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I am pleased to share with readers of trueaiki.com a thesis submitted by my long time training partner/student/friend Tom Wharton.  I first met Tom in 1988 when he stopped by to train at my dojo.  More than a decade later he began to train in Takamura ha Shindo Yoshin Ryu when Doug Walker and I started a study group.  By that time Tom had already trained in Aikido for 16 years and was a San Dan.  With Doug’s urging Tom decided to check out our Aikido practice as well.  

I so admire both of those gentlemen because even though both had trained in Aikido for long periods and were Yudansha, after a few classes in the Kodokan (my dojo) they were willing to put all that they had learned previously on hold, and start all over again.  They knew what they wanted, they knew what it would take to get it, and they were willing to do what it took to achieve their goal.

After they had trained with me for several years they attended a seminar by Dan Harden in California.  At the time, there was a lot of “smoke and fire” over on Aiki Web.  Dan was getting a lot of push back from the Aikido community but a few  things caught my attention.  1)  The phenomena that Dan talked about I had experienced with Shirata sensei so his claims didn’t seem ridiculous to me, where apparently they did to others.  2)  The ways he talked about training led me to believe that he had a Daito Ryu background.  3)  He seemed like an honest person.  4)  What he described achieving was well beyond what I had achieved via similar training at that time.  (And he is still still progressing and still well beyond.)  So I gave him a call, and sure enough several of my suspicions were true.  We arranged for him to come to my dojo (at a financial loss to him BTW) and I found out that the rest of my suspicions were true too.  

I’ll save how he found out about Shirata’s solo body movement exercises for another time. But long story short, I let my guys know that they would have to decide for themselves what they wanted to do with their training, but as for me, it was time to “re-boot.”  I clearly had missed some of the things that I had been taught and, with input from Dan, would start afresh.  (BTW Dan never asked me to set aside Shirata’s teachings, quite the opposite really, and I never didn’t need to because Shirata’s teachings and Dan’s teachings only served to clarify each other.)

Well, my guys all said, “We are with you!”  And, none of us has ever regretted our decision.  

That is the kind of guy Tom and my other partners were, and are.  They didn’t shy away from checking their ego at the door and starting afresh (more than once) when that was what was required to progress!  I am so lucky to have had great teachers and equally great training partners . . . it makes all the difference.

I should mention one last thing, two of the guys are engineers Tom being one of them.  So you get to benefit from hearing his take on Aiki 1,2, and 3, from that perspective.

And, without further delay:

Aiki as a State of Being

by Tom Wharton

Aiki is a state of being.  Aiki 1 describes that state of being and how to achieve it.  Aiki 2 describes how we express and receive power.  Aiki 3 describes how we move in the state of being, Aiki 1.  Aiki 2 and Aiki 3 describe how a body in the state of Aiki 1 interacts with another body.

Aiki 1 is dual oppositional forces, or two linear, balanced, opposing forces.  The two balanced, opposing forces continuously at work on us are gravity and the fecundity of the earth, aka Heaven and Earth.  The theory of Heaven, Earth, Man requires us to balance these forces within ourselves (aka Aiki).  We (humanity) typically live our lives opposing or resisting gravity by using large structural muscles in contraction to create a frame (of sorts) with our bones atop the fecundity of the earth and then using local muscles in a lever and pulley type system to go about our lives.  This is not Aiki, this is resistance.

Aiki is non-resistance, so how do we become non-resistant to Heaven and Earth?  Tensegrity.

From Wikipedia:

Tensegrity, tensional integrity or floating compression, is a structural principle based on the use of isolated components in compression inside a net of continuous tension, in such a way that the compressed members (usually bars or struts) do not touch each other and the prestressed tensioned members (usually cables or tendons) delineate the system spatially.

In simple terms, this is taking the slack out of our bodies without using contraction.  This is not simple to achieve.  Our bodies have spent our lives functioning as a frame with pulleys and levers.  It takes time and effort (mental and physical) to relax those structural muscles from contraction into elastic tension, to train our tissues to be a “net of continuous tension”.  This is why Sagawa said:  “Aiki requires an enormous amount of solo training…”  This is what Tohei meant when he said (paraphrasing):  “Ueshiba O-Sensei taught me how to relax”.  This is the point of the Chinese Qigong Zhan Zhuang (standing like a post).  This is what Ueshiba called “Standing on the floating bridge of heaven”.

Aiki 1 done on the three cardinal planes:  up/down left/right, and front/back is the Six Directions (or Roppo) of the Roppokai of Seigo Okamoto.

Aiki 2 is how we receive and express force, or power.  Two forces acting at right angles to each other, have no effect on each other, or, do not resist each other.  A sphere spinning on an axis, when contacted by a force acting perpendicular to, and in the plane of, that axis, will be acting at a right angle to that force.

Applying this to the two forces continuously acting on our bodies (Heaven and Earth), we want to move at a right angle to the vertical forces (orthogonally).  In other words we want to move horizontally.  Conveniently, our long bones (humori and femurs, for example) have spheres, in essence, on each end.  As we bend the joints at each end of these long bones (hips, knees, and ankles in the leg), these spheres rotate past each other like two rotating spheres with parallel axises, non resistant to each other and orthogonal to Heaven and Earth.  We apply this principle to all other forces we encounter.

Aiki 3 is the sphere in Aiki 2 rotated on two axises, or that sphere translated (or moved) parallel to the axis of rotation.  The latter is particularly meaningful in terms of our bodies.  Aiki 2 is the rotation of a sphere, but we are not spheres, we are a collection of tubes and a rotating sphere, translated parallel to the axis of rotation, will delineate a tube.  The ‘tubes’ of our bodies rotate adjacent to and in accord with each other, similar to the spheres at the knee joint except with the parallel axises oriented vertical.  For example, the torso and legs, rotate adjacent to and in accord with each other (see note below).  This rotation of tubes adjacent to and in accord with each other, allow us to move while continuing to be non-resistant to Heaven and Earth. Aiki 3 is how we move while maintaining the “net of continuous tension”.

Note:  The torso ‘tube’ is actually shaped like a bomb, with the nose at the perineum and the tail at the neck.  The torso/leg connection is a major structural joint in our bodies.  As described in Aiki 1, it takes a tremendous amount of effort and concentration to teach the tissues that pass through there to relax and loosen so that the joint will operate correctly and the ‘tubes’ will rotate adjacent and in accord with each other.  In the Internal Chinese Martial Arts, a tremendous amount of emphasis is placed on this joint (called the kua) and is considered by many to be the key to the phrase from the Taiji Classics:  “The strength should be rooted in the feet, generated from the legs, controlled by the waist, and manifested through the finger tips.”

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