On creating connection

Remember, you cannot hold bliss

in your fist;
You can hold bliss only in your open hand – OSHO

Much of the training this year has been about bringing softness to the hard edges in my technique…. Whereas last year the focus became about facing my fears and nurturing the ability to stand up, in the face of an attack (sometimes even on my integrity) without aggression, this year - 2010 – was about finding the softness within and without. And while last year was focused on body movements (tai no henko) and especially on practicing kaiten and irimi, this year the focus shifted to creating musubi or connection with your training partner (uke).

We create musubi in many ways:

When we start our training, the connection starts when uke grabs our hand or our shoulder. Here the focus is on the proper body placement in relation to uke.

Later it progresses to connecting when uke starts his or her shomen (overhead) or yokomen (lateral) strike or launches a tsuki (punch). This is a slightly higher level of training because it doesn’t rely on a physical touch but rather connected to uke in the moment the attack becomes expressed. The downside of this stage of practice, is that it can still remain reactive training, dependant on getting the timing right. Move too late and the strike connects. Move too early and uke has the opportunity to realign and to change the attack – and again the strike connects. At this level of training it is important to be at the right place at the right time.

The most difficult stage ( or rather the most challenging one) is yet to come… In this stage, one connects with uke’s intention – as expressed in many miniscule body movements (shifts in posture, state of the eyes, change in breathing even or a readying of the shoulders). This is the stage of sen-no-sen, of connection with uke as a human being, with his or her spirit and the moment of the possibility of transformation.

Not surprisingly, this stage requires us to still the noise within, to find the still-point that TS Eliot speaks of, where the dance is. The relaxed power to move, to truly connect and to flow can only come when we have let go of the fears, faced the doubts and when we choose to step forward and engage notwithstanding – into the uncertainty of what will happen in the next moment. It happens when we choose to reach out to the other person.

Over and over in my mind plays a throw-away comment many years ago by the late Shihan Ken Cottier that the essence of kokyu-nage (breath power throw), indeed the essence of Aikido lies in these three elements – body placement, timing and kokyu-rokyu (relaxed breathing).

This past year I have often struggled to get these three elements just right both on and off the mat; I have often found myself in opposition to uke, clashing (sometimes only subtly) with his/her attack or running into uke’s power. Always, and without exception, that has been because I have been in just the wrong position relative to the attack. Many times I have berated uke (in my mind) for an improper attack – yet, honestly, it is only my placement that is at issue. The attack is the attack. I was “killed” five times in demonstration in December for every time being in the wrong place along the arc of the bokken’s cut.

At other times, my timing’s been off. With practice, thankfully it has improved over the years. Yet as uke for Kubota Shihan, I was reminded that there was a tardiness in my attack and response. And while that may be hidden in my ordinary practice, when a 7^th dan holds up a mirror to you, those imperfections and areas of improvement are highlighted. And so I have to wonder also whether off the mat, how many opportunities that slight hesitation has lost me? So next year I will train more consciously exploring where the caution, where the hesitation lies….

And still the relaxation – and the power that comes from truly being relaxed – eludes me. Not always, mind you. And I am more aware now where and when it is absent. But still here too there is room for improvement.

And so, as I write these reflections perhaps the challenge in making a real connection starts to reveal itself:

Much of it lies in what I do (or say), how I place myself in relation to the other person. Do I assume a cold, dispassionate distance, do I open myself up completely (also to the possibility of being disappointed or hurt), do I subordinate myself completely enduring the strikes believing resolutely that there is no gain without pain? How do I blend with the other person, without giving up the essence of who I am, without losing myself in the process?

Nonetheless, one third of connecting with someone else is just turning up, being present; without being around there can be no connection. So it all begins with taking the decision to be there. And with that decision to be there, to relate, it is important to then be there fully to allow for the possibility of the connection.

Timing too is crucial. How much is too much, or too little, or too late? In moving, do we move together or to a different beat? Am I truly present or stuck in a distant and fading past or lost in the fluffy promise of a fuzzy future?

And lastly, the challenge of truly connecting to another human being lies in being relaxed, relaxed enough to be myself… What stops us from that state? What fears drive us to hide (parts of) ourselves, to clothe ourselves sometimes in garments of civility and friendship even without ever revealing ourselves to allow true intimacy?

And of course we choose how to connect.

Sometimes we get it right; sometimes we don’t and invariably then we get hurt – or worse still hurt the other person. In this practice called Life the only real mistake is to continue to make the same ones over and over.

So here’s to deepening our awareness, deepening our musubi, our connectedness to one another… And opening up to being transformed by the connection.

See you on the tatami in the New Year!