” and failure; I don’t really want to fall.  I want to be the winner, and although I know that as uke I’m supposed to fall, in subtle ways that I may not even realize myself, I resist that. Sure, I’ve been told that uke means “receiver,” which means to receive the throw and to fall. But I want to win this one.  So I will try to thwart nage, to resist what he or she is doing to unbalance me. This often means that I drag my feet, and make my partner pull me after him.  Somebody who’s stronger than I am who really wants to win can bring the movement to a standstill with this kind of resistance. Advanced aikidoists may sometimes welcome such a heavy level of resistance, for they get to use all their skills of centering and selecting an appropriate angle of response to unbalance a determined uke. But a beginner  may be stopped  in his tracks. Still, the wish to win is something we bring into aikido; it may not be a particularly developed attitude but it’s still there.  And it has its place; I just need to find out what that place is.

1. As Uke I want to challenge nage. As I continue to practice aikido, something changes in my attitude, and my competitiveness takes a more helpful turn. I still  want to “win,” but my partner has become more real to me, and I have this idea now that aiming a strike at him or her as accurately and fully as possible will provide a suitable challenge  and allow him to improve his accuracy and timing.   I realize that it’s what I myself  want  when it’s my turn to be nage. And eventually I learn to persist in this challenge deep into the technique.  I try to maintain the attack as long as I can, even if I’m already going off balance.   If I have grabbed one of my partner’s arms from behind, I won’t stop at that but will  try to grab the second arm.  I begin to realize that my old habits of resistance and thwarting often really amount to holding back. No half-hearted measures!

1. As Uke I want to respond to my partner. It dawns on me now that as uke I myself am received, over and over again, by my partner. Whenever I have attacked, he or she has opened to my attack, to however I present myself, from whatever angle or approach. I have first of all  been responded to, and then led into a new direction. There is something joyful for me in being received in this way.  In a sense, I feel welcomed into going off balance,  welcomed to respond to this new direction, which comes to take the form of falling.

1. As Uke I want to regain my center..   After many stints as uke, I have come to understand that I  give up my center at the moment of the attack and that a skillful nage never lets me have it back. I have become more sensitive to the fact that a continuing awareness of my center is at the heart of aikido. To regain my center,  it seems necessary first to accept what it means to lose it, to be unbalanced–an unavoidable and endlessly repeated human situation, though perhaps increasingly subtle. I begin to appreciate that my partner, by unbalancing me,  has given me the opportunity to return to the center of myself, to experience what it means to regain my balance.  From this point of view, falling becomes a necessity!

1. As Uke I want to be part of the movement of aikido. I now sense that each aikido technique offers an opportunity to be part of a unique movement, the gift of O-sensei if you will.  It’s an elusive thing, this rare experience of simply being in this movement.  More and more I have the wish to watch, to be alert to the moment that I share with my partner.

So I start over each time, still carrying all my “wants” with me, perhaps in somewhat changed relationship to each other—the desire to win,  to challenge, to respond, to find and re-find my center,  to be in the mutual movement of aikido.

And of course there’s a danger in thinking I’ve found “the” answers! Can I keep on asking this question about what I want in aikido, keeping it alive as I move through each moment of practice?

The club room was lined with formica tables where people were already eating pancakes, melons, sausage and scrambled eggs.  An organization called Help McLaren Park was sponsoring the breakfast.   The group  is raising money to refurbish some of the more neglected areas of the park, and behind the reception table there were pictures of forlorn-looking play equipment and sandboxes.  “Help McLaren Park” is not the same as the group opposing the disc golf course (about which I have written before).That group calls itself “Save McLaren Park,” and I was curious about the stand (if any) that “Help McLaren” was taking on the disc golfing issue. When I asked the young woman collecting my $10 for the breakfast about that, she replied rather hesitantly, as if she didn’t want to go there, that the members  of “Help McLaren Park” tended to oppose the disc golfing proposal.

But this breakfast event didn’t seem to be about politics; as far as I could tell, it was about spiffing up some children’s play areas.  The park has been under-funded for years, and private fund-raising efforts are among the few ways to help.

The  reception table was just inside the clubhouse door, and Ashford  immediately sought shelter in the crowded noisy room  by diving underneath the table. He had opted for the same kind of shelter at the voting place a few weeks ago, situating himself under the staff table near an older woman who held his leash while I voted. This time the young woman at the desk agreed to hold his leash while I got my breakfast.  By the time I returned with my paper plateful of food, he had quietly made friends with a couple of small children in strollers.

Dogs felt slightly off limits in the clubhouse, so we went outside to a picnic table and enjoyed the view, with crumbs of scrambled egg and pancake falling Ashford’s way every now and then.  Then we walked along the pool, which was full of mallard ducks with trailing ducklings and playful juveniles.  There’s a tiny island of tangled bushes and small trees in the middle of the pool, accessible mainly to ducks, and it must make a fine nursery for ducklings.

After breakfast we made our way home through the park, going through unfamiliar territory till I spotted the Jerry Garcia amphitheater and re-oriented myself toward a path leading to the Excelsior. I was struck by the lack of signage throughout this excursion;  to get to the pancake event  we walked along neighborhood streets outside the park, even though that was not the shortest route. But it seemed best to do that, since there are no directional signs in the park itself to help you find your way.

This lack of signage was underscored as we were leaving the park.  A woman stopped her car to ask me for directions:  “How do you get into McLaren Park, anyway?”  It’s not that easy, and I was glad that I could give her directions that would take her close to the beautiful part of the park that I had just visited.

Three high-ranked and talented instructors, quite different stylistically, took turns leading the seminar. The first, who is widely known both here and in Europe for his powerful aikido, said at one point, “There is no attack.” He demonstrated extremely refined movements, slight adjustments of his body right down to the fingertips, that transformed the relationship and brought guidance and redirection to uke.

Another, my own teacher, was particularly interested in the protection afforded by thinking and moving “out of the box.” Repeatedly he showed complex sequences of movement that challenged the body’s mechanical (and therefore potentially dangerous) habits of protecting itself. It was a lesson in how protection depends on adaptability and flexibility.

The third instructor, physically an extremely powerful person, received each strike or grab with inclusive, almost embracing gestures in which the fall took its place as part of a singular (and rather moving) act of protection.

Later I mentioned these impressions to a friend, who said he was reminded of a saying of Marcus Aurelius. As my friend remembered it, the Roman emperor and general (and follower of the Stoic philosophers) said, “The purpose of power is protection.”

I felt I’d seen some remarkable demonstrations of that.