extension

While recently working a lot from the ground I have revisited the aikido notion of “extension”.

Extension for me is the sense of “bringing myself fully to the meeting”. It is both approaching and opening to my partner. It has something of Gestalt Therapy’s coming to the “contact boundary”.

Extension is what procduces the possibility of cohesiveness in the ki-musubi or the blending.

The active and receptive quality of extension transforms the contact from arbitary grabs and pressures into a unified yet morphing stream of evolving contact.

It is this that contributes my experience of the expansion time in practice. Our encounter moves from a sequence of stuttering moments into into one elongated pervasive sweep!

Strangley the sense and necessity of extension becomes for me more acute when contacting my partner from the ground.Working on the ground highlights the necessity for me to bring my whole body torso and head as well as limbs into a vital quality of extension so that that no contact is arbitary or subsiduary.

groundwork

recently we have been lowering our sights.

We have begun where we will eventually end - on the ground.

This has been a liberating experience and an education in itself. The ground can often be a neglected or relegated to a purely supporting role (roll).

We have been exploring involving the ground as a third party in our practice. At times there has been an exquisite parity in the feeling of opening to the ground in the way we endeavour to open to our partners. The ground too becomes suggestive of new possibility.

It has been good to experiment with being sat or lying as our default position rather than standing.

improvisation

It seems to me that the spontaneous creativity of takemusu aiki that O’Sensei spoke of is an improvisation arising out of ki-musubi. When I read the work of those who practice improvisation in other arts I am thrilled by how they seem to be speaking of the heart of aiki. Their thoughts are currently a great inspiration to me as we currently practice.

One of the first writers I first came across was Keith Johnstone and his book Improv - improvisation in theatre. His notion of not blocking but in essence saying yes! to what emerges seems fundamental to aiki practice - very much relating to O’Senseis notion of non-resistance.

Stephen Nachmanovitch has written very eloquently. I am glad when he states the first principle of improvisation is to listen, listen, listen. That is the mantra that I feel hold true as the fundamental basis aikido practice.(more to come……)os