We asked some of our newer aikido students at the Aiki Arts Center if they had any questions about practice for the yudansha (black belts), and then we passed those questions along to the yudansha to get their answers. The result is this series of posts we call “Insights for Beginners.”
This second post in the series features answers from Steve Tomich Sensei, an Aiki Arts Center instructor who currently holds a 4th degree black belt.
Why Aikido? Something about the art struck you in a way strong enough to keep you around all the way to a black belt (and beyond). What was it?
Well, this is what I wrote for the dojo blog the last time I was asked this sort of question: “To someone who was lucky enough never to be in a fight, aikido seemed like an amazing way to come to grips with violence, without being violent yourself.” That really hasn’t changed much. What has changed is that I no longer think that the techniques are somehow “magical” and that, since I found the practice so transformative, it should be transformative for everyone. I’m sure I was quite insufferable as I tried to recruit people to my enthusiastic but naive idea of aikido. It turns out that it’s a little more complicated than I originally thought. The techniques are generally derived from older schools such as Daito-ryu jujitsu, so their effectiveness has been tested and polished over the years, but they’re based on physics rather than magic, and they’re not unique to aikido. And I’ve found that other people just don’t have the same experience that I’ve had—they may try aikido, but find that it’s just not what they’re looking for.
Still, I can’t get over the fact that the movements of aikido are beautiful and powerful. I own a whole bunch of camera gear just so I can shoot them in slow motion. And I really do find that the mind-body connection that we develop is both transformative and just plain fun. I feel better and happier and more centered after leaving the mat, and the more thrashing I received, the better I feel. So, to revisit my previous dojo blog statement one more time: “I think the main thing for me (and probably for all of us) is just working towards being present—being fully alive in the moment. The work we do on the mat is to give ourselves hundreds of opportunities per class to wake up, to be fully present when we meet our partner, and feel the joy that results.”
Yeah, that’s the ticket!
What does it feel like for you to connect with your Aikido partner? Is it intimate?
Yes, it is. Even when we are using weapons, the relationship between uke and nage is very intimate. There is choreography that both partners are expected to adhere to, and there is a social contract about how we interact with each other. Uke‘s attack is supposed to be strong and focused, but still under control, so that if something does go a bit wrong in the technique, nage is protected. And when nage has control of uke in a technique, uke is in a very vulnerable position—joints can be sprained or broken, backs tweaked, heads concussed. So there is a great deal of trust involved. What keeps us safe is maintaining the connection between uke and nage, all the way through the technique, and making sure that our intensity and capability match up with those of our partner. We are constantly negotiating with our partners as we try to both “keep it real” and keep safe, and we do it mostly nonverbally. This means that we try to tune into our partner with all of our senses, and also tune into where everyone else is in the dojo. Without that kind of intent and intimacy, making adjustments as we go, we’d not only have more collisions and injuries, but the techniques themselves would be drained of their value. Rather than expanding our awareness and empathy, trying to feel more fully into each other’s presence, we’d just be engaging in repetitive, empty transactions where we simply take turns throwing each other to the ground. Blah. If that were the case, I’d much rather go bowling.
From reading Journey to the Heart of Aikido, my understanding is that Aikido, as originally pursued by O-Sensei, was not just a martial art but an entire way of being, applicable in every moment. Does this align with your experience of the art?
Yes, as all my answers here will attest. Through his intensive pursuit of spirituality, O-Sensei definitely sought to transcend the boundaries of traditional martial arts. According to his writings and biographies, he had several epiphanies about how aikido practice could provide internal harmony as well as harmonize each individual’s spirit with the spirit of the universe, and spent much of his life trying to do just that. Yep, that sounds like “an entire way of being” to me. My experience—in a different time, place, and culture—is much humbler, but still profound.
How do you recognize your Aikido practice affecting and transforming your life outside of the dojo?
Three quick things come to mind: One, I sometimes find myself physically slumping and slouching, and mentally feeling defeated. They are intertwined, and one feeds off the other, which can result in a downward spiral. Luckily, because of the training, I have some tools to use to spiral back the other way. I can consciously change my breathing, relax my shoulders so they’re not tight up around my ears, and stand up straight and balanced from my center. If you happened to be crammed next to me on one of my late-afternoon BART commutes a few years ago, you would have seen me do these very things. I also imagine myself wearing a hakama, which makes aware of my posture and gives me a sense of purpose and focus. Along with that, I’ve found a useful, authoritative inner voice, which says “You are a black belt in aikido. You need to stand up straight, drop whatever B.S. you’re carrying, and act like one.” It actually helps.
