S.T.I.L.O.W.I.Y.A.E. (Martial Arts Update)

Aikido:

Lately, I've been happy that I didn't give up on Nishimura Sensei. A few months ago, he seemed to be going downhill. Recently, he's been showing me a few more tricks up his sleeve.


We've been working on what I call "sensing the invisible lines of weakness in your attacker's energy (stilowiyae)." I'm sure there is an aikido term for this, but that wouldn't make much sense for any of you non-aikido people. At the end of class, for lack of correct terminology, I told him, "I can't see your power line." or "I can't see your power direction."


He promptly had me grab him some more to demonstrate that he understood my issue. I knew he understood, from the way he repeatedly "stilowi(my)e."


The reason I brought it up at the end of class was so that he might remember our conversation during tomorrow's class.


It's frustrating to not be able to exactly do it. (Today's new word is frustration/yokkyuufuman/欲求不満/よっきゅうふまん.)

But through this softer kind of sensitivity training, I can see how easy a strong attack could be defeated by someone that can sense these things. Aikido can get really mindblowing, at times.


Sometimes you feel like your partner or sensei is somehow shutting you down on purpose (they do know what you are going to do, after all), but then you try to kind of shut them down (well.. more like resist a little bit/lot) and you just make their job easier. For all of you non-aiki people, it's really not something that's easy to explain. It almost has to be felt.

Takakura Ken from "The Yakuza."

Toyama Ryu/Soga Ryu Battou-Jutsu

We had another round of tameshigiri (test cutting), last night. Sensei brings in rolled up tatami mats for cutting. We stick them on Christmas tree stand contraptions and cut them to pieces. It was my third time to attend a tameshigiri night. The first time, I only worked on kesa giri cuts (diagonal downward cuts). The second time, I did kesa giri and kiri age (upward diagonal cuts). This time, I worked on kesa giri and kiri age, again. These cuts are designed to enter a human body at the neck and leave below the armpit on the other side of the enemy's body (kesa giri) or to enter from below the armpit and exit on the other side, from the neck (kiri age). So, during my second time at doing the upward cut, my sword kept getting stuck in the target. It looks so easy on the Samurai Channel! When you mess up, it feels like you tried to hack through a tree branch with a dull machete.


Last night, though, I was able to cut through the targets. When you perform a successful cut, it feels like cutting air. The first thing I thought was "Wow, I guess performing hundreds of practice swings does help!" I frequently see men in parking lots or at bus stops performing practice "air" golf swings. Lately, I've been doing "air" sword swings. Or, when nobody's looking, I use my umbrella.