Sunday Seminar 09 July 2005

Today we practiced ten-chi nage (heaven & earth throw) inspired in part by O-Sensei's words:

"Always try to be in communion with heaven and earth; then the world will appear in its true light. Self-conceit will vanish, and you can blend with any attack".
In its practical application, tenchi-nage consists of leading uke in two directions at once - up to the sky and down to the ground - thereby upsetting his/her balance and making easy the resultant throw. Tenchi-nage can only be practiced, like all of aikido I suppose, with confidence. That self-confidence only comes with rigorous and regular training. Entering with confidence however is not the same as violence; often we mistake violence for effective technique. Confidence comes from self-knowing; it springs from trust; it arises from practice and reflection.

And herein lies the difference between an initial fumbling with the mechanics of the movement and a deep appreciation for the subtleties of the application.

Tenchi-nage again shows us that in order to engage successfully with uke, we need to commit our whole body, our whole being in fact, to the moment. It may be possible to unseat uke by moving just our hands apart, but the true beauty, the truly spiritual nature of this technique becomes apparent only when that movement involves the whole body moving in concert, the right hand rising along the centre line (not inscribing an arc), the left mimicking the movement of the left foot as it slides off the line to come to rest at uke's point of weakness, uchi-gawa.

This commitment requires that our whole body be involved; it is so easy to withdraw the extension from the bottom hand (in this example the left hand) as uke's balance is broken.And then to rely on the force of the top hand to push uke over and down. Contrast that feeling with the one where by extending strongly through both hands and by moving from your central point (tanden), uke's balance is broken and the technique finds easy completion.

By remaining grounded and true to ourselves (confident extension through the bottom hand), we do not have to resort to violence and force to achieve our objective (upper hand). In fact, by being well grounded we are able to free up ourselves to engage constructively with uke; indeed we free up our higher selves in order to meet aggression with gentleness, anger with love, fear with openness, hurt with compassion.

The name tenchi-nage gives us some inkling that this is a technique that teaches us about the innate duality within all of us - hard/soft, yin/yang, male/female, light/dark. Ultimately it is not so much transcending our baser (earth) nature to embrace our higher selves (heaven) - that happens when we die. Tenchi-nage is about reconciling that duality within ourselves in a way that allows us still to move freely and engage openly with our life on this plane.

Tenchi-nage understood in this way is an incredibly spiritual space, but one that seeks to teach us how to live in this moment, on this day, with this person while remaining true to our own purpose.