The technique of love

At the very beginning of my aikido studies I read a book that contained a quote about two techniques. I think it was a quote from O-Sensei and it said something like the following: "[to master] iriminage - [it takes] 15 years; ikkyo - your whole life". I didn't really understand this statement at that time because iriminage seemed to be one of the hardest techniques and ikkyo seemed pretty straightforward, even easy with the beginner partners I trained with. Although I'm still far from mastering any technique, I'm starting to understand the background behind the above quote.

Iriminage - at the moment - doesn't seem to be the hardest technique at all, because you 'just' step out of the line and behind uke and then you move together until they basically run out of their balanced position (so they are looking for a balanced position by running and trying to turn towards you but they end up in a situation where they head stays by your shoulder and their feet run further, throwing them completely off balance). Iriminage doesn't seem to be so hard because you move behind someone else and you don't need to face them from very close and from the front. As the 'storm' exercise (civil world equivalent of randori) showed I have a preference for coming from behind, from the background, so iriminage kind of fits me even though I still have a lot of control issues at it. If I need to lead a group I prefer doing so from the background, from behind. If I attacked someone I would definitely not try to face them by default, which might show that I'm not a straight person but it might also just show that I'm not necessarily willing to go towards the direction of highest resistance or exposure.

However, this post is not really supposed to be about my iriminage-like control from behind but about ikkyo and what principles are behind it. The version of ikkyo I'm talking about is ikkyo omote where you basically step in front of the attacker, step just out of the line of attack, next to the attacker, facing them, and then you cut down and finish with a pin-down. To make ikkyo omote work you need to get close to uke. I've even heard in a training camp that despite the distance which is uncomfortably close to most of us we still need to go close and execute ikkyo from that close distance.

But where does love fit in?

I have recently lead a short course titled Connection Training in which we practiced simple techniques based on aikido principles. One of the exercises was very simple: you stand in front of a partner in hanmi (aikido's basic half-stance), and both of you step irimi-tenkan (taisabaki) together, towards each other. Step one, you are facing each other; step two, you are where your partner used to be just before your first steps, and now you are facing them from their initial position. With this exercise, you can practice skills such as a basic step, timing, working together, etc. but I was interested in attitudes and emotions, so I instructed the two partners to imagine situations. First imagination: step taisabaki together and imagine your partner is your best friend (even if you don't know them). Notice what happens. I noticed that they even hugged when - after the first step - they were close, facing each other. Then I told them to imagine that the partner is someone they hate. It could be the boss, an ungrateful friend, whoever. You can try it yourself and see what happens. Chances are that you won't end up hugging each other at all, you will keep distance from your partner, you might even have problems stepping correctly because of the drive to get farther from your partner. Exactly what happened with the people I observed.

The simple conclusion: love brings us closer.

Now if we come back to ikkyo, we can notice that in ikkyo omote you need to go close to your partner and face them. In addition to this, ikkyo simply doesn't work (or you have to struggle an awful lot) either if you stay far or if you don't face your uke at the appropriate time. Facing and closeness together represent honest love.

So if you can imagine that your uke/partner/attacker is someone you love you will be able to go closer to them and face them much more easily, and that way ikkyo will work similarly more easily.

But there is an other side to this, as I have just analysed the training I took in the absense of Karesz. I gave the instruction to people to walk towards each other, one of them should simply get out of the line and keep walking. Then we needed to help the partner lift their hands from the inside (omote side) with one hand. Then we used both hands to lift the shomenuchi-cutting (straight cut) hand and leave it like that and walk towards where we wanted to before the contact. Then we walked towards each other, tori helped lift the other's arm and then we did and ikkyo cut with the usual two steps until the pinning position. After this we came back to a standard maii-shomenuchi-ikkyo technique and there was an interesting thing I noticed with the partner I was training with (I wasn't just instructing and walking around, correcting, I didn't feel good enough for that kind of lecturing): as an uke, my partner executed a really committed cut. It wasn't the usual shy cut where you kind of cut but not really, where you cut but make sure your body stays far enough and you can stop the cut at any time if tori is not moving in time. It was a committed attack which, as it was supposed to be, made my task as tori easier. With the committed attack, uke came closer, too, which is all I needed to do ikkyo. So in a way, a committed attack can be considered as a way of love, especially when we are talking about a training. When you love your training partner it is much more easier to practice, to teach, to learn, to study, to achieve harmony and feel good about the whole thing.

What do you need to succeed then (and feel good about it)? Honesty, love and commitment. At least these are the qualities I see that ikkyo can teach us.

This is why I think ikkyo is a perfect example of love in a martial art, and since it's really hard to love someone who wants to hurt you, it will probably take my entire life to master it.