Two: Conflict management. When I was working, there were plenty of people around me who would get into fights, conflicts, disagreements. Because of my aikido practice, it was easier for me to see ways to de-escalate situations, to avoid lashing out, to both hold the center and reach out for compromise. That actually became my superpower at work, and it felt like I spent more time and energy de-ruffling feathers than doing my real job. My allies and I didn’t always get the outcomes we wanted, but we had some success in moving away from stalemates and finding a way forward. It made for a happier workplace. And, y’know, this sort of thing also comes in handy in terms of marriage and kids…
Three: Ukemi. Since I haven’t had to use my nage skills much in the real world. I’ve been able to benefit from my uke skills. I’m at least as clumsy as anybody else, and I’ve tripped over curbs, fallen off of bikes, and been unexpectedly pulled to the ground by large leashed dogs. And I can remember these sorts of occasions in slow motion—starting to fall, relaxing, going into a forward roll or a side fall, coming to rest, reassuring all the folks who run up and say “Dude! What happened? Are you OK?” and getting up and walking away. Maybe a few scratches or a spilled coffee, but otherwise intact. And as I grow older, I see my peers growing more fragile and tentative and tense, because they are afraid of falling. The upside of getting thrown to the mat thousands of times is that your body learns how to relax and absorb the impact, long before your conscious mind even knows you’re on your way down. Very beneficial in terms of the aging process, as it turns out. Now if I can just get those kids off my lawn…
What is your current edge in practice? What are you grappling with in practice at this time?
The thing that always comes up is relaxing more and doing less. The temptation to muscle someone into a pin or a throw is always there, and the challenge is to override the temptation, stay present, and avoid short-circuiting the technique. Kokyu dosa is the epitome of this. I am always amazed by how easy it is to tense up and bring everything to a complete stop.
I’m also always thinking about the martial aspect of aikido. The roots of aikido are in old-school jiu-jitsu joint locks and throws, where the pattern was “lock it, break it, throw your opponent to the ground, and finish them off.” The early aikido practitioners were mostly experienced martial artists who were products of that world, and were fairly inured to that level of rough and risky practice. Aikido has come a long way since then, especially in terms of embracing a philosophy of peace, and practitioners like us don’t want or need to practice so intensely—we have jobs and families and we can’t afford broken bones or black eyes.
But still, aikido is a martial art, so how do we keep it effective—not needlessly brutal, but not devolving into some sort of ineffectual cosplay? This is where training at our dojo, I think, really pays off. Nick Sensei has created an amazing and evolving balance between the softer and harder aspects of aikido. We train in attacks that are real (especially shomen uchi, which we practice as a real jab, instead of a weird, highly telegraphed chop to the head), and our ukemi focuses on keeping committed and connected, rather than disconnecting and taking a dive. So when I’m the mat, I’m always thinking about applying the right amount of commitment and resistance as uke, and the right amount of power and control as nage, in order to keep the martial edge, without losing the core aikido concepts of blending and nonresistance.
In my experience so far, coming in routinely is supportive for me because it constructs consistency; however, it can dull my practice in the way routines tend to do. How do you reconcile consistency with aliveness?
I think there’s a signal-to-noise quality to aikido training (and really, anything that requires practice). Initially, the whole aikido set and setting are unfamiliar, and the “signal” of the techniques can be drowned out by the “noise” of unfamiliarity and a nattering internal monologue of “What am I doing? Am I doing it right? Is this the way it’s supposed to feel?”. Consistent training, I’ve found, is the way to keep the noise down and get to the signal—the hard-to-describe feeling of centeredness, calm and connection that the techniques and the dojo atmosphere can bring out. I’ve found that the aliveness is there, all the time, waiting to be found and felt. One great advantage of aikido is that it is based on working with a partner, from the get-go, so you are not burdened with keeping things interesting all by yourself. I’ve found that having a bunch of different people attack me in a bunch of different ways helps to sharpen the practice. I can remember, in my earlier, more sporadic days of training, there were times where I found myself standing outside the techniques, where the signal was low and the noise was high, and I’d feel a little disengaged and bored. That nagging internal voice would say “I just don’t get it. What am I doing here?” But through consistent training with a bunch of committed people in the dojo, I became able to stay right there inside the technique and engaged with the interaction with my partner. So, far from being routine, there’s literally never a dull moment on the mat for me, these days.
What is the most important advice you would give to an Aikido practitioner who is early on their journey of practice?
I think a lot of it is pre-determined, actually. People are attracted to aikido for various reasons—the way the movement flows, the philosophical/spiritual commitment to transcend the usual boundaries of martial traditions, a desire for some sort of self-defense, the particular flavor of its Japanese heritage, etc.
Once you get on the mat, you get to find out whether you really like what you’re doing. If it doesn’t meet your expectations—if it’s too martial/not martial enough, too esoteric, too confusing, whatever—then you’ll go find something else. Maybe another martial art, maybe not. No one can force you to take the aikido journey if you don’t want to.
But if you find that there is something that works for you, even if you can’t quite put your finger on it, you’ll come back. That’s where the dojo community—especially the instructors—comes in. No one is good at aikido in the beginning, so it takes the guidance of the instructors and the support of the whole dojo to help you get over the obstacles and make you want to come back.
So then, if you find that aikido has some special resonance for you, you enjoy doing it, and you’ve got a whole community that is happy to work with you and support you, then I can only think of one other thing:
Show up, a lot, and see what happens.
