Centredness, Technical Babble, on topic Naval-gazing
(Extracted from Aikido-L)

Date:    Sat, 23 Mar 2002 13:33:01 -0500
From:    Pauliina Lievonen
Subject: Centeredness , technical babble, on topic navel-gazing

Some time ago, Larry Novick wrote:
> - my observation is that
>often, when things aren't working or being forced, it's sometimes
>because the person has become too externalized and not connected to
>themselves - in Aikido we might call this "lose of centered" - in
>Pstchology we might say that the person has responded to some need
>that arose from fear or.... something.... and has become identified
>with the conflict or something outside of themselves - thus the need,
>in both cases, to know how to (re) center oneself....  :-)

In the last couple of weeks, I've been observing what happens to me in the dojo, and indeed, I'd say I get pretty "externalized" pretty quickly after stepping onto the mat. It doesn't even have to have anything to do with a negative emotion, just having fun seems to be a great way to lose some center.... :)

My Alexander technique training is all about becoming more "centered" in a way, so I do know how to do it, only I mostly only REMEMBER after the class, and then I kick myself while biking home from the dojo...anyway, yesterday I finally did catch myself in the middle of the lesson and actually took a moment to become aware of myself in the middle of all this wonderful activity for a couple of minutes at least. I won't say that it made all the difference but it definitely does make a difference.

(note: reading this, I started to wonder about myself sitting here inside the scree...um, in front of the computer. This would obviously be something
that it's perfectly possible to practise off the mat as well. )

Got hit on the mouth by an ethusiastic partner from which I conclude that I shut my eyes more often than I'm aware of. She was the worse off though
since she happened to hit my teeth...

Asked a sempai about the correct form for sankyo omote and ura, and the lesson after that asked sensei, according to sensei uke is allowed to stand
up in both versions, according to sempai only in omote, according to my old dojo only in ura...<grin> Actually I trust this particular sempai to remember it best since he recently had to review all this stuff for his shodan, plus I'm sure if I ask sensei again I'll get a different answer, he's not really reliable when it comes to "official grading forms". :)

I need to keep reminding sensei that I'm supposedly training for my 3rd kyu test, he always tries to pair me up with kohai in the end of the class, which would be fine if I wasn't still confused about half of the forms and trying to get them straight before the next testing opportunity. Ambitious, who me?

Also discovered that I've been mixing up the ways I'm supposed to receive yokomenuchi, there's this version where you mirror uke's movement and end up on their inside, and then this other one where you enter to their outside, anyway the second one was definitely an entering forward movement
at my old dojo but at my new dojo it's actually a step diagonally backwards and drawing uke's striking arm outside their circle so to say, completely
different. Doh.

There are lots of little differences in the beginnings of techniques due to the different hamni between these two dojo, at my current dojo we stand less squarely facing uke, plus people have more forward intention anyway so uke usually also is closing the distance and not only nage. All of which means that it isn't necessary to enter so deeply most of the time, instead going sideways usually brings you to uke's weak spot. For example aihamni ikkyo starts with a step straight to the side.

For some reason, the Alexander technique work has been very tiring lately, on several Fridays I've been almost too exhausted to train at all (Friday
is the most fun "advanced" class,) which is very frustrasting as I haven't really been ill or injured and so I feel bad about stopping halfway through
or sitting out techniques, now it seems I'm over some kind of threshold, it was so great to be able to attack with energy and just jump around
yesterday. :):)

kvaak
Pauliina

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Last updated on 13 Sep 2002