The Infinite Language of Aikido

It is known that there are 26 letters in the alphabet; 7 musical notes, about 118 known chemical elements (natural and artificial); 10 numbers has the decimal system … However, the combinations we can make from this are virtually infinite. The human body has 206 bones and I don’t know how many muscles (I couldn’t find the number on the Internet @_@) and we don’t use most of them in the aikido practice. In fact, the body structure allows a limited set of movements: we can’t rotate any articulation 360° without breaking it; we can’t do wrongly ukemis over and over again because we’d brick our neck, and we can’t just ignore the pain of a well performed technique or we’d get a bruise. Still, and despite this structural limitations the awesome thing about aikido is that the combinations of movements are so many that we’ll never end learning everything that can be done with the body. I remember one of the first practices I took part that the sensei introduced the Laboratory concept: he said we regularly practice the techniques shown by the instructors and that in that class we were going to experiment something new. That was how a technique we usually practiced with the thump pointing up, he asked us to do the same but with the thump pointing down. The result, at least to me, was very frustrating because it was impossible to do it anyway similar to aikido. And the only thing he did (The only ONE thing he did!) was change the position of the hand. As if he was stressing a word differently. The language of aikido is never ending. I repeat, allow me, I’ll give another example. In other class, it was explained to me where the hanmi we use and its variants used in other schools came from; in a practice I had the chance to take part in Bahía Blanca (My thanks to the Aikikai Dojo Bahía Blanca 1 and its instructor, Nestor Castro, for letting me practice with them), the Sensei used – or that’s what it seemed to me – one of these other hanmis. The same human body, but a totally different aikido language. The variants that that can produce in the practice are so many that I can’t imagine them, so many like to change the hand position. And still the essence of the message was the same Picciola sensei imparts: Honest practice, the hara facing the opponent, stick to it, a constant watching and aware attitude (zanshin), a single strike, a single movement, one impulse. Different language, same message. With its different forms, I think, aikido is, if it is, a single thing.

With this I just wanted to say that it doesn’t matter how long you go to the dojo, how many videos you watch or how many hits you receive, you’ll never – And that’s just a personal appreciation – end starting to learn to speak the language of aikido. I propose a toast for that.
Kampai!

Patricio Pereyra