Aikido and Rhetoric: Flow, Still

Look at the adversaries through the opportunity. Never make the fatal mistake of looking at the opportunity through the adversaries.

J. Stuart Holden, Giant Steps

If your heart is large enough to envelop your adversaries, you can see right through them and avoid their attacks. And once you envelop them, you will be able to guide them along a path indicated to you by heaven and earth.

Morihei Ueshiba, The Art of Peace

I used to struggle terribly with stage fright. I played French horn, and I would practice for a recital until I was happy with how I sounded. Then, I would go out on stage in front of my friends and family, and I would freeze up. My breath would catch in my chest, my fingers stumble on the valve levers. I would make mistakes I hadn’t made for weeks. And the recital would end in tears and humiliation after all my hard work.

I have the same problem with my aikido many times. I don’t feel the same crippling fear necessarily that I did on stage, but still when my partner comes toward me, I freeze up: what should I do? What’s the best technique to counter this attack? Why can’t I remember these things I’ve practiced so many times?

Part of the answer is of course always more practice: the body can and will carry us through by pure muscle memory when the mind shuts down. But part of the answer is still mental. When I played French horn, what finally unfroze me on stage was thinking about what I would do *after* the recital. I would pack up my horn, go out for pizza with my family, etc. In other words, my life wouldn’t end with this recital, which is what the fear was telling me. When I set my mind flowing through that opportunity into my future, I was setting an intention, and that relaxed my body and let me access my preparation and training.

I’ve been working on setting intentions in aikido as well. Not to perform a certain technique–that’s a decision, not an intention. My intention needs to be what O-sensei’s was: to love my partner and myself, to bring us both to a greater understanding of peace. When I have that intention in mind, the adversary no longer blocks my view of the opportunity, and I can flow.