Underworld

This is an online class I did last week. In all my studies of Osensei's words I have come across the term'ne no kuni' translated by John Stevens as 'underworld' just once. Laurin Herr says a much more descriptive phrase is 'land of the roots'. So the class theme was what we might call the 'under connection' or 'the support half'.I had had a phone session the day before with Nadeau sensei and we went over this topic. Much of Nadeau sensei's work in the seventies and eighties was around base. More recently he shifted to core. Now he uses the term'character'. One of the ways to approach it is that anything is a potential harmony of two parent forces. There is usually an obvious paired with a less obvious.For me the easiest way to get into this is idea. Everything starts with an idea.  but the idea needs the support of energy. It is another way to look at mind and body. The mind may represent idea and the body energy.

Recently I was looking at some videos of my Tai Chi master Choy Kam Man. And I was noticing some sublties to the movement 'Single Whip and Creeps Down'. Most people just drop their weight and set to do the movement. Watching Master Choy I saw what he was doing was not dropping and setting but moving down as if attached to a spinning wheel. So instead of a set and line straight down which throws your system off he was like something attached to a wheel as it spun backward from top to bottom(ground). So I tried the movement that way and it made sense. But I realized something was missing. The concept or idea I could see was correct. But I realized there was the deeper feel/experience of the concept or idea at a feel level that supported the movement. So my idea needed the support of the energy to do what Master Choy was doing. It was basically what I was doing but the result was to clean it up and have me experience a deep natural flow in the movement where everything clicked.

So anything starts with an idea. But most energy goes into the 'I' in the body trying to figure out the movement and do the outer part of the movement(form).. To get 'I' out of the movement allows the idea to be clear without the 'I' interfering by trying to understand it and do it. Then the energy can come in and naturally complement the idea. The result is an integrated form. Bruce Lee referred to the branches of a tree as surface knowledge. Real knowledge he claimed was root. And root he claimed came through body feel. Mind tends to be upper. The energy tends to come in lower or even under as you appreciate ground more.

Stephen Curry in his Masterclass on basketball explains shooting and ballhandling in terms of hands feet grip eyes. But to function in a game he has his base and all the needed details. But then everything in the moment to quote him''Explodes through your core''. Past the details of hands feet eyes(all of which must be correct) so that everything lines up to base and core and the energy comes in to support the action whether it is in basketball shooting or ballhandling. In Aikido we practice forms. So proper study of positioning and timing and body movement are necessary. But ideally that is presented in a way the the idea is made simpler and more transparent so that the energy can freely and naturally come in to support it.

One of my students during the class made the very astute statement he learned from Don Levine sensei that in the West we have mind/body separation and that Aikido is about mind/body unity. What I should have said is that take the idea of mind/body unity and allow its support half, the energy to come in. Anyway, here is the class.

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