Yondan Essay - Kathleen Holder

May 2024

Mind the (Temporal) Gap
Some of the hardest lessons I've learned in Aikido — am still learning — are less about the techniques themselves and more about the means for getting better at doing them, mainly to slow down, move step by step in basic training or kihon waza, and to pause between steps. To be sure, many techniques have challenged me and still do. But to learn and refine technique, patience truly is a virtue.
 
Like other skills, patience can learned, though it hasn't come easily to me. In practicing kumijo and kumitachi, for instance, a recurring instruction I hear is: "Two-second pause!" I'd like to say, when someone is swinging a big piece of wood at my head, that my instincts are to move fast and get out of the way. But as I look back on my aikido development, I am recognizing many other roots for my haste — none of which help me grow as an aikidoka or as a person.
 
Beginner's (anxious) mind
When I started an introductory Aikido course in 2006, I was excited to be a beginner: I was starting with a clean slate and no one would have expectations of me. Or so I initially thought. I wasn't long before I realized that at least one person had expectations of me — myself. Even though it had been eight years since I had done any martial arts, I realized that I harbored the notion that my previous experience in a Korean Karate style would give me an edge and that I would pick up Aikido quickly. That presumption was quickly dashed by my first attempts at learning to roll — I painfully pinned my left elbow with my own knee, thought to myself "I'm never doing that again!" and then promptly got up and did the same thing on my other side. Graduating after a couple months into the regular classes, I struggled to even observe the techniques that Sensei was demonstrating. I might notice what foot to move, but miss what the hands were doing — or vice versa. I felt so clumsy that I often felt sorry for my training partners. While their yodanja peers were gleefully throwing each other around the mat, my ukes had to slowly walk me through every movement. I often left the dojo close to tears, frustrated by my own ineptitude. I remain forever grateful to the generosity of sempai who helped me learn and encouraged me to keep coming back to class.
 
Yet, as I gradually picked up the rough outlines of techniques, my tendency was to rush through them. Rather than slow down and try to replicate each step shown to me, like a connect-the-dots drawing, I'd move fast as if speed would hide the parts I was doing incorrectly. What was I afraid of — looking like a beginner? Thankfully, I had many sempai — some half my age — who continued to set a better example by patiently and repeatedly slowing down, moving stancet to stance, before smoothing out the motions of a technique. Certainly, there are other forms of practice that focus on movement, flexibility, distance and timing  — yawarakai and ki no nagare — and there are times to move quickly. But as the saying goes, "Slow is smooth, smooth is fast." Or in the Latin words of Roman emperors, festina lente, "make haste slowly." These mantras become all the more pertinent to my training as I grow older. I need to slow down to learn to move more efficiently and to apply techniques more effectively.
 
Stilling body and mind
The classic book, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, a collection of Zen Buddhist writings compiled by poet Paul Reps, opens with a story called "A Cup of Tea":
Nan-on, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912) received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"
"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"
 
The tale (attributed by some scholars to Chinese masters centuries earlier) relates to the concept of Shoshin, or beginner's mind — letting go of assumptions and looking with a fresh eyes at what we are learning — as if, even if we've done it a thousand times, it was brand new. A paradox for sure — the more we learn, the more we have to let go in order to improve. Even as a beginner, I obviously still needed to shed a number of preconceptions about Aikido and about myself. As I continue to train, my own ego gets in my way. Still, when I'm giving my full attention in class, I am continually surprised by "light bulb" moments in — when suddenly I perceive the instructions as a completely new insight. In many cases, I'm sure it's not the first time I've been shown or told that same lesson; it's more that I'm ready to see or hear it.
 
In a recent class, where we were practicing kumijo,  Hoa Newens Shihan reminded me once again to pause for two seconds between steps. As he explained, the two-second pause allows the energy to settle in the body; It gives you time to absorb the movements, to check your balance, and the position of your body relative to your partner. In this class, in stilling my body and counting to myself "one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two," I also became more aware of the murmuring chatter going on in my own head (a jumble of negative self-talk, egotistical thoughts, anxious worries, etc.,  — none of which were helpful). Two seconds, while fleetingly brief, gave me time to also settle my mind and emotions. It became a moment of micro-meditation. Feel the mat under your feet. Connect with your center. Breathe. Let go. Be.