We talk about the marvelous sword of aiki. Its job is to cut away self-consciousness, and once you do that you have a whole different space to be in. Now, striving is self-consciousness, jealousy is self-consciousness, aggression is self consciousness, stagnation… all these obscuring states of mind are self-consciousness.
And your posture and the sword reflects your entire mind: because the sword is so brilliant that it cannot be looked at.
And if you want to do irimi effectively – in Yagyu Shinkage Ryu, for example, or in tai-jutsu – you’re going to have to turn off the mind and tune in to what’s really happening: and have no aggressive interpretation of anything.
So… even though what makes uke fly is that moment of aggression – their aggression – nevertheless, w e deal with it from a different space: we totally envelope them, we get in there, but we’re not looking for a violent outcome – it may happen – but it’s not our idea… we don’t try to become more and more violent with them. And if, in the past, you were drilling basic irimi in Yagyu Shinkage sword with everyone else from from your family and everyone else from the village, the feeling of doing that is not going to be aggressive. It’s protective…
